WUN: Research at the Cutting Edge
The Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) announced today the results of the 2016 round of the annual Research Development Fund, marking a direct investment in international, interdisciplinary research collaboration among WUN member universities in the amount of £111,473.
A total of 12 projects have been awarded funding for projects to begin in early 2017, joining the almost 100 existing collaborative research programs engaging over 2,300 researchers and students in the Network. Applications overall were of such quality that an impressive 40% of proposals were funded.
The WUN Research Development Fund (RDF) started in 2009 with the specific aim of investing directly in collaborative research that catalyses innovation and builds our partnership. It provides seed grants to support the establishment of global research projects, enabling them to lay the groundwork for later approaches to national and international funding bodies.
Over seven years the RDF has invested more than £1.6 million across 140 research programs. This is in addition to the £60,000 we invest each year through our Global Challenge Fund and through our investments in mature research programs through the Sustainability Fund.
Research programs that have been awarded funding in the 2016 round include:
- Assessment and Intervention Technologies for the Movement Ability of Older Adult – Cross Country Study
- Developing and Researching the Economics and Mathematics of Selection (DREAMS): Global Perspectives
- Heritage Forts and Castles and Coastal Cultures of Ghana
- Hidden Voices: Exploring the health experiences of children who migrate
- Impacts of Grain Legume Research and Development in Developing Countries
- In-Herit: The Role of Heritage in Ontological Security during Migration and Displacement
- Migration Policy, Welfare Boundary, Social Integration & Health-related Quality of Life of Children from Immigrant Families
- Mobility and Higher Education
- Mpower: Empowering mothers for health
- New insights into the transmission of Angiostrongylus lungworms by gastropods under climate change: a comparative approach
- Open WUN
- Promoting wellbeing across borders: migration, social remittances and health
Professor John Hearn, Executive Director of WUN, noted “the RDF is a keystone initiative of WUN. Not only does it bring our partnership together in a very tangible way, but it also enables WUN to meet its ambition of fostering research that addresses global challenges”.
Further information on WUN research programs can be found here.