WUN is pleased to announce the results of the Research Development Fund (RDF) 2021 round on the theme of Mobilising for a Sustainable Future. These awards mark a direct investment in international collaborative research among WUN member universities. As the world invests to overcome and move beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, there are major opportunities for research to inform national and international priorities in building a sustainable future. WUN’s capacity to assemble diverse teams of researchers gives it distinctive advantage in tackling some of the major emergent challenges in research areas where comparative analysis is important. The RDF 2021 theme of Mobilising for a Sustainable Future reinforces WUN’s commitment to supporting research that addresses sustainable development.
These newly awarded projects join 83 existing WUN research projects. Notably, all WUN member universities are represented on awarded projects research teams in this round. Now in its 13th year, the WUN Research Development Fund has directly invested over £2.4 million to date in establishing research projects on problems of global significance, and on which member universities, working together, can make real progress.
Peter Lennie, Executive Director of WUN, said “The projects awarded funds in this year’s competition provide compelling illustrations of the breadth and depth of talent within the network, and of the strengths that our investigators bring to bear on the major research challenges of sustainable development.”
Further information on WUN research programs can be found here.
Research projects awarded funds in the 2021 round include (lead university in bold):
- A comparative study of the impact of COVID-19 on migration
Research Team: University of Ghana; Maastricht University; Renmin University of China; The University of Sheffield; Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
- Building capacity to monitor and manage sargassum seaweed inundations in Western Africa (SARCAP)
Research Team: University of Ghana; University of Southampton; Tecnologico de Monterrey; University of York
- Deoxygenation of the oceans, past, present, and future: Influence of natural and anthropogenic climate change and nutrient input
Research Team: University of Alberta; University of Cape Town; University of Ghana; University of Leeds; Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
- Development of a low cost-high efficiency electric vehicle battery charger for emerging markets
Research Team: The University of Sheffield; University of Southampton; Tecnologico de Monterrey
- Development of solar-thermal wastewater treatment system to provide potable water to African countries
Research Team: University of Cape Town; University of Ghana; University of Rochester; The University of Sheffield
- Getting back in touch: Emotional pathways to a post-pandemic world
Research Team: University of Ghana; National Cheng Kung University; The University of Sheffield; Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
- Intersectional Research Methodologies: Towards a Sustainable Post COVID 19 Future
Research Team: University of Alberta; University of Bristol; University of Lausanne; Maastricht University; University of Massachusetts Amherst; National Cheng Kung University; The University of Sheffield; University of Southampton; University of York
- Investigating Global Warming & Future Urbanization Impacts on Heat Stress in Lagos, Nigeria & the Greater Bay Area, China Megacities—A Multi-Scale Modeling Approach
Research Team: The Chinese University of Hong Kong; University College Dublin; Zhejiang University
- JIR-CliPS: comparison of Clinical Practice Strategies in Juvenile Inflammatory Diseases between 4 world regions
Research Team: The University of Auckland; University of Ghana; University of Lausanne; Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
- Political and institutional determinants of human development in sub-Saharan Africa’s resource-rich economies
Research Team: University of Bergen; University of Cape Town; The Chinese University of Hong Kong; University of Ghana
- Research Methodologies in Education (ReMiE) Project: Enhancing the research capacities of academics and PhD students in the field of education
Research Team: The University of Auckland; University of Cape Town; University of Southampton; University of York
- Research supervision and mentoring practices: Ensuring support and building resilience of doctoral researchers during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond
Research Team: The University of Auckland; University of Bristol; University of Ghana; University of Leeds; Maastricht University; Makerere University; National Cheng Kung University; The University of Sheffield; University of York; Zhejiang University
- Smart biosolar microgrids for sustainable communities
Research Team: University of Ghana; Makerere University; The University of Sheffield; Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
- Sexuality across cultures: International Sex Survey in South Africa, Switzerland, and Taiwan
Research Team: University of Cape Town; University of Lausanne; National Cheng Kung University
- Supporting undergraduate nurses’ palliative care education needs
Research Team: University of Alberta; The University of Auckland; University of Cape Town; University of Ghana; University of Leeds; Makerere University; The University of Sheffield
- The design and development of appropriate MedTech products for in-country use: a regional comparison of West and East Africa.
Research Team: University of Cape Town; University of Ghana; University of Leeds; Makerere University
