University of Alberta names next President
Bill Flanagan has been named the 14th president and vice-chancellor of the University of Alberta.
New consortium to bring interdisciplinary insights on climate-induced migration
While disasters and environmental factors have always been important drivers of migration, even more people are expected to move as they face the projected impacts of climate change, including more extreme weather events, changes in water quality and availability, and interactions with conflict.
A recent ruling of the UN Human Rights Committee, which stated that people cannot be sent back to countries where climate change impacts place them in immediate danger, was treated by many commentators as a landmark protection for environmental migrants. As Professor Andreas Neef (University of Auckland) explains in this feature, the reality is more complex. Recipient of a 2020 WUN Research Development Fund award, a WUN member consortium will advance interdisciplinary research into climate-induced migration. It aims to help improve policies through a better understanding of the complex drivers of migration and displacement associated with climatic changes. Click through for the full story.
Next Vice-Chancellor appointed to the University of Leeds
Professor Simone Buitendijk has been appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, succeeding Sir Alan Langlands, starting from 1 September 2020.
WUN Summer School
UPDATE: The WUN Summer School, originally scheduled for July 2020, has been postponed to 2021 due to covid-19 developments. The information and application website will be re-opened for the 2021 program in due course.
Infections and allergies: a cross-generational riddle
In 2015 a WUN-funded research collaboration among the Universities of Bergen, Cape Town, and Southampton set out to understand whether parasite exposure is having an impact on allergy rates. Their research since suggests that the answer is yes, but exactly what is happening and why remains a mystery. Click through to read the full story.
WUN Research Development Fund 2019 Results
WUN is pleased to announce the results of the 2019 round of the Research Development Fund (RDF) applications. These awards, which facilitate collaborative research among WUN universities, will bring our financial investment in establishing new WUN Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) to more than £170,000 over the past six months.
From among 31 applications, we have been able to support 15 projects from the RDF. Notably, all 23 WUN member universities are represented on awarded projects research teams in this round. These new projects join 88 existing IRGs that have engaged over 2300 researchers across the Network.
Since 2009 the WUN Research Development Fund (RDF) has directly invested over £2 million to establish research projects on problems of global significance, and on which member universities, working together, can make distinctive progress.
Action research for a cleaner future
Not just talking, but doing: with funding from the WUN Research Development Fund, academics from four WUN universities got together with experts and decision-makers in Accra to combine forces on global waste management. Professor Shyama V. Ramani and PhD researcher Ms Maria Tomai talk here about their recent activities.
Modelling marine microplastics: international workshop explores new challenges
Did you know that teabags are made of plastic? Do you know where that plastic ends up? With WUN funding, a team of researchers led by Professor Bruce Sutherland (University of Alberta) are learning how to predict the movements of microplastics after their entry into water systems. Click through to read more about their recent workshop and their goal to help policy-makers take action.
NCKU Scientists’ Groundbreaking Research on Open Quantum System Published in Nature Communications
NCKU scientists’ latest research on the detection and certification of the nonclassicality of dephasing dynamics was considered as groundbreaking and got published in Nature Communication in August, 2019.