Collaborations Range from Cancer Research and Robotics to Fashion and Global Public Health
Washington, DC (28 January) – Today 37 US universities and colleges were announced as the recipients of the British Council’s New Partnerships Fund, a new initiative to rejuvenate the partnership between the world’s two leading knowledge economies by providing seed funding to 31 new and innovative British-American higher education projects.
Selected from hundreds of applications, winning projects come from a range of universities, including Yale University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Santa Monica Community College.
Universities were selected based on project proposals submitted jointly with UK universities, ranging from highway engineering and cancer research to harnessing entrepreneurship for social and economic development. The Institute of International Education and the American Council of Education were involved in the selection process.
Over half of the UK’s 200 universities applied for the fund, demonstrating the UK’s demand for developing strategic partnerships with the US.
The 31 projects have all received seed corn grants of up to £20,000 ($30,000) from the British Council, the UK’s international cultural relations organization, to kick-start new research, joint course development and faculty and student exchanges.
“The world of higher education has become infinitely more complex and we cannot hope to successfully navigate this new environment as individual people, institutions, or nations,” said ACE President Molly Corbett Broad. “We have to work together and—most important—learn from each other. I am confident that the partnerships announced today will play an important role in helping the U.S. and U.K. address our common challenges.”
Many of the awards will facilitate third country partnerships, particularly joint US-UK collaborations with India and China. Georgia Institute of Technology, for example, will collaborate with the University of Manchester on a new research partnership with Beijing Institute of Technology’s School of Management and Economics exploring nanotechnology. George Washington University will also work with Oxford University and Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, India on cancer research.
“Multilateral collaborations are a key aspect to the future of international higher education,” said Sharon Memis, Director British Council North America. “While US and UK institutions have a long history of academic exchanges and close collaboration, we need to re-energize our partnerships by working together with other countries in groundbreaking science and technology fields.”
Additional third-country partnerships include links with King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and University del Valle in Cali, Colombia as well as Brazil, Kenya and Rwanda (A full list of grant recipients, third country partners, and research areas is included below).
“Strategic partnerships in higher education are a central element of the ‘special relationship’ between the U.S. and the UK,” said Daniel Obst, Deputy Vice President and Director of the Institute of International Education’s Center for International Partnerships in Higher Education. “Our two countries will only be able to solve common challenges through the kind of academic dialogue and joint research created by transatlantic exchanges.”
In October, American and UK higher education leaders will meet at Windsor Castle in the UK to evaluate the progress of the new partnership fund projects and discuss next steps in advancing the strategic US-UK higher education partnership.
Recipients of the British Council New Partnerships Fund
Virginia Tech University
University of Nottingham – Power Electronic and Transportation Engineering
Stanford University
University of Wolverhampton and Najjad Zeenni Information Technology Center of Excellence, Palestine – Digital Technologies and Mobile Learning
North Carolina State University
University of Surrey and Universidade de São Paulo-Usp, Brazil – Veterinary Bioscience, Climate Change, and Human Health
University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB)
Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) – Life Sciences
Georgetown University Medical Center
Queens University Belfast and National Institute of Immunolgy, Delhi, India – Cancer Therapeutics
Texas A&M University
Coventry University – Disaster Management and Establishing an International Rescue Center
University of Florida
Liverpool John Moores University and KEMRI, Nairobi, Kenya – Water, Sanitation, and Reproductive Health
Northwestern University
University of Essex – Electronic Engineering
Indiana State University
University of Salford – Built Environment and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Climate Change
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Northeastern University & Santa Monica College (joint project)
City University London – Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University College of Information Science & Technology
Newcastle University and Indian Institute of Technology Delhi – Climate Change and Urban Environments
Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign & Carnegie Mellon University (joint project)
Welsh School of Architecture, (WSA) Cardiff University – Sustainable Post-industrial Transformations (Architecture, Urban Planning, Art, and Engineering)
Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy
University of Manchester and Beijing Institute of Technology School of Management and Economics - Nanotechnology
City University of New York and Yale University (joint project)
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design – Fashion and film
Temple University
University of East Anglia – American Studies
Wright State University
Queens University Belfast –Paramagnetic Nanoparticles for Selective Heating and Catalytic Applications
Lawrence Technological University
University of Hertfordshire – Automotive Engineering
Yale University School of Medicine
University of Edinburgh and NUR Faculty of Medicine, Rwanda – Global Public Health
University of California at San Francisco (UCSF)
King’s College London – Genetics, Global Mental Health, and Immunology
Carnegie Mellon University
University of the West of England – Widening participation in STEM fields (science technology, engineering and mathematics)
Auburn University
University of Sussex and SAMAS Cape Town University – Mathematics, Statistics, and International Development
Michigan State University & Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (joint project)
University of Abertay Dundee and Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil – Physical and Biological Systems
University of South Florida
University of Exeter and King Abdulaziz University, Jeedah, SA – Sustainable Water Infrastructure
Roosevelt University
London Metropolitan University – Creative Writing
Emory University
University of Leeds and University del Valle, Cali, Colombia – Microbiology, Public Health, and Wastewater Engineering
George Washington University
Oxford University and Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, India – Cancer
Georgetown University
Queens University Belfast and National Institute of Immunology, Delhi, India – Cancer Therapeutics
Boston University
Warwick University and CARTA Consortia, Africa – Drug Design, Infectious Diseases and Immunology
UC Berkeley
University of Strathclyde – Environmental Physics, Biology, Engineering
Arizona State University
Imperial College London and University of Cyprus/Polytechnico Milano, Italy – Signal Processing for Sensor Fusion
University Wisconsin Madison
Bristol University, University Western Australia and University of Alberta – Geography
About the British Council: The British Council is the United Kingdom’s international cultural relations organization. Working in over 100 countries, we build engagement and trust for the UK through the exchange of knowledge and ideas between people worldwide. In the US, we cultivate long-term links between the UK and US, re-energizing the strategic transatlantic relationship through the arts, education and young leadership networks.
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Samantha Yale at (202)588 7838 or
Samantha.Yale@britishcouncil.org.
The United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland)
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