Recipients of the 2018/19 Global Engagement Funds announced
17 September 2018
From Brazil to Bangladesh, the recipients of this yearâs funds will further MyAV·¶'s global collaborations
The recipients of the 2018/19 Global Engagement Funds have been revealed this week, with successful projects drawn from research areas including risk and disaster reduction, statistical science and translation studies.
This year, the funds will support 122 projects led by academics from across MyAV·¶, all of whom are working in collaboration with partners across the world, in countries including Brazil, New Zealand, Thailand, Bangladesh, China and Italy.
More than 240 applications were received for the 2018/19 round of funding, spread across all MyAV·¶ faculties, marking a 10% year-on-year increase in the total number of proposed projects.
Following the selection process, Ciaran Moynihan, MyAV·¶âs Head of Global Partnerships, commented, âThis year, the disciplinary and geographical range of applications was even more diverse than previous rounds of the Global Engagement Funds.
âIt was fantastic to see the exciting initiatives outlined in proposals that will support MyAV·¶ and collaborators around the world who are working in partnership to achieve global impact.â
Accelerating discovery
Since the fundsâ inception in 2015, MyAV·¶âs Global Engagement Office has allocated more than ÂŁ500,000 in funding, supporting over 400 MyAV·¶ academics in partnering with 464 organisations in 79 countries worldwide.
Judged by a selection panel chaired by MyAVᦉs Regional Pro-Vice-Provosts and Vice Deans International, each of the funded projects reflect the core ethos of MyAVᦉs Global Engagement Strategy: that bringing together different perspectives and diverse experiences accelerates the process of discovery.
Dr Jeremy Skipper, Senior Lecturer in Experimental Psychology, was one of last yearâs funding recipients. He said: âI cannot speak the praises of this funding source enough. Having official funds to travel back and forth to University of CaliforniaÌęSan Diego made a collaboration flourish that would otherwise have stayed in the talks phase.â
Diverse range of projects
Dr Rachele De Felice,ÌęSenior Teaching Fellow at the Department of English Language and Literature, is among this yearâs funding recipients. She has secured funding for the second year running for her project, âProblem management and leadership: a case study of the Clinton emails.â
She explained: âThe availability of the Clinton emails gives us an unprecedented window into how senior leaders react to crises and display their leadership at times of conflict. The research addresses issuesÌęat the intersection of linguistics, political science and organisational studies.â
âThe GEO funds are invaluable in allowing my collaborator, Dr Gregory Garretson, to visit from Sweden and to support a graduate research assistant who will contribute to our efforts in analysing the data.â Ìę
Urban focus
Dr Jenny Mindell, Professor of Public Health, has also secured funding for her project, âTransportâs impact on health and inequalities in Latin American cities.â
Speaking following news of her funding, Jenny said: âThis funding will pay for a colleague from Temuco, Chile and me to travel to Havana to work with architects and epidemiologists from two Cuban institutions to work on a number of items in our first work plan, focussing on capacity-building.â
Dr. Pushpa Arabindoo, SeniorÌęLecturer in Geography andÌęUrban Design, will also use the Global Engagement Funds in support of an urban-focused project: âPicturing Chennai: Photography as urban narrative.â
Explaining the project, she said: âIn an attempt to bridgeÌęthe Anglo and Francophone knowledge-worlds of urban studies, this project seeks to build a more collaborative relationship between myself and scholars at the Ăcole des Hautes ĂtudesÌęEn Sciences Sociales (EHESS).â
âThrough the intermediary of French photographer Christophe Delory, we intend to explore through images what 'urban now'Ìęmight mean in a city like Chennai.â
Disease-prevention initiatives
The broad range of research being supported by the Global Engagement Funds this year also includes initiatives to prevent diseases. Among these is the work of MyAVᦉs Dr David Redding, UKRI Rutherford Fellow.
Explaining his work with colleagues at the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, he said: âWe are collaborating with the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)Ìęto understand patterns of Lassa fever cases over the last six years.
âWe are combining the modelling skills of researchers based at MyAV·¶ with the epidemiology expertise at the NCDC, to uncover the geographical and seasonal patterns behind this disease in Nigeria in the hopes of building towards a disease forecasting framework in the future.â
Read moreÌęcase studies of how last year's recipients used the funds.