FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: February 27, 2009
CONTACT: Kimberly Coulter, (608) 261-1016, kcoulter@international.wisc.edu
Madison– The Division of International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) are pleased to announce the awarding of ten International Collaboration Grants totaling more than $32,000. The awards are designed to “seed fund” UW-Madison researchers’ international partnerships with colleagues abroad. This year’s awards are made possible by support from the UW-Madison Division of International Studies, the College of Letters & Science, the Graduate School, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) , and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Administration, as well as the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN).
WUN is an international consortium of leading public research universities whose members leverage their own resources and expertise and draw on those of WUN partners and others in order to advance knowledge and understanding on issues of global concern.
UW-Madison was one of the founding members of WUN in 2000 under Chancellor Emeritus David Ward. Since then, UW-Madison faculty, academic staff, and students have strengthened the university’s global engagement through participation in a wide variety of activities. Through the WUN framework, they have shared best practices, made research advances in fields across campus, strengthened international partnerships, developed new online resources, and created innovative educational opportunities (such as virtual seminars, new courses, and a world-class summer research institute). Seed funded projects from 2005-2008 have attracted extramural funds that directly benefit UW-Madison in an amount five times the university’s total investment. Initiatives may involve participants from any university, but must include a partner from at least one WUN member institution outside the United States.
A second call for proposals for WUN-related collaborations will be announced this spring. All UW-Madison faculty and academic staff involved in research activities are encouraged to apply.
UW-Madison WUN International Collaboration Grant recipients are:
Mimi Bloch (Curriculum & Instruction)
Building on funding from UW-Madison’s African Studies Program, this seed grant supports African Education for All: Social Exclusions/Inclusions, a conference on educational reform and policy that highlights African universities’ involvement in international research and education collaborations.
WUN Partners: Bristol, Toronto, UIUC. WUN+ Partners: University of Cape Town, others. ($1500).
Allison Christians (Law)
How does tax policy emerge from international networks like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and diffuse into national legal institutions? To address this question, UW-Madison faculty Allison Christians and Charles Irish will host a two-day workshop in Madison on Networks, Norms, and the Transnationalization of Tax Lawmaking to establish an interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration with project co-leaders Wansu Zhang (Nanjing University, China) and Leyla Ates (Inonu University, Turkey).
WUN Partner: Nanjing. WUN+ Partner: Inonu University, Turkey. ($5000).
Patricia Devine (Psychology)
By examining and comparing social exclusion experiences and ethnic prejudice in the United States and Australia, the project Social Exclusion across Cultures aims to devise prejudice-reduction strategies. WUN supports the participation of UW-Madison Ph.D. student Lindsay Sharp in this emerging research collaboration between UW-Madison’s Patricia Devine and University of Sydney faculty Lisa Zadro and Karen Gonsalkorale.
WUN Partner: Sydney. ($1800).
Shubha Ghosh (Law)
UW-Madison’s Shubha Ghosh will be working with David S. Wall of the University of Leeds to develop comparative US-EU research proposals on the Criminalization of Intellectual Property Law. Ghosh and Wall will investigate the forces leading to the increased criminalization of cases involving copyright, trademark, Cyberspace, and trade secrets, and seek to understand the effects that this increasing criminalization has on legal systems, IP users, and innovation.
WUN Partner: Leeds. ($2000).
Sara Guyer (Center for the Humanities; English)
WUN supports the What is Human? International Research Network partnership between the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities, Utrecht University Centre for Humanities (Professor Rosi Braidotti) , and the University of Toronto Jackman Humanities Institute (Professor Robert Gibbs). The project uses videoconferencing and workshops to develop collaborative research on three subthemes: politics of technology and life; ecology and survival; and emotions and neuroscience.
WUN Partners: Toronto, Utrecht. ($4000).
Alfonso Morales (Urban & Regional Planning)
The project Fostering Research on Street Markets aims to stimulate international academic and public engagement on research and policies concerning open air market practices. The WUN grant supports two “Webinars” and other online activities that will involve scholars at several WUN institutions, experts at other institutions, and policy makers in an online research network. ($1500).
Walt Schalick (Medical History & Bioethics; Orthopedics & Rehabilitation; History of Science; Pediatrics)
The new WUN Network for Disability Education and Research (WUNDER) will offer an infrastructure to encourage collaboration across national borders and disciplinary boundaries on the study of disability within our societies. Linking regional networks into the first global network on disability studies, WUNDER will create a Web forum, Webcast talks by leading researchers with the aim of developing collaborative programming and grant proposals.
WUN Partners: Alberta, Bergen, PSU, UCSD, UIUC, Leeds, Sheffield, Sydney, Toronto, Washington-Seattle, Western Australia, Sydney, and Utrecht. WUN+ partners who have expressed the strongest interest are faculty from: Institut für Mensch, Ethik und Wissenschaft (Berlin, Germany); University of Manchester (UK); the Leonard Cheshire Disability & Inclusive Development Centre, University College London; La Centre Technique Nationale d’Études et de Recherches sur les Handicaps et les Inadaptations (Paris, France); Harvard University; University of Manitoba (Canada); University of Pennsylvania; University of Illinois at Chicago; University of Texas at Dallas; Syracuse University Yale University, and Temple University. ($6000).
David Spooner and Shelley Jansky (Horticulture)
Once species boundaries and relationships are established with DNA sequence data from carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes, this information can be used to develop more efficient breeding and introgression strategies. To share expertise in this area and to discuss joint research collaborations with Chinese colleagues, UW-Madison Horticulture faculty David Spooner and Shelley Jansky will visit Zhejiang University at the invitation of Yuanwen Teng, Deputy Director of the Institute of Fruit Science and Professor in the College of Agriculture and Bioltechnology.
WUN Partner: Zhejiang. ($3000).
Yongming Zhou (Anthropology)
The project Luxury Brand Piracy on a Global Stage: The Case of Wenzhou Entrepreneurs aims to obtain a deeper understanding of the Chinese Intellectual Property Rights regime by examining the spatial distribution of IPR infringements, including the making, distribution, and consumption of counterfeit products on a global stage; and the historical, cultural, and socioeconomic factors behind counterfeiting as practiced by Wenzhou entrepreneurs from Zhejiang province. The grant supports Yongming Zhou’s collaboration on this project with Liyong Pan of the School of Humanities at Zhejiang University, aiming for joint proposals, and ultimately joint publications and research presentations.
WUN Partner: Zhejiang. ($5000).
John Zumbrunnen (Political Science)
Building on an International Program Development Fund Grant from the University of Sydney, this seed grant supports UW-Madison’s involvement in shaping the agenda of the new WUN network, the World Democracy Forum. John Zumbrunnen will travel to Sydney to meet with University of Sydney faculty Graeme Gill and Murray Print, Charles Leeds of the University of Sheffield, and others to establish groundwork for future collaborative projects. Along with Zumbrunnen, UW-Madison faculty Ed Friedman and Heinz Klug have contributed to shaping this network in ways that will likely create new international opportunities for UW-Madison colleagues with research strengths in this area.
WUN Partners: Sydney, Sheffield. ($2998).
To learn more about WUN at UW-Madison here or visit the WUN homepage here.
WUN member institutions include: the University of Alberta (Canada) , the University of Bergen (Norway) , the University of Bristol (UK) , University of California San Diego (US) , University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (US) , University of Leeds (UK) Nanjing University (China) , Pennsylvania State University (US) , University of Sheffield (UK) , University of Southampton (UK) , University of Sydney (Australia) , University of Toronto (Canada) , University of Washington – Seattle (US) , University of Wisconsin-Madison (US) , University of Western Australia (Australia) , University of York (UK) , and Zhejiang University (China).