UCL-Osaka University Strategic Partner Funds 2021/22 recipients

31 March 2022

The joint funding call, now in its third year, awarded six projects up to £10,000 each to support innovative and collaborative activities

The third annual UCL-Osaka University (OU) Strategic Partner Funds has awarded seed funds to six joint projects between UCL and OU academics.

Each of the collaborative projects received up to £10,000, with the funds jointly contributed by UCL and OU.

One of the funding recipients, Dr Sarabajaya Kumar, said: “I'm absolutely delighted to have been awarded the UCL-OU Strategic Partner Funds grant. It has given me and my colleagues, Dr Jennifer Rode and Professor Beverley Yamamoto, a wonderful opportunity to study a critical and under-researched area whilst employing innovative methods. As disabled people have been disproportionality affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital to understand our everyday lived experiences and the global engagement grant has enabled us to do this.”

UCL and Osaka University have worked in close partnership for several years. Last year, UCL President & Provost Dr Michael Spence, as well as a number of UCL academics and students, participated in OU’s Partner Summit on how universities can face and facilitate societal changes.

Congratulations to all the 2021/22 awardees of the UCL-OU Strategic Partner Funds:

Lead UCL applicant	Faculty	Project
Dr Tracey Clarke	Maths & Physical Sciences	Development of Novel Materials for Green Organic Photovoltaics
Dr Mutlu Cukurova	IOE	Development of a Conceptual Framework to Facilitate Collaborative Learning in Hybrid Education settings using Multimodal Analytics
Dr Sarabajaya Kumar	Social & Historical Sciences	The Everyday Lived Experiences of Disabled University Students in London and Osaka during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Dr Andrea Macrina	Maths & Physical Sciences	Stochastic Measure-Distortion Processes for Risk Analysis with Heavy Tails and Power Laws – Applications to Climate Change Risk and the Emergence of Pandemics
Dr Daniel Oviedo	Bartlett	UCL-Osaka Walking Cities Lab: researching walking cities that are not walkable
Dr Keri Wong	IOE	COVID-19 vaccine acceptance for parents and children (UCL-Osaka Vax-PaC Study)

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