Partner Funds 2022/23 recipients
11 January 2023
Explore this year's projects awarded funding through UCL's various Partner Funds, which support collaborations with key partner institutions around the world.
This year, UCL Global Engagement ran 12 funding streams to support joint projects led by UCL academics with colleagues at UCL's key global partner institutions.
Below, explore the diverse projects that will each deepen research and/or teaching collaborations in areas of mutual interest betwen UCL and its partners around the world.
Congratulations to all the 2022/23 Partner Funds recipients!
Africa & Middle East
- Africa and Middle East Teaching Fund
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Dr Giorgio Talocci Bartlett Dwelling the threshold between climate change and economic growth: promoting a sustainable and just use of natural resources in Somaliland Dr Michael Woodrow Engineering A Collaborative Global South and Global North University Student Project to Enhance Online Learning Adaptation and Practical Engineering Skills Acquisition Prof Sue Mallett Medical Sciences Collaborative training initiative in clinical trial design and statistics in KEMRI, Kenya Prof Thumbi Ndung'u Medical Sciences Promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Research Environments in Africa - UCL-Wits University Strategic Partner Funds
Funding stream Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Pump priming initiatives Dr Adam Harris Social & Historical Sciences Promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Research Environments in Africa Research/teaching collaborative activity Dr Andrew Flinn Arts & Humanities Developing a research partnership on comparing and creating sustainable community archives in South Africa and the United Kingdom Research/teaching collaborative activity Dr Neha Batura Population Health Sciences An economic evaluation of the Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative trial in Soweto, South Africa Research/teaching collaborative activity Prof Paul Fromme Engineering Low-cost guided wave ultrasound equipment for research and teaching in developing countries UCL-Wits-ARUA Prof Tristan McCowan IOE Rethinking community-university engagement for sustainability
North America
- UCL-University of Toronto Strategic Partner Funds
Funding stream Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Emerging global talents Dr Chu Lun Alex Leung Engineering Additive Manufacturing of Lightweight Metallic Materials Emerging global talents Dr Claire Garnett Population Health Sciences The Value of Real-World Data and Evidence for Digital Therapeutics Emerging global talents Dr Katey Warran Population Health Sciences Establishing Capacity, Connection and Collaboration for Early Career Researchers working at the intersection of the Arts, Humanities, and Health Strategic global challenges Dr Nicola Livingstone Bartlett Critical Dialogues of the Post-Covid City: Urban challenges and sustainable transformations in London and Toronto Strategic global challenges Prof Tristan McCowan IOE After 2030: What Comes Next for the Sustainable Development Agenda?
East Asia
- UCL-Peking University Strategic Partner Funds
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Prof Dorian Fuller Social & Historical Sciences [Roundtable Workshop] Frontiers of Archaeological Science: Technological, Environmental, and Economic Transitions Dr Jing Meng Bartlett Powering low carbon transition within planetary boundaries: A Case Comparative between China and the UK Dr Dominic Papineau MAPS A UCL-PKU graduate student training program to study the abiotic lunar carbon cycle in Chang’E5 samples and beyond Dr Adam Szmul Engineering Machine Learning Based Image Synthetisation and Segmentation for Adaptive Radiotherapy: A Cross-Institutional Validation and Application
- UCL-Zhejiang University Strategic Partner Funds
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Prof Patrick Haggard Brain Sciences Investigating the attentional consequences of agentic actions Dr Wei Miao Engineering Rising Socioeconomic Inequalities and Entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities Prof Hugh Starkey IOE Promoting education about and for sustainable development: encouraging opportunities to teach for peace, cultural diversity and equalities in teacher education at UCL and ZJU Dr Yiming Wang Bartlett Smartising social infrastructures for post-COVID cities: On the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of travel tracking - UCL-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Strategic Partner Funds
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Prof Paul Fromme Engineering Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures Dr Yang Xu Maths & Physical Sciences Architectural carbon host for stable sodium metal anode Dr Will McDowall Bartlett Circular economy policies for plastic packaking waste Prof Hao Ni Maths & Physical Sciences Early warning system to predict sepsis onset from electronic health data in intensive care monitoring: a novel machine learning approach based on path development layer Prof Neil Burgess Brain Sciences Investigating the neural mechanisms of event memory in intracranial recordings from epilepsy patients Dr Lu Chen Engineering Ultralow Platinum-Loading Alloys Catalysts for An Efficient and Durable Oxygen Reduction Reaction Dr Andreas Mayer Medical Sciences Designing Multiepitope-based Vaccine against Severe Malaria from Immune Mapped RIFFIN Antigens using Immunoinformatic Approach Dr Rui Tang Bartlett Prosumer-based Integrated Energy System Driven by the Fifth Generation District Heating and Cooling Network - UCL-Osaka University Strategic Partner Funds
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Dr Tracey Clarke Maths & Physical Sciences Developing and understanding new materials for even greener organic photovoltaics Dr Stephanie Efthymiou Brain Sciences Physiological role of RUBCN in brain neurodevelopment and the function of RUBCN variants Dr Andrew Sommerlad Brain Sciences Social and behavioural consequences of dementia and future treatments: Collaborative network and meeting - UCL-Tohoku University Strategic Partner Funds
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Prof David Alexander Maths & Physical Sciences Environmental and Energy Resiliency for Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan Prof Sven Bestmann Brain Sciences Establishing a UCL-Tohoku University community for research with the Megabank to advance understanding of the biological and environmental causes of stroke and depression (MEGA-MOVE) Prof Maria Chait Brain Sciences Establishing a UCL-Tohoku University community for research with the Megabank to advance understanding of hearing problems and their environmental and genetic causes (MEGA-HEAR) Prof Andrea Revesz IOE Exploring the neuro-cognitive demands of writing in a foreign language in crisis situations
South Asia
- UCL-IIT Delhi Strategic Partner Funds
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Dr Beatrice Baudet, Prof Matthew Richard Coop Professor, Dr Susana Lopez-Querol Engineering Large shear strain behaviour for soil pile-monopile interfaces subjected to cyclic loading in offshore wind structures Dr Mojtaba Abdi-Jalebi, Dr Nusrat Rashid Maths & Physical Sciences An approach closer to real photosynthesis: photovoltaic solar cell driven photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction using hybrid plasmonic nanomaterials towards sustainable solar fuels production Prof Jonathan Holmes Social & Historical Sciences Exploring the spatiotemporal patterns of water stable-isotope across Indo-Gangetic plains to understand the regional hydroclimate Dr Enrique Galindo-Nava Engineering Lifing prediction of complex NI-based superalloys for nuclear application using complementary experimental microstructural characterisation and constitutive modelling. Dr Tracey M. Clarke Maths & Physical Sciences Tuning the Charge Transport in Organic Semiconductors through Strategic Functionalization: A Combined Experimental and Computational Approach Prof Asterios Gavriilidis Engineering Effect of Reactor Configuration on Synthesis of Nanoparticles Dr Eleanor Chiari Arts & Humanities Creative visual methodologies for higher education: A transnational pedagogical project - UCL-AIIMS Strategic Partner Funds
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Prof Pascale V. Guillot Population Health Sciences To investigate the therapeutic potential of extracellular vesicles (EV) released by human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived mesenchymal stem cells (iMSCs) to counteract oestrogen deficiency induced bone deterioration Prof Julie Davies Population Health Sciences Enabling medical leadership in India and England: A comparative study
‘EMLIE’Prof James Moon Population Health Sciences Measuring and treating iron overload in thalassemia patients in India to improve their survival Dr Darren Player Medical Sciences Skeletal muscle regeneration following total knee arthroplasty: limitations of the intrinsic stem
cell pool.Dr Victoria Garfield Population Health Sciences A multidisciplinary approach to understanding the interrelationships between Sleep quality, brain morphometry And Cognition (a SOLACE study): comparison between individuals residing in India vs the UK - UCL-IISc Strategic Partner Funds
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Dr Mojtaba Abdi Jalebi Maths & Physical Sciences Study of Novel Lead-free Perovskite Semiconductors for Green Energy Applications Dr Maria Secrier Life Sciences Spatial and tumour microenvironment modelling of hybrid states during the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transitionin cancer Prof Jayant S. Vaidya Medical Sciences Design and development of a bimodal intraoperative probe for breast cancer diagnosis Prof Tony Kenyon Engineering Design and Fabrication of Halide Perovskite Nanocrystal-basedMemristors Prof Manish K. Tiwari Engineering High-resolution printing of sensors on woven and nonwoven textilesfor connected healthcare
South East Asia & Australasia
- University of Sydney-UCL Partnership Collaboration Awards
Lead UCL academic Faculty Project title Dr Augustin Guibard Engineering Data-driven simulations for real-time flame spread and fire growth prediction Dr Paige Patchin Social & Historical Sciences Wind turbine construction at the Ends of the Earth: Materials and Materialisms of the Anthropocene Dr Sandra Álvarez-Carretero Life Sciences Reconstructing the evolutionary timescale of the Tree of Life Dr Mojtaba Abdi Jalebi Maths & Physical Sciences Improving performance of tin-based halide perovskites for development of highly efficient perovskite multi-junction tandem photovoltaics Prof Bani Anvari Engineering Micro-Freight Delivery Solutions: A Tale of Two Cities