UGPN Collaboration Fund Recipients Announced

The University Global Partnership Network (UGPN) announced its fifth round of Research Collaboration Fund recipients after reviewing the 23 applications received from all four network members. NC State is one of four UGPN members around the world who work together on issues of global importance through research, education and knowledge transfer. Other partners include the University of Surrey (United Kingdom), Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) and The University of Wollongong (Australia).

The fifth call for the University Global Partnership Network (UGPN) Research Collaboration Fund closed on May 3rd, with 17 out of 23 applications including a PI or collaborator from NC State. Following internal reviews by the respective UGPN members, eight projects were selected to receive funding by the UGPN Executive Committee. Quadrilateral, trilateral and bilateral funded projects range from topics such as nutritional strategies against inflammation, materials for energy storage and public policy interventions tackling youth crime. Six of the eight funded projects involve NC State. Congratulations to the 2016 recipients:

• Inflammation, advancing age and nutrition (Quadrilateral)
  NC State Collaborator – Dr. Slavko Komarnytsky
• Advanced Sodium-Ion batteries (Bi-lateral, NC State-UOW)
  NC State Collaborator – Dr. Veronica Augustyn
• Integration of in-vitro and in-silico models for non-animal skin research (Bilateral, Surrey-USP)
• Next generation environmental sensing for local to global scale health impact assessment (Quadrilateral)
  NC State Collaborator – Prof. Yang Zhang
• Novel anti-biofilm agents in the fight against multi-drug resistant bacterial pathogens (Trilateral, NC State-Surrey-UOW)
  NC State Collaborator – Prof. Christian Melander
• International alliance for Population, Wellbeing and Environment research (Bilateral, NC State-UOW)
  NC State Collaborator – Prof. Jane Hoppin
• Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets for advanced nanoscale electronics and radiation shielding (Trilateral, NC State-UOW-Surrey)
  NC State Collaborator – Prof. Chih-Hao Chang
• Whither youth crime (Bilateral, Surrey-USP)

Including the latest round of funding, UGPN has supported 35 research projects to date with an average annual commitment of $180,000. A list of previously funded projects can be found in the UGPN Research Collaboration Fund report.

A team of researchers supported by the UGPN Collaboration Fund have recently made headlines by showing that emissions in major cities caused by restaurants using wood burners can be damaging to the environment. The city of São Paulo in Brazil was used as a case study to quantify the impacts of emissions from pizzerias and restaurants using wood or coal to cook pizzas or meat. The study was co-authored by Professor Yang Zhang from the College of Sciences at NC State, along with colleagues from the University of Surrey and Universidade de São Paulo.

Professor Vince Emery, Senior Vice-President of Global Strategy and Engagement, University of Surrey commented, “This is another excellent example of how global challenges such as air pollution in cities need global networks to identify the problems and ultimately create innovative solutions.”  The full news release is available from the University of Surrey.