̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - International Strategy Office

Cambridge celebrates 10 years of ERC funding

ag236 — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 10:00:37 +0000

̽��ֱ��ERC was created in 2007 to support innovative, high-impact research in all areas of knowledge by offering 5-year grants to outstanding scientists and scholars. Since its foundation, it has awarded €12 billion to close to 7,000 grant recipients.

̽��ֱ��United Kingdom has been very successful at attracting ERC funding. It is the largest recipient of ERC awards, with 1,524 projects by academics based at UK institutions supported over the past 10 years.

Researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have won 218 of those grants, in fields ranging from Art History to Zoology. Cambridge is the greatest beneficiary of ERC grants under the current European funding programme, known as Horizon2020.

Prof. Bourguignon’s first port of call in Cambridge was the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, which hosted a conference to celebrate ten years of ERC-funded projects in Anthropology, Archaeology and Classics.

At the Department of Chemistry he met with researchers in the Physical Sciences who have been awarded ERC grants.

Later, at the ̽��ֱ��’s Old Schools, he attended a roundtable with Cambridge ERC-grantees in the Life Sciences and Medicine.

Commenting on his meetings, Prof. Bourguignon remarked: “For the past ten years, the European Research Council has supported high-quality research projects proposed by ambitious scientists. ̽��ֱ��five-year duration of these ERC-supported projects changes the dynamics of the research process, and allows truly ground-breaking results.”

He added: “What has been most interesting about today’s meetings is the diversity of scientific domains represented by Cambridge’s research community.”

In the evening, Prof. Bourguignon was given a tour of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s ERC-funded exhibition, “Madonnas and Miracles: ̽��ֱ��Holy Home in Renaissance Italy”. ̽��ֱ��tour was led by the exhibition’s curators, Dr Vicky Avery, Dr Mary Laven, Dr Abigail Brundin and Prof. Deborah Howard.

Following the visit, he attended a reception at the Museum in honour of the ̽��ֱ��’s ERC grantees.

Speaking at the reception, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, hailed the ERC as “one of the greatest success stories in the funding of innovative scholarship and science.”

̽��ֱ��ERC’s commitment to scientific excellence, he said, has been uncompromising. “ ̽��ֱ��impact of this commitment, over the past ten years, has been transformative.”

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor added: “Consistently, we hear from our academics that an ERC grant allows them the freedom to innovate and take risks with their research. ̽��ֱ��generous time-frame allows them to tackle big questions that they might not be able to under other circumstances.”

ERC grantees, he said, “are free to pursue their ideas wherever they may lead them, and to reformulate the question they ask, regardless of whether those ideas and those questions were part of the original plan.”

Events have been held across Europe all week to mark the ERC’s anniversary.

Bringing the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s celebrations to a close, the Vice-Chancellor said:

“Tonight we thank the ERC for the support it has provided to so many of our extraordinary researchers. And tonight we thank you, our ERC grantees, who through your excellent research have turned into a reality the ERC’s aspiration of making Europe a world-leader in science and scholarship.”

Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, the President of the European Research Council, was in Cambridge on Thursday, 16 March to celebrate the ERC’s 10th anniversary.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Prof Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of ERC, meets researchers in biological and health sciences

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Global collaboration takes off

ag236 — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 14:35:01 +0000

An alliance between the ̽��ֱ�� of California Berkeley, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the National ̽��ֱ�� of Singapore has moved into its next phase following the first joint call for research proposals and the approval of five inaugural projects.

̽��ֱ��successful proposals, in the areas of “Cities”, “Precision medicine” and “Smart systems”, will be supported through a joint fund of £723,900 –including a contribution of £301,000 from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

These are the first projects set up under the auspices of the Global Alliance, a partnership between UC Berkeley, Cambridge and NUS formalised at the end of 2015.

̽��ֱ��aim of the partnership is to promote collaborative and multidisciplinary research on a global scale.

Its focus is on finding solutions to global challenges that cannot be solved by a single institution, or even through bilateral collaboration.

Prof Chris Abell, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said:

“ ̽��ֱ��projects supported under this first call show the many ways in which our joint resources will let us tackle global problems more effectively. They are the first in a series of research collaborations that will allow our three institutions to work together for the global good.”

̽��ֱ��five successful projects were:

“Toward an open and secure internet-of-things reference platform” (Cambridge PI: Prof Simon Moore)
“Modelling interacting high-dimensional phenotypes – Kronecker Products for imaging, genetics and imaging genetics” (Cambridge PI: Prof John Aston)
“Mathematical and statistical theory of imaging” (Cambridge PI: Dr Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb)
“Smart design: human-centric planning of urban districts” (Cambridge PI: Prof Koen Steemers)
“Translucent city” (Cambridge PI: Dr. Ruchi Choudhary)

Funding for the five projects will be released between November 2016 and February 2017.

A further call for proposals will be published in May 2017 (deadline September 2017).

For more information, contact Dr Kata Fülöp, International Strategy Office, Kata.Fulop@admin.cam.ac.uk

Funding approved for research projects involving UC Berkeley, Cambridge and the National ̽��ֱ�� of Singapore

̽��ֱ��projects supported under this first call show the many ways in which our joint resources will let us tackle global problems more effectively.

Prof Chris Abell

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Cambridge and India

lw355 — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 10:34:45 +0000

India is the world’s largest democracy. By 2028, it will have overtaken China to become the world’s most populous nation. India currently has the fastest-growing economy among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries. It combines ancient cultural and religious traditions with cutting-edge technological innovation and a commitment to scholarship and learning across all fields and disciplines. India is the major regional power in South Asia, and a rising power on the world stage. If the 21st century is the ‘Asian century’, it also looks set to be India’s century.

In short, India matters.

There has never been a better, nor a more compelling, time to engage with India – with its culture, its knowledge, science and technology, its world-view and, above all, the talents of its people. Indeed, we cannot hope to understand the contemporary world without understanding India. We cannot hope to address the major global challenges without an Indian perspective and Indian involvement.

For a university such as Cambridge, whose mission is ‘to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence’, engagement with India is not merely desirable, it is essential.

Enhancing engagement with India is a strategic priority for the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, building on broad, deep and enduring links. For over 150 years, Cambridge has enjoyed a particularly close relationship with India. From the mid-19th century, when the first students from India arrived in Cambridge, scholarship and lasting friendship have been the foundation of academic partnership. Three Indian Prime Ministers were educated at Cambridge, and in turn the ̽��ֱ�� is now home to distinguished academics from India across all fields of the arts, humanities, social, physical, biological and medical sciences.

Partnership between Cambridge and India is both relationship- and research-led, with a large number of individual collaborations. Cambridge researchers are working with colleagues in India’s leading research institutes and universities, corporations, government departments and civil society organisations, to solve challenges which face not just India, but the whole world in the 21st century.

In the biomedical sciences, collaborations are tackling the most pressing issues affecting global health, from antimicrobial-resistant tuberculosis to novel cancer therapies. With a growing middle class, India, like the West, faces an epidemic of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes; large-scale partnerships in public health between India and Cambridge offer the prospect of better interventions and treatments.

India has a strong tradition in the physical sciences and technology; recognising this complementary expertise, Cambridge researchers are working with colleagues in India to drive forward developments in solar energy, fuel cells and nanoscience. As an emerging economy, India has had to pioneer the art of frugal innovation, producing devices for a fraction of their cost in the West. As the UK and other advanced economies cope with austerity, India has much to teach the rest of the world about doing more with less. Here, the Centre for Indian and Global Business at the Cambridge Judge Business School leads the way in engaging with Indian companies and entrepreneurs, for mutual learning.

India faces significant environment and development challenges, for the provision of energy, water and food security to its people, and ensuring safe, sustainable and dignified livelihoods in the context of environmental and climatic changes. Research led by the Department of Geography, and in the ̽��ֱ��’s Strategic Research Initiatives on Biodiversity Conservation, Energy and Global Food Security, is providing insights into ways in which policies can be implemented across this difficult nexus, and is engaging with state and national level government agencies and research institutions in India to explore solutions.

̽��ֱ��British government has recently expressed its wish for the UK to be India’s ‘partner of choice’ in the 21st century, building on the shared history between the two nations. Partnerships in research and education are leading the way in forging this contemporary alliance.

To strengthen the established UK–India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), where Cambridge academics have had notable success, in 2014 the two governments launched the Newton–Bhabha Fund (named after two great scientists, one English, one Indian, both educated at Cambridge). Cambridge research teams are at the forefront of the collaborations being supported by this new scheme.

While science and technology dominate the inter-governmental research agenda, Cambridge has rich traditions of scholarship in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and wishes to deepen its partnership with India in these fields. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Centre of South Asian Studies; within the Centre and across the ̽��ֱ��, scholars are working on all aspects of Indian history, society and culture, from democracy and migration to religion and identity. Cambridge has an unrivalled opportunity, and a major responsibility, to work with Indian colleagues to demonstrate the importance of the humanities and social sciences at the heart of scholarly enquiry and of the ‘grand challenges’ agenda.

Looking to the future, the partnership between Cambridge and India is being progressively strengthened, by enhancing existing collaborations and launching new ones. There are exciting prospects for a major UK–India initiative in crop science, with Cambridge as a core partner through its Global Food Security Strategic Research Initiative; while the role of education in the development of India and the global South is the focus of a new centre for international education, based in the Faculty of Education.

New models, too, are being developed to strengthen the India–Cambridge partnership. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� has created five new postdoctoral fellowships, jointly funded by the Government of India’s Department of Biotechnology, which will enable early career researchers to work on collaborative research projects between Cambridge and partner institutions in India; each fellow will spend 60% of their time based in India. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� is establishing a wholly owned, not-for-profit subsidiary in India, which will make it easier for Indian businesses, institutional and individual funders to support the growing volume of joint activity in India.

Cambridge’s engagement with India has evolved from scholars working on India to scholars working with, and increasingly, in India – on shared priorities, to mutual advantage. For the ̽��ֱ��, the commitment ‘to contribute to society’ carries a global responsibility. Partnership with India – the rising power of the 21st century – is both a demonstration and affirmation of that commitment.

Professor Joya Chatterji is Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies; Dr Toby Wilkinson is Head of the International Strategy Office; Dr Bhaskar Vira is Director of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute and a Reader in the Department of Geography

Cambridge’s engagement with India has evolved from scholars working on India to scholars working with, and increasingly, in India – on shared priorities, to mutual advantage. Joya Chatterji, Toby Wilkinson and Bhaskar Vira explain why this is, as we begin a month-long focus on some of our India-related research.

We cannot hope to address the major global challenges without an Indian perspective and Indian involvement

Joya Chatterji, Toby Wilkinson and Bhaskar Vira

Centre of South Asian Studies archive

Mid-19th-century map with a line linking Britain to India

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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