New UCL-PSL joint research seed funding launched
UCL and Université PSL have strengthened their partnership with the launch of a joint funding scheme to support collaborative activity between researchers in arts, humanities and social sciences from both institutions.
The funding will offer up to £10,000 a year over three years to three collaborative research groups, including doctoral students, focusing on a set of broad and interlinked research priorities of particular relevance to contemporary British and French society.
PSL President Alain Fuchs and UCL President and Provost Professor Michael Arthur defined the new scheme during their first meeting at UCL’s Bloomsbury campus this week. Also attending this week’s meeting to discuss future collaboration were UCL's Vice-Provost International Dame Nicola Brewer, PSL's Director of International Affairs Christopher Cripps, and Professor Schlanger from ENC-PSL.
Some of the key proposed areas academics will explore are:
- The global, the national, and the European scales in an age of populism
- Speech and its contestations
- Migration, race, religion, terror
This funding builds on UCL and PSL’s already strong partnership, with high-profile collaborations including a Dual Master's in Brain and Mind Sciences run in conjunction with the École normale supérieure as well as the Université Pierre and Marie Curie.
UCL scientists regularly co-publish with colleagues from across PSL and the two universities have shared a Memorandum of Understanding since November 2012.
Of the new funding stream, President Fuchs said: “At a time of great change in the geopolitical arena, PSL is proud to initiate this funding scheme with UCL. It opens a new, dynamic chapter in our partnership and provides impetus to creating essential cross-Channel dialogue in these areas.”
President Arthur added: “We’re delighted to launch this new stream of funding, which strengthens our commitment to partnering with PSL. We hope this initiative will support even more UCL academics to collaborate with their PSL counterparts in addressing these important global challenges.”
Funding academic research
The new research groups will be hosted by UCL’s lnstitute of Advanced Studies and the scheme will be supported by the Global Engagement Office.
Outputs might include collaborative or independent grant proposals, the development of collaborative academic programmes, such as split site PhDs, and collaborative or independent articles or volumes.
Details of the academic content will be finalised over the next few months by PSL and UCL academics, including Pro-Vice Provost (Europe) Dr Uta Staiger, Dr Tim Beasley Murray (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies) and Dr Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (UCL Institute of Advanced Studies), and PSL’s Professor Nathan Schlanger of the École nationale des chartes.
