Round 1

The first round of the Kick Start network scheme received eight applications and four awards were made to:

Dr Daniel Hough, Director of the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption (SCSC) was awarded funds to develop a series of anti-corruption workshops with Transparency International. The grant will enable the SCSC to continue to build links with the global anti-corruption community, starting with the first round of anti-corruption workshops that are scheduled for June 2013. For further information on this network visit the SCSC website. 

Professor Dominic Kniveton, Professor of Climate Science and Society will establish a Network on Adaption in Humanitarianism (NOAH). The network will focus on developing an action research agenda and profile to promote adaptation and change in humanitarian actions. NOAH will build on connections with humanitarian agencies and funders developed through the Global Transformations Theme’s New Humanitarian Agendas workshop. The network will host an annual Research Hotel which will provide Sussex academics with a chance to interact, learn from, and collaborate with, some of the leading researchers in their fields, and forge new connections with operational agencies and funders of consultancy work.

Dr Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, Professor Rachel Thomson and Dr Janet Boddy were awarded funds to develop a network on New Publics: Innovating Children and Young People’s Communities. The network, housed in the Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth Studies, will focus on defining and engaging with emergent practice issues in child and youth development in the local area with a view to generating innovative ideas and strategies for new research and practice development. It will bring together Sussex academics, local practitioners, children, young people and their families through a series of knowledge transfer and exchange workshops.

Dr Jorn Scharlemann, Reader in Ecology and Conservation will receive funding for a Planet Use Network that will develop methods to identify and quantify multiple dimensions and uncertainties of the impact on the planet of human activities – environmental, social and economic. It is hoped that the mutual exchange of ideas and needs between researchers and policy experts will enable advice to be given to decision makers in governments, NGOs and businesses to ensure better environmental decisions for a sustainable planet.

Round 2

The second round of the Kick Start network scheme received eleven applications and three awards were made to:

Vicky Lebeau, Professor of English, was awarded funds to develop Humanities in Future Health. The network will bring Sussex academics from the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and the Medical School, into contact with local health and arts partners, including Future Health (a Brighton-based organisation of GPs, practitioners and community workers) to explore collaborations in relation to the role of the arts and humanities in the future development of healthcare policy, practice and delivery.  It also aims to establish the University as a hub of excellence in the medical humanities and to develop a shared research and knowledge exchange agenda for the network that connects academic research with the needs of GPs and health providers.

Jan Selby, Director of the Sussex Centre for Conflict and Security Research, has been awarded funds to establish  a network on Rising Powers and Peace Processes.  The aim of the network will be to explore the existing and potential impacts of rising powers on contemporary peace processes.  The network will be organised around a series of four one day workshops for academics, policymakers and practitioners, focussing on post-Cold war peacemaking and  the BRICS states’ different approaches to peacemaking.

Anna Stavrianakis, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, has been awarded funds for her network Austerity versus Strategy: The impact of the financial crisis on military strategy, spending, procurement and weapons transfers. The network seeks to bring together researchers, military personnel and peace activists and campaigners to discuss the public policy questions around the impact of the financial crisis and austerity measures on military strategy, military spending, equipment procurement and weapons transfers.  The goal is to develop an international and interdisciplinary network to discuss the common problem of austerity from different political, technical and theoretical perspectives.