Research and knowledge exchange

IRPNF awards

The International Research Partnerships and Network Fund is designed to develop and enhance international strategic partnerships and networks that facilitate sustainable research programmes.

Round 1 awards:

Prof Paul Statham
Sussex-Mahidol Partnership Towards Building a European/SE Asian Research Network on Migration

The Sussex-Mahidol Migration Partnership aims to open up a new field of cutting-edge research that investigates the transnational relationships between Europe and SE Asia that are driven by international migration flows. It is a collaboration led by the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR) and the Mahidol Migration Center (MMC) in the Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR), at Mahidol University, Thailand. In the first instance, the partnership aims to develop an infrastructure for conducting new research on migration flows between Europe and South East Asia with a special focus on topics in the migration field, including retirement, wellbeing, care, marriage and cultural interaction. Our approach is interdisciplinary drawing on insights from sociology, politics, demography, human geography, development and wellbeing. The primary aim is to generate a research framework and capacity to conduct new empirical research projects in the field of migration.

Dr Daniel Kane
Americans in Paris

This interdisciplinary research network, led by Daniel Kane, Director of the Sussex Centre for American StudiesKatharina Rietzler (HAHP), and Natalia Cecire (English), explores why Paris drew Americans across the literary, artistic, business and political spheres in the long twentieth century. Building on existing research on Paris as a key site for ‘transnational America’ we investigate historical and current dimensions of Franco-American exchanges, and broader theoretical questions relating to diasporas, extraterritoriality, migration and what it means to be an expatriate in the modern world.  Our institutional partners include the Musée Franco-Américain at Blérancourt, the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture at Chicago and Stanford’s Arcade website. 

 Round 2 awards:

Prof Melanie Newport
Tackling podoconiosis in Central America

Podoconiosis a widespread non-infectious disease of the lower legs that causes swelling, pain, disability and extreme social stigma for sufferers. Through world-class genetic, public-health and social-science research, the Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research (WTBSCGHR) has generated evidence for a simple programme of treatment and prevention that has reached an estimated 60,000 patients in endemic areas of Ethiopia, providing significant clinical, social and economic benefits. Funding from the IRPNF has enabled the WTBSCGHR to develop a network to explore the extent to which podoconiosis is a neglected public health problem in Central America and will support endemic country control through the establishment of sustainable regional collaborations and evidence-based interventions. The new network will enable the WTBSCGHR to enhance an existing partnership with Footwork,the International Podoconiosis Initiative and develop new collaborations with the Pan-American Health Organisation, the Central American Centre for Population at the University of Costa Rica, and the Centre for Health Studies at University del Valle in Guatemala.

Dr Elizabeth Harrison
Consortium on Global Development

The Centre for Global Political Economy will develop a consortium with Cornell University and Berkeley in the United States and partners in India, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, China, New Zealand, the Netherlands and South Africa to launch a global consortium that will seek to establish a ground-breaking new agenda for development research

 Round 3 awards:

Prof Louise Morley
Higher Education Knowledge Exchange and Policy Learning in the Asian Century: A UK/Japanese Partnership

The IRPNF award will develop a bi-lateral research partnership between the Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research at the University of Sussex, and the new Research Institute for Japan, the UK and Europe at Hiroshima University. The partnership will develop original comparative higher education research on current policy priorities in the two countries.

Prof Melanie Newport
Prioritising Antimicrobial Resistance: establishing an interdisciplinary international research partnership to tackle an evolving global health threat

The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research and the Centre for Global Health Policy at Sussex will assemble an international partnership with the Institute of Global Health at the University of Barcelona and the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene at the University of Cologne that brings together world leaders in the field of antimicrobial resistance, a major global health problem.  The partnership will enable biomedical experts to team up with social scientists to develop a comprehensive research plan.

Dr Hilary Kalmbach
Sussex-Lund Partnership in Middle Eastern and North African Studies

The IRPNF award will enable the Middle East and North Africa Centre at Sussex to initiate a partnership and research programme with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden.  The partnership will initially focus on Nation and State in the Middle East and will also include collaboration with the Middle East Centre at the LSE and the College of Arts and Sciences at Qatar University.

 Round 4 awards:

Prof Magnus Marsden
Inter-Asian Dynamics Research Network. 

This interdisciplinary research network will involve the University of Sussex Asia Centre, the Asia Research Institution and Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore, the Koç University Asia Centre, and the Afghanistan Centre for Strategic Studies (Kabul). The partnership will develop original research on Inter-Asian connections, comparisons and circulations. 

Prof Maya Unnithan 
Narrating Blood: An international network for cross-cultural research and intervention into blood-related reproductive and adolescent health and care- economies in India, Bangladesh, Ghana and the UK

The Centre for Cultures, Reproduction, Technologies and Heath (CORTH) will create a unique network of scholars across the globe to ‘talk about blood’. Drawing together complementary international and national research expertise from across anthropology, psychology, education, geography, migration, medical and public health, the programme will establish a set of analytic and methodological instruments to address the social, economic and health burden of hidden blood related conditions such as anemia in lower and middle income countries. It will focus on the way blood is narrated within policy discourse as well as perceived in terms of weakness (anemia) or stigma (menstrual) in everday family, school and livelihood contexts in poor, rural, urban and migrating populations.

Prof Andrew Hadfield 
UCD-Sussex Medieval and Renaissance Network

The Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies was awarded funds to develop and enhance research and the study of Medieval and Early Modern literature and culture at both Sussex and University College Dublin.