The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has provided the University of Glasgow with a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) grant to support cutting edge research that addresses the challenges faced by Official Development Assistance(ODA)/ Lower and Middle Income (LMIC) countries. It will do this by supporting challenge-led disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, strengthening capacity for research in the UK and in LMIC countries and responding to emergencies where there is an urgent research need.  

As these funds are part of the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment, we are pleased that two of 17 projects that are being supported over the next few months involve CR&DALL core members, and one of these specifically builds on the work of PASCAL’s PURE project.

Building Sustainable Futures in Africa: Using Capacity-Strengthening Activities to Design and Pilot Methods for Cross-Disciplinary Research involves Mia Perry as a Co-I.

This project will design and pilot a range of activities that: (1) address the need for innovative methodologies that cut across the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities; (2) translate existing ODA-focused projects into opportunities for new networks of trust and commitment, and new lines of inquiry; (3) shape new opportunities for impact that address locally-articulated socio-ecological problems and challenges; and (4) underpinning all of this, generate research that critically acknowledges and works with all manner of academic, political, economic, and cultural distinctions between the ‘global north’ and the ‘global south’.   

The PI from Glasgow is Prof. Deborah Dixon (Geographical and Earth Sciences). Other Co-Is are Dr. Daniel Koehn (Geographical and Earth Sciences); Dr. Neil Burnside (Engineering); Dr. Brian Barrett (Geographical and Earth Sciences); Prof. Adrian Boyce (SUERC). There are a number of other external and internal collaborators. In addition to the core members noted above, Glasgow collaborators include: John Briggs, Joanne Sharp and Emma Laurie, Human Geography; Susan Waldron, critical zone management; Jaime Toney, environmental geochemistry; Marian Scott, environmental statistics; Richard Williams, geomatics; Margaret Smith, fine arts; Ian Watson, engineering. Collaborators in Botswana: MmaB Modise and Rebecca Lekoko, education, University of Botswana; Olekai Thakadu, environmental communication, University of Botswana. Collaborators in Malawi: Boyson Moyo, soil science, Bunda College of Agriculture; Deepa Pullanikkatil, environmental management consultant, LEAD and ABUNDANCE; Elson Kambalu, artist and community leader. Collaborators in Ethiopia: Dr Elias Lewi, tectonics and geothermals, Addis Ababa University; Mauricio Fernandes, Planet Earth Institute; Collaborators in Uganda: Kevin Aanyu and Andreas Schuman, geology and petroleum studies, Makerere University; Twine Bananuka and Joseph Watuleke, education, Makerere University.

Strengthening the Regional Engagement Role of Universities in Africa and Asia builds on the work of the PURE project, which provided valuable insights into the possibilities of developing common, but regionally sensitive, methods for universities and regional governments to better understand the nature, quality and extent of their current engagements, and the potential for growth. In this follow-one work, a network will be established with three principle aims:

• to learn more about the substantive aspects of existing regional development contributions that universities can make in selected less developed countries in Africa and Asia.
• to examine processes of engagement with a specific concern as to how both regions and universities are managed and engage, taking into account the range of sometimes competing missions that universities have, and the differing national policy contexts in which regions and universities find themselves.
• to offer practical proposals based on existing successful models that strengthen the contribution of universities, cities and regions to key aspects of development

The ultimate impact is to strengthen the capacity of specific universities to contribute to economic and social development at regional level, and to ensure that mechanisms to transfer these practices elsewhere in ODA territories are created.

Those involved are: PI: Professor Michael Osborne (Education) Co-ls: Dr Muir Houston (Education), Dr Katarzyna Borkowska, (Inter-disciplinary Studies), all University of Glasgow

Collaborators: South Africa: Dr Marius Venter, PASCAL Director for Africa, University of Johannesburg, Tanzania: Dr Mpoki Mwaikokesya, University of Dar es Salem, Zimbabwe: Professor Charles Nherara, University of Zimbabwe, Iraq: Dr Kamal Ketuly, University of Duhok, Iran: Professor Nematollah Azizi University of Kurdistan and Philippines: Dr Zenaida Reyes, Philippines National University