Worldwide Universities Network

The Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) is an invitation-only group of research-led universities which have agreed to carry out research and research training on a collaborative basis. The WUN provides financial and infrastructural support to member universities to allow student and staff exchanges, development of international training programs and collaborative research work.

Introduction

Founded in 2000, [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/download.php?file=1234_FAQs.pdf&mimetype=application/pdf&type=attachment WUN frequently asked questions (.pdf)] ] the Worldwide Universities Network is an invitation-only, nonprofit group of universities from Australia, Canada, China, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The network provides for collaboration among its members, principally by organizing online, interactive video-seminars (although traditional conferences are also organized) and by financing exchanges of research students and staff. [http://chronicle.com/free/2002/05/2002050803t.htm Report in the Chronicle of Higher Education] ] It has also developed two research-based Master's degree programmes as well as other online training courses. [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=79 E-learning page from WUN's website] ] These courses are written jointly by academic staff from several of the participating universities.

Initially, the WUN comprised ten universities, [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=614 Press-release from early days of the network] ] but has since expanded. The current members are (in alphabetical order): [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=97 List of members] ]

* University of Bergen
* University of Bristol
* University of California, San Diego
* University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
* University of Leeds
* Nanjing University
* Pennsylvania State University
* University of Sheffield
* University of Southampton
* University of Sydney
* University of Toronto
* Utrecht University
* University of Washington, Seattle
* University of Wisconsin-Madison
* University of York
* Zhejiang University

WUN's current chair is Eric Thomas, [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=594 Eric Thomas, Chair of WUN] ] Vice-Chancellor at Bristol.

The network is funded principally by its member universities, who each pay a one-off fee of $50 000 to join. It also draws occasional financial support from industry as, for example, when Sun Microsystems commissioned an online course development software package from the network in exchange for $500 000. The online training courses that have been developed have also been supported financially by external organisations.

Themes

WUN organizes its activities into five main areas, which it terms 'themes'. [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=76 Themes] ] These represent the principal areas of collaboration among its member universities.

Research and 'Grand Challenges'

The research that WUN members work together on is divided into six areas. [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/research.php Research areas] ] Within each area there are a number of research projects, but the universities have decided to give particular focus to some of these as 'Grand Challenges'. [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=82 Grand Challenges] ] At present, these areas and their ' grand challenges' are:

#Science
#*Grand Challenges: Arctic climates and environments, bioinformatics, green chemistry, spintronics
#Information and communications technology (ICT)
#*Grand Challenges: Geographic information sciences 'academy', wireless communications, WUN Grid (work on grid computing)
#Earth sciences
#*Grand Challenges: INSPIRE (INternational South-east Pacific Investigation into Reducing Environments), weathering and sustainable land use
#Social sciences
#*Grand Challenges: Future cities, globalisation of education, green chemistry,
#Health and life sciences
#Arts and humanities

There are numerous individual projects within each area.

Global exchange programme

The Global Exchange Programme allows research students and staff at WUN members to spend time researching at other institutions in the network. The program is aimed primarily at research students and junior academic staff so that they might be able to develop contact networks of their own early in their careers. It is also hoped that the possibility of inter-university and international collaboration may help attract funding to research work. In the first three years of the scheme, about 400 awards have been made. [http://www.wun.ac.uk/download.php?file=1289_InformationforallGEPapplicants.pdf&mimetype=application/pdf&type=attachment Overview of exchange programme (.pdf)] ]

The exchanges are funded by the universities themselves and usually by the 'home' university of the individual on the exchange. This means that the scope and duration of exchanges can vary, but there is an obvious emphasis on the main research areas of the WUN (see above). In the case of students, an academic supervisor must be found at the 'host' university as well the home university and there is an agreement that tuition fees will be waived for the duration of an exchange.

The scheme (that is, the home university) pays for travel expenses and subsistence, including accommodation and any local travel costs. On returning, the individual is required to write a report describing the exchange and how it benefitted the institutions involved and the WUN at large. [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/download.php?file=1328_Informationforawardees.doc&mimetype=application/msword&type=attachment Details of exchange programme (.doc)] ]

Video seminars

The WUN organises regular online, interactive video seminars which are available to people at member universities. These seminar series are delivered by a number of academics from various of the universities and their topics approximately align with the research areas mentioned above. At present, they cover: [http://www.wun.ac.uk/virtualseminars.php List of video seminars] ]
*Human geography
*Bioinformatics
*Earth systems science
*Social policy and social work
*China
*'Green' chemistry

The WUN intends to add seminars on wireless communications, informatics and mediæval history later.

eLearning

This theme branches out a little from WUN's research focus and includes efforts at collaboratively developing taught programmes. These include two research-based Master's degree courses: one in public policy and management, and one in bioinformatics and a series of offline seminars hosted at WUN institutions on e-learning.

Some the WUN's less successful collaborations have been in the teaching area, with UKeU (UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited), an online University funded by the UK government which ultimately folded in 2004. WUN and UKeU agreed a course in geographical information systems [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=601 Press-release announcing collaboration on GIS course with UKeU] ] which does not appear on WUN's e-Learning page [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=79 eLearning ] ] and the establishment of an 'eLearning Research Centre', [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=602 Press-release announcing the eLearning Research Centre collaboration with UKeU] ] funded by HEFCE, which is still running, [ [http://www.wun.ac.uk/elearning/seminars/index.html eLearning Seminar Series - Researching Dialogue & Communities of Enquiry in eLearning in HE ] ] obviously without the involvement of UKeU, of which the seminar series mentioned is part.

ee also

Some other international groups of universities:
*Association of Commonwealth Universities
*Coimbra Group
*Europaeum
*IDEA League
*LAOTSE
*League of European Research Universities
*Universitas 21

References

External links

* [http://www.wun.ac.uk The WUN's official website]