Building international research collaborations

A number of our academics have successfully secured Cardiff University International Collaboration Seedcorn funding to support both incoming and outgoing international collaborative research activities; some of which are combined with an international student placement.

Dr Annie Williams, CASCADE Research Associate, will use her funding to explore international developments in family-centred services for vulnerable families at The Australian Centre for Social Innovation. She will be exploring a new community-based programme, Families by Families, developed following consultation with local communities which identified a need for support for families undergoing challenges, provided by families who had experienced similar concerns.

Dr Sara MacBride-Stewart’s funding will enable an academic collaboration with the University of Auckland, New Zealand and will allow Dr Rachel Simon-Kumar, a Senior Lecturer from that institution, to spend time at Cardiff as a research collaborator. The collaborative project will focus on health and environmental sustainability/degradation, paying particular attention to the social and health impact of a global divide in health/medicine and sustainable development.

Professor Ian Rees Jones, Dr Sin Yi Cheung and Research Fellow Rhys Davies have been awarded funding to develop collaborative research links in the specific area of data linkage methodology and social stratification research. They will be working with Professor Mike Hout, Professor of Sociology at New York University, and Professor David Grusky, Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, on the methodological aspects of data linkage, comparison of techniques, ethical considerations, data quality and data status issues.

Professor Paul Chaney, Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD), has been awarded funding to develop his research links with Sahoo Sarbeswar, Professor of Sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, who will visit Cardiff in 2016. This collaboration will enhance the work of WISERD’s Civil Society’s Research Programme as Professor Sarbeswar has worked extensively on civil society, as well as on his other research interests, which include the study of the postcolonial state, Hindu nationalism, and neo-liberal globalisation.

Professor Mike Levi has been awarded funding to pursue collaboration on the changing shape and effectiveness of anti-money laundering efforts around the world. Professor Levi will work with leading scholars in the US (primarily Peter Reuter at the University of Maryland) and Australia (Jason Sharman at Brisbane and Lous de Koker at Deakin Universities), along with policy makers and practitioners.

Dr Robin Smith and Dr Tom Hall were awarded funds to visit colleagues at CUNY, to deliver two papers at a well-attended public seminar and continue to develop research relationships with the Manhattan Outreach Consortium (the agency responsible for outreach social work, housing and street care for the homeless across Manhattan).  They were also awarded funding for a student placement at the Public Space Research Group, directed by Setha Low (Professor of Environmental Psychology, Geography, and Anthropology, and Women’s Studies) at The Graduate Center, City University of New York.