USA: BRIDGE Partnership, Illinois
We are proud to have forged one of our most wide-ranging research collaborations with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a globally elite public research university. Together, we have established a broad and deep partnership that has already delivered key research and teaching outcomes.
In March 2014, the Birmingham-Illinois Partnership for Discovery, Engagement, and Education (BRIDGE) was formalised when the University of Birmingham’s Vice-Chancellor and the University of Illinois’ Chancellor signed the agreement in Illinois. This partnership provides a framework for dynamic knowledge exchange across disciplines, encouraging regular, purposeful interactions between faculty, staff, and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Through BRIDGE, we have developed over 115 faculty-to-faculty links in disciplines such as Economic and Physical Geography, Railway Engineering, Mathematics, Psychology, Environmental Genomics, History of Art, American & Canadian Studies, Cultural Heritage, and Education.
Additionally, this partnership has expanded opportunities for students at both institutions through exchange programs and collaborative teaching that bring a global dimension into the classroom.
Signature Initiatives - Ten Years of BRIDGE
Education and Equity
Education and Equity
The BRIDGE Signature Initiative, Education Access and Equity: Empowering Democratic Education in the Global South, aims to create an inclusive environment for scholars from the University of Birmingham and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to collaborate with educators, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners from the Global South and beyond. This project is founded on the principle of valuing all participants as knowledge contributors and knowers sharing an equal epistemic status. This initiative enables participants to discuss, design, experiment with, and implement innovative and culturally responsive approaches that enhance education access and equity in Global South contexts. In particular, the project focuses on empowering marginalised communities, building capacity, amplifying their voices, and activating their agency in leading positive changes both in their local communities and on a global stage.
This BRIDGE Signature Initiative will generate research-informed evidence that contributes to policymaking, education planning, curriculum development, pedagogy, student and staff mobility, and professional development. The outputs will include academic publications, policy papers, teaching and learning resources, and the establishment of a global network. We invite everyone who has a passion for advancing education access and equity in the Global South to join this Signature Initiative and become an affiliated member of our network.
Follow updates on our BRIDGE website.
Global Health
Global Health
Following 10 years of the BRIDGE collaboration and having identified mutual interests, the Universities of Birmingham and Illinois Urbana Champaign have formed a new BRIDGE Global Health Institute to develop joint health research initiatives in equitable partnership with Institutions in the Global South. Both Universities have close links with Brazil and this will be the initial focus with extension to other countries eg South Africa later. Under the leadership of Professors Jon Frampton and Rachel Jordan from University of Birmingham with Zeynep Madak-Erdogan and Japhia Jayasingh Ramkumar from UIUC, there will be four themes: (1) women and children’s health (2) microbiology (including microbiome) and health (3) diagnostics and community-based solutions (4) wider determinants of health inequalities in society. There will also be opportunity to work collaboratively with the other two BRIDGE Signature strands.
The aim will be to meet regularly to develop research ideas together, obtain external funds, and start to deliver impactful research relevant to the region. A key focus will be on the development and encouragement of earl-career researchers. We will also host an international conference to extend our joint reputation and develop further research networks within 3 years.
Find more information on our BRIDGE website.
Sustainability
Sustainability
With high levels of public environmental awareness, UoB and UIUC have an extremely timely opportunity to work in partnership and make a powerful statement about our intentions to help tackle the global climate emergency and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our activities and approach will build on research and education links - including through the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability & Climate Action (BISCA), Birmingham Energy Institute (BEI), the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) and Prairie Research Institute (PRI).
The group proposes that the Signature Initiative support sustainability research and teaching communities at UoB and UIUC to work with partners from the Global South in the lead-up to COP30 in Brazil. The teams would prepare impactful briefing papers, which would be synthesised into a report to be launched for the COP, on how Climate Action and Sustainable Development must be accelerated to put the world on track to meet the Paris and Sustainable Development goals.
The proposed focus areas are:
- ‘New Climate Solutions’: to allow a wide range of possible projects to come forward that respond to challenges affecting global communities, specifically addressing climate change, in terms of mitigation or adaptation measures.
- ‘Food, Energy, Water Nexus’: addressing the issues of meeting societal needs where there are interdependent and possibly conflicting priorities for sustainable development, which exist in the Global South and North.
Read more on our BRIDGE website.
