Internationalisation

What is the Radboud – Glasgow Collaboration Fund?

Radboud University and the University of Glasgow signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2018, renewed in 2023, outlining plans to work closely together as strategic partners.

As part of the plans to work together, the Radboud-Glasgow Collaboration Fund was established to:

• Facilitate and support joint initiatives that will strengthen the two universities’ strategic priorities;
• Encourage innovative learning and teaching practices and initiatives;
• Facilitate multi-disciplinary and cutting-edge research;
• Encourage international staff mobility and provide opportunities for development.

The Fund is overseen by the Radboud-Glasgow Joint Steering Committee (SC) and is designed to promote projects which pursue the following high-level goals:

• Research (in any discipline, for one-year projects - maximum budget for each project is £20,000)
• Learning and Teaching (teaching initiatives such as dual degrees, jointly taught modules etc. - maximum budget for each project is £20,000)
• Short-term staff mobility (professional development; exchange of knowledge and experience [e.g. work shadowing]; to deliver guest lectures; or to develop a new collaboration initiative; to prepare an external grant funding proposal

Both Glasgow and Radboud are comprehensive research-intensive Universities and founding members of The Guild network of European Research-Intensive Universities. This funding is an opportunity to build on our many existing research links. Radboud is also a partner for student mobility.

Priority funding

In 2023 it was announced that both universities would increase their investment in the Radboud-Glasgow partnership. This increase in funding allows the RGCF to better support the high-level goals of the collaboration through priority funding.

The RGCF welcomes projects that will set out a more ambitious vision and that include, but are not restricted to, the following:

• Contribute to both Glasgow’s and Radboud’s long-term EDI/DEI goals in relation to any or all of, the implementation, content, or impact of research or learning & teaching projects.
• Focus on civic engagement.
• Contribute to both Glasgow's and Radboud's long-term sustainability goals, in relation to any or all of, the implementation, content, or impact of research or learning & teaching projects.
• Aim to use the RGCF as seed funding for bigger projects by developing a portfolio of research over (max) 5 years with the aim of applying for a large research grant.
• Are interdisciplinary and/or transdisciplinary.
• Contribute to or create and maintain and international classroom for students of both institutions.
• Seek to further strengthen the collaboration between the two institutions by developing mobility and/or exchange opportunities relating to the topic of the proposal.

Funding for  2024

The maximum budget for each Research and Learning & Teaching project is £20,000. There is a maximum budget of £2,000 for each short-term mobility proposal.

Staff from the University of Glasgow who can start their project immediately in May or who can frontload spending prior to the 31 July 2024 can receive this portion of the budget in June 2024. However, these funds must be spent by 31 July 2024.

The rest of the budget for the project will be transferred in August and must be spent by 31 July 2025. Please indicate in your application form if you can already spend part of your funds by 31 July 2024.

Who is it for?

Academic and professional staff from all disciplines at Radboud and Glasgow and their affiliated Research Centres and Institutes are invited to apply to this funding opportunity.

Staff applying for the Research and Learning & Teaching projects will need to identify a member of staff at Radboud with whom they intend to work with. 

1. How can I establish contacts with colleagues at Radboud?
If you prepare a short proposal of a couple of sentences about your research area and your ideas for a project and send this to externalrelations-partnershipfunding@glasgow.ac.uk and glasgow@ru.nl then the administrators of the Funds can pass this request along to the relevant department.

Alternatively, many of the collaborations between Radboud and Glasgow colleagues have happened via one person looking through the staff pages of the other institution and getting in touch with staff. You should feel free to reach out to staff directly.

2. How does the staff mobility element work? Do I apply to invite colleagues, or should you apply via your own institution?
The person who will carry out the mobility should fill out the application form. All applications should be sent to bot hexternalrelations-partnershipfunding@glasgow.ac.uk and glasgow@ru.nl. The application will be reviewed by the chairs of the Steering Committee and if approved, processed by the home institution of the applicant. This means for Glasgow staff wishing to travel to Radboud, the funding will come from Glasgow and vice versa.

3. Will the Steering Committee still accept application where a larger part of the budget will be spent in one institution as opposed to equally balanced between both? For example, if one institution would like to involve a research assistant in the project.
The Steering Committee will still accept applications which have a more unbalanced budget. However, the Steering Committee will look for a strong justification of why there is a greater expenditure at one institution. The application would also need to demonstrate how the project would lead to an enduring partnership and collaboration when more money is being requested by one institution rather than another, e.g., would the collaboration still endure if the research assistant left the institution?

4. Do the project leads at both institutions need to be staff with a contract?
Yes, both projects leads need to have an active contract of employment with one of the partner institutions (appointed at least 0.5 FTE). If on a fixed term contract, the end date must be beyond the funding period. However, other members of the project do not need to meet this requirement.

Please see section 1 of the Radboud-Glasgow Collaboration Fund 2024-2025 Application Guidelines for the full eligibility requirements.

5. How does the application process work?
Each application needs to have a project lead from both institutions. The project leads fill out one application form together and submit this to bothexternalrelations-partnershipfunding@glasgow.ac.uk and glasgow@ru.nl. The applications are then peer reviewed by staff at both institutions before being sent to the Steering Committee for its decision.

6. It is possible for project leads who were successful in a previous year to apply again? Either as part of a different collaboration, or in order to take an established collaboration forward.
Yes, it is possible to re-apply to the fund after being successful in previous years. It is also possible for a Project Lead who is successful in one funding year to apply in a following year as part of a different collaboration.

7. What kinds of teaching projects have been funded and are the Steering Committee looking for?
Previously, and learning & teaching projects have focussed on PGT students, but projects can also focus on UG level. Collaborative projects often have an online element and an international classroom element. The Steering Committee is particularly keen to see projects with a focus on teaching innovation, and projects that will provide an international experience to students.

8. Can the money be used to fund mobility for students?
Please see the full list of eligible costs at section 4 of the Radboud-Glasgow Collaboration Fund 2024-2025 Application Guidelines.

The Fund is not designed to offer continuous funding student mobility. Therefore, any application looking at student mobility would need to clearly show the sustainability of the project beyond the initial funding period and clearly demonstrate how the mobilities would be funded in future years. If this can be demonstrated, funding could be used to initiate or prototype a student mobility. However, bear in mind that we are looking for projects that have added value beyond simply initiating a mobility.

9. Is there a preference for research projects or learning & teaching projects?
There is no preference for either, the allocation of funding is always done in response to the quality of the projects.

Finally
It is always a good idea to get in touch with your College International Deans or School International Lead who may be able to help align the application with strategic goals locally as well as the Global Glasgow strategy. They may also be able to help identifying additional or complementary funding that may be appropriate for the application.

 2023-2024  Research and Learning/Teaching funded projects

2022-2023  Research and Learning/Teaching funded projects

2021-2022  Research and Learning/Teaching funded projects

2020-2021 Research and Learning/Teaching funded projects

Congratulations to the following seven projects were funded, representing the rich variety of research taking place across the University. 

• Twitter as a sociolinguistic laboratory for tracking the dynamics of rapid linguistic change - Dr Jane Stuart-Smith (School of Critical Studies) 
• Organising for development: How donor governance affects aid allocation and the effectiveness of foreign aid - Dr Bernhard Reinsberg (School of Social & Political Sciences) 
• Mindfulness is associated with romantic relationship wellbeing, but why? In search of mechanisms – Dr Esther Papies (School of Psychology) 
• From cells to life-histories: metabolic rate of zebrafish differing in cell size - Prof Shaun Killen (Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine) 
• Safe Planning with Artificial Intelligence – Dr Gethin Norman (School of Computing Science) 
• Unravelling the mechanisms whereby FAM111A regulates magnesium and calcium homeostasis -implications in the Kenny-Caffey syndrome – Prof Rhian Touyz (Institute of Cardiovascular & Medical Sciences) 
• Slavery, Forced Migration and Family History: Towards a Durable Partnership in Research and Teaching - Dr Jelmer Vos (School of Humanities)