Research Collaboration

Early-Career Collaboration Awards 2025-2026

Recent years have demonstrated the possibilities and value of virtual collaboration, but sometimes there is still no substitute for working together in-person. Spending time at other institutions, especially overseas, can provide invaluable access to expertise, equipment and facilities, as well as new perspectives and approaches.

The loss of this connectivity has been particularly acute for early-career researchers as they work to develop new research projects, acquire experience, and build professional networks. Connections made at the start of a researcher’s career can have a formative effect on their professional development and have the potential to generate long-term collaborations.

Running since 2023, IARU’s Early-Career Collaboration Award Scheme helps early-career academics by providing funds to meet the costs of a short-term research visit at another IARU university.

Eligibility

Current early-career researchers – those who are no longer postdoctoral researchers but who are still within 10 years of submitting their PhD – at any IARU university can apply. Any time not spent engaged in active research (i.e. because of a career break) will not count as part of the 10-year period. Awards are intended for those on permanent contracts. All applicants must be employed by a IARU university at a time the visit is planned to take place. All placements must be at another IARU university. The host university does not need to already be involved in the applicant’s research.

There is no minimum or maximum duration for a research visit, but it is expected it would be long enough for applicants to have a realistic opportunity to share information about their research at the host institution, and for the visit to contribute to further collaborative links between the institutions involved (see Application Requirements (1) below).

Funding and Eligible Expenses

Individuals can apply for up to US$5,000. This should be used to cover costs of travel, accommodation, maintenance, and other expenses related to their visit. Please note that the secretariat does not engage in any financial transactions with individual awardees. Awardees liaise with their host or home institution for disbursement of funds and internal requirements.

Visits can be planned for any time between 1 October 2025 and 1 September 2026. If the planned visit does not take place within this timeframe, the awardee will forfeit their award.

Application Requirements

Applicants should send completed applications to the IARU Secretariat (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). Incomplete applications will not be considered. To be considered, applicants are asked to provide the following:

1. A completed application form

Please download a copy of the application form and complete it.

In addition to personal information, applicants should provide a statement (750-word maximum) setting out, for a general audience:

The area of their research and their specific research project
Why they plan to visit their prospective host institution (e.g. additional/different expertise, equipment, facilities etc.)
An outline of their plans to share information about their research and their placement at their host institution (e.g. via departmental seminars or other relevant research meetings)
How they hope their visit will facilitate further collaborative links between their home institution and host institution (e.g. reciprocal exchanges, joint funding applications)

2. A letter of support from your head of department

The letter should be submitted with the application form, it should not be sent separately by the head of department. The letter should indicate support for the intended research visit and confirm that there are no foreseeable issues with the applicant being away from the department.

3. A letter of support from the head of your intended host department

Again, the letter should be submitted with the application form, it should not be sent separately. The letter should indicate that the department is happy to host the applicant and that there are no foreseeable issues.

Selection Criteria

It has been decided that the complexity of setting up an academic review process would not be proportionate to the potential additional benefits. The IARU Secretariat will therefore select successful applications at random from among all complete applications by eligible researchers. Up to 8 awards of 5,000 USD will be made for 2025-2026. It may be necessary to cap the number of successful applications in which a given university can be involved to ensure that the funded visits are spread throughout IARU's member universities. Note that preference will be given to those who were not previously granted an award.

Decision Process & Timeline

Applications must be received by 30 June 2025. Late applications cannot be accepted. Successful applicants will be informed by the 1 August 2025, and the names of awardees, with short summaries of their research projects, will be published on the IARU website.

At the end of their visit, awardees will be asked to submit a short statement explaining their research, what they accomplished (including any joint publications, for example), how they collaborated with colleagues, and how their placement has or is expected to further future collaboration.

Questions?

Please feel free to contact us at the IARU Secretariat at the University of Cape Town at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Research Collaboration

IARU partners utilize the complementary research capability of members to address issues of central importance; these include global security, ageing and health, development and environmental sustainability.

IARU Research Collaborations are initiatives that allow researchers to closely connect and establish networks incorporating multidisciplinary approaches.

Past Initiatives

PKU Medical City

PKU Medical City was a medical collaboration among IARU universities. Workshops on different collaborative medical projects occurred annually at PKU.

"Real-life Medicine (RLM)" was the initial project of this collaboration. The RLM project provides a big data anlysis platform on which life science research, translational medicine and clinical trials can be conducted. Further, mHealth policies of the member countries have been compared and the challenges and futher development of mHealth discussed.

About Peking University Medical City:

Peking University Medical City (PKUMC) is located at the Northwest skirt of Beijing, twenty minutes drive from downtown. It serves patients from Beijing, the surrounding regions and all across the country. It is in the second phase of Life Science Park. The first phase of the development of the Life Science Park has fully completed and has full occupancy of globally renowned life science enterprises, such as Novo Nordisk, Denmark CCBR, German Herauers, US Bioduro etc. Providing healthcare services to full life cycle of all people with the most advanced facilities and services is the mission of PKUMC.

The 120-acre PKUMC is a premier location for medical care, research and education. PKU International Hospital (PKUIH), PKU Mental Health Hospital and PKU Rehabilitation Hospital are three hospitals within PKUMC providing medical care services. It is approved for 2,370 total inpatient beds. PKU Care industrial park, commercial office buildings and PKU Pharmacology Research Center provide environment for research and innovation to fulfill its mission.

Sustainable Cities Research Project

"Towards Sustainable Cities" is an initiative to stimulate activity in the IARU Energy, Resources and Environment (ERE) Global Change Project through a collaborative interdisciplinary partnership.

The projects have focused on integrative cross-cutting questions in relation to sustainability in cities such as:

What is the relationship between food production and land use in city regions?
How will the flux of GHGs change depending on the land use change of cities?
What is the relative food security in food export and import dependent cities?

The demonstration project approach has created a new research community by collaborating on three interlinked sub-projects, each led by one IARU partner. The three sub-projects are:

Food Flows and Ecosystem Services, lead by the Australian National University
Low Carbon Cities, lead by The University of Tokyo
Land Use and Ecosystem Function, lead by the University of Copenhagen

Project lead	This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Active universities	ANU, UCPH, UTokyo
Project initiated	2008

Regional Perspectives on Global Security

Regional Perspectives on Global Security investigated international security as it expanded and deepened within the regional global nexus. The research initiative incorporated multidisciplinary approaches, human security as a policy dynamic, order-building and rising powers and asymmetrical security. The Security Research group has convened or co-convened workshops, established a visiting scholars program and has produced several edited volumes and numerous scholarly papers which found their way into professional journals. ANU, Todai, Beida and NUS remain involved in the MacArthur Foundation's Asia Security Initiative and individual scholars who have initially networked through the IARU projects initiated during 2007 and 2008 remain active in interacting with each other through these networks.

Organizer/lead	This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Participating universities	ANU, ETH Zurich, NUS, PKU, UC Berkeley, UCPH, Cambridge, UTokyo, Yale
Event	Regional Perspectives on Global Security Initiated 2008

Culture and Citizenship: Towards a Civic Pluralism

The workshop was held in Copenhagen on 2 November 2009 covering such topics as culturally defined citizenship rights, multiculturalism, migrant workers and religious diasporas. Specific examples were drawn from such diverse cases as Latin America, North America, Europe, Singapore and Australia. One doctoral student from Copenhagen and one post-doctoral student from Singapore also participated in the meeting.

Leads	Prof. Amin Saikal (ANU) Prof. James Piscatori (ANU)
Participating universities	ANU, NUS, UC Berkeley, UCPH, Cambridge
Workshop	Culture and Citizenship 2 November 2009, UCPH

Human Mobility: New Opportunities, Inequalities and Challenges to Human Security

Human mobility has soared as millions of people throughout the world have come to see migration as an avenue towards improvement. These global movements constitute new social developments and formations which challenge policy makers and organizations seeking to develop policies to manage mobility and its social and economic impacts. This research project examined the perspectives on global migration dynamics. To improve our understanding of human mobility, we need to fundamentally rethink the central assumptions on the forces that drive global migration.

Lead	Prof. Stephen Castles (Oxford)
Participating universities	ANU, UCPH, Oxford, UTokyo
Workshop	Human Mobility Workshop 21 – 22 September 2006, Oxford