Citizendia

Worldwide Universities Network
Worldwide Universities Network logo
Data
Established2000
Members16
ContinentsAsia, Australasia,
Europe, North America
CountriesAustralia, Canada, China, Netherlands,
United Kingdom, United States
ChairEric Thomas,
University of Bristol, UK
AcronymWUN
Homepagehttp://www.wun.ac.uk

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. 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. Australasia is a Region of Oceania: New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and neighbouring Islands in the Pacific For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Eric Jackson Thomas, born 24 March the University (or derivatives but lower-case when referring to many universitiesor universities The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Research is defined as Human activity based on Intellectual application in the investigation of Matter. A university is an institution of Higher education and Research, which grants Academic degrees in a variety of subjects 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. The word student is etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation Verb "studēre"

Contents

Introduction

Founded in 2000,[1] 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. A non-profit organization ( abbreviated "NPO" also "not-for-profit" is a legally constituted Organization whose objective is to support or engage For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The United States of America —commonly referred to as the 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. Video is the technology of electronically capturing, Recording, processing storing transmitting and reconstructing a sequence of Still images Seminar is generally a form of Academic instruction either at a University or offered by a commercial or professional organization [2] It has also developed two research-based Master's degree programmes as well as other online training courses. [3] These courses are written jointly by academic staff from several of the participating universities.

Initially, the WUN comprised ten universities,[4] but has since expanded. The current members are (in alphabetical order):[5]

WUN's current chair is Eric Thomas,[6] Vice-Chancellor at Bristol. The University of Bergen ( Universitetet i Bergen) is located in Bergen, Norway. the University (or derivatives but lower-case when referring to many universitiesor universities The University of California San Diego (popularly known as UC San Diego or UCSD) is a public Research university in San Diego, California This article is about the flagship campus For other uses and locations of University of Illinois, see University of Illinois (disambiguation The University of The University of Leeds is a major teaching and research University in Leeds, West Yorkshire; one of the largest in the United Kingdom with Nanjing University ( colloquially 南大 Nándà is a national comprehensive university located in Nanjing, an ancient capital of China. The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related, land-grant, space grant public research University The University of Sheffield is a research University, located in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. The University of Southampton is a university situated in the city of Southampton, on the south coast of England. The University of Sydney (informally Sydney Uni or USyd) is the oldest university in Australia This article is about the University of Toronto's St George Campus Utrecht University ( Universiteit Utrecht in Dutch) is a University in Utrecht, The Netherlands. See Washington (disambiguation for other uses The University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research University The University of York is a Campus university in the city of York, England. Zhejiang University ( ZJU;) sometimes referred to as Zheda, is a national university in China. Eric Jackson Thomas, born 24 March A Vice-Chancellor (commonly called the VC) of a University in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, New Zealand,

The network is funded principally by its member universities, who each pay a one-off fee of $50 000 to join. The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been [2] 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. Sun Microsystems Inc ( is a multinational vendor of Computers computer components Computer software, and Information technology services [2] 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'. [7] 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. [8] 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'. [9] At present, these areas and their ' grand challenges' are:

  1. Science
  2. Information and communications technology (ICT)
  3. Earth sciences
  4. Social sciences
  5. Health and life sciences
  6. Arts and humanities

There are numerous individual projects within each area. Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding The Arctic is the Region around the Earth 's North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. Climate encompasses the temperatures humidity rainfall atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorogical factors in a given region over long periods of An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants animals and micro-organisms( Biotic factors in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical ( Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology Chemistry (from Egyptian kēme (chem meaning "earth") is the Science concerned with the composition structure and properties Spintronics (a Neologism meaning "spin transport electronics" also known as magnetoelectronics is an Emerging technology which exploits the intrinsic Information technology ( IT) as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA is "the study design development implementation support Geographic information science (GISc or GISci is the academic theory behind the development use and application of geographic information systems (GIS Wireless communication is the transfer of information over a distance without the use of electrical conductors or " Wires quot Grid computing is a form of Distributed computing whereby a "super and virtual computer" is composed of a cluster of networked loosely-coupled Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences) is an all-embracing term for the Sciences related to the planet The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth 's Oceanic divisions Weathering is the decomposition of earth rocks, Soils and their Minerals through direct contact with the planet's Atmosphere. Sustainability, in a general sense is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups and individuals including Anthropology, Communication studies Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones Education encompasses both the Teaching and Learning of Knowledge, proper conduct, and technical competency Chemistry (from Egyptian kēme (chem meaning "earth") is the Science concerned with the composition structure and properties Health is a state of complete physical mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity Foundations of modern biology There are five unifying principles The arts is a broad subdivision of Culture, composed of many expressive disciplines. The humanities are academic disciplines which study the Human condition, using methods that are primarily Analytic, Critical, or Speculative

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. [10]

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. [10]

The scheme (that is, the home university) pays for travel expenses and subsistence, including accommodation and any local travel costs. Subsistence is the food necessary to sustain life The following is a list of subsistence techniques: Hunting and Gathering 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. [11]

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:[12]

The WUN intends to add seminars on wireless communications, informatics and mediæval history later. Human geography is a branch of Geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with the environment with particular reference to Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology Social policy relates to guidelines for the changing maintenance or creation of living conditions that are conducive to human welfare. Social work is a discipline involving the application of Social theory and research methods to study and improve the lives of people groups and societies China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Chemistry (from Egyptian kēme (chem meaning "earth") is the Science concerned with the composition structure and properties Wireless communication is the transfer of information over a distance without the use of electrical conductors or " Wires quot Informatics is the science of Information, the practice of Information processing, and the engineering of Information systems. History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology [12]

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. Management (covering theory practice and scope of management and Manager' (covering the people who manage might help clarify and systematise Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology Electronic learning (or e-Learning or eLearning) is a type of education where the medium of instruction is computer technology [3]

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. The UKeU ( UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited) was a company and website that promoted Online degrees from UK universities "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " WUN and UKeU agreed a course in geographical information systems[13] which does not appear on WUN's e-Learning page[14] and the establishment of an 'eLearning Research Centre',[15] funded by HEFCE, which is still running,[16] obviously without the involvement of UKeU, of which the seminar series mentioned is part. The Higher Education Funding Council for England ( HEFCE) is a Non-departmental public body of the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills (previously

See also

Some other international groups of universities:

References

  1. ^ WUN frequently asked questions (.pdf)
  2. ^ a b c Report in the Chronicle of Higher Education
  3. ^ a b E-learning page from WUN's website
  4. ^ Press-release from early days of the network
  5. ^ List of members
  6. ^ Eric Thomas, Chair of WUN
  7. ^ Themes
  8. ^ Research areas
  9. ^ Grand Challenges
  10. ^ a b Overview of exchange programme (.pdf)
  11. ^ Details of exchange programme (.doc)
  12. ^ a b List of video seminars
  13. ^ Press-release announcing collaboration on GIS course with UKeU
  14. ^ eLearning
  15. ^ Press-release announcing the eLearning Research Centre collaboration with UKeU
  16. ^ eLearning Seminar Series - Researching Dialogue & Communities of Enquiry in eLearning in HE

External links

The Association of Commonwealth Universities represents over 480 universities from Commonwealth countries Mission The Coimbra Group is.an association of long-established European multidisciplinary universities of high international standard committed to creating special academic The Europaeum is a loose organisation of ten leading European universities. Current members LAOTSE ( Links to Asia by Organizing Traineeship and Student Exchange) is an international network of leading universities in Europe and Asia. According to its Mission statement, the League of European Research Universities ( LERU) is "a group of European research-intensive universities Universitas 21 is an international network of Research -intensive universities, established as an "international reference point and resource for strategic thinking
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