It will take years to understand the impacts, positive and negative, of the mass experiment in distance learning catalysed by COVID-19. Supported by WUN, researchers have started to explore the experiences of university students, using cases across four continents to bring out comparative insights.
Peter Lennie discusses the importance of collaborative networks at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network ‘University Sector Support to UN Secretary-General’s Call for a Decade of Action on the SDGs: A Meeting of Presidents of Universities’. to an audience of university and United Nations leaders.
In the second of the WUN webinars on challenges universities are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching and learning experts shared their experiences and techniques for helping students stay engaged with their courses during online delivery. Every university in the Network has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and has had to adapt at pace. However, these common challenges have taken diverse forms and prompted distinctive solutions, with each university responding to a specific and locally grounded set of dynamics.
Click through for a summary of the discussion and to watch a video of the webinar in its entirety.
WUN is pleased to announce the results of its 2020 special initiative to address research needs triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eight awards were made to support time-sensitive research projects whose value depends on being able to collect or analyse data obtained during the pandemic, and on which the collaboration of WUN partners confers real advantage. Awarded project teams are comprised of researchers from across 19 WUN member universities.
Peter Lennie, Executive Director of WUN, said “We had an overwhelming response to this special call, and received many strong and exciting proposals. The eight successful projects take special advantage of member universities’ cultural and geographical diversity in tackling urgent and important problems that have arisen from the pandemic.”
Click through to learn more about the awarded projects.
WUN is hosting a series of webinars to help member universities benefit from each other's experience in addressing some of the unprecedented pandemic-related challenges facing them. The next in our series, to be held on Thursday 23 July will discuss the challenge of maintaining student engagement and attention during remote course delivery.
Universities around the network have deployed various approaches, reflecting the different geographical and cultural contexts in which they work, to help keep students engaged as classes have shifted from the classroom to computer screen. In this webinar we will explore what successful strategies have emerged, what we’ve learned from failures, and how the diversity of experiences from around the network can help inform each of us as we continue to teach remotely.
Click through to learn more and register for the webinar.
We are delighted to announce that the University of Lausanne (UNIL) has become the newest member of WUN.
Rector Nouria Hernandez noted that “UNIL is very excited to join WUN and to contribute to its development. We are particularly enthusiastic about the focus of the network on research activities and collaboration, and above all the fact that it addresses major contemporary challenges. These issues are also high on UNIL's agenda.”
WUN Executive Director Peter Lennie added, "The distinctive strength of the network lies in its capacity to bring together major research universities from different parts of the world to collaborate on solving global challenges—particularly those related to sustainable development. In joining WUN, the University of Lausanne adds significantly to our strengths, and to our effectiveness in addressing research challenges." Click through to read the full story.
(22 June series update)
Following World Oceans Day, WUN is pleased to share a presentation of a series of articles in which United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) presents ocean science from WUN member the University of Bergen, UNAI's Hub institution for SDG 14: Life below water in the Sustainable Ocean Series.
We will be sharing four features from this project, a new article to be published each Monday, and also highlight what WUN research teams are doing to address the future of our oceans. Click through for more.
Before COVID-19 there were transnational trends in student mental health as well as local particularities, as students face adjustment challenges, the demands of a competitive environment and external pressures like finances and employability.
As the pandemic and related containment measures take hold, click through to learn about how WUN universities are supporting students’ mental health.
Through transdisciplinary research the WUN Interdisciplinary Research Group on Climate Resilient African Landscapes is building insights into how different stakeholders use and shape the places they share. The group has established practitioner partnerships and is capitalising on regional and global academic networks.
Click to read more about the approach they are taking as their work continues.
How do individuals weigh up the options of different modes of transport? Do they value speed, accessibility, cleanliness, health, or cost when choosing how to get around? What choices are available and how might this change? Funded by a 2020 Research Development Fund grant, this new WUN Interdisciplinary Research Group brings the power of five key institutes to the challenges—and benefits—of promoting greater use of sustainable forms of mobility, with their associated outcomes for health and wellbeing. Click through for the full story.
In this story, we hear how two WUN member researchers benefited from new connections made through the Research Mobility Program: Colin Chu, who worked with engineers at the University of Rochester, and Victoria Rivera Ugarte, who collaborated with social scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Click through to learn more about their discoveries and plans.
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, interruptions to public services and the imposition of social distancing have had major impacts on global agriculture and food supply. Professor Mark Eisler of the WUN supported Global Farm Platform discusses likely impacts of the crisis and the potential for rebuilding systems in more environmentally and economically sustainable way.
Click through to read more.
Stressors and traumas such as violence and abuse, the effects of poverty, and the experience of emergencies or disasters have a major impact on the health of pregnant women and their children.
As the impact of climate change multiplies the threats, understanding why and how we can make effective and early interventions is paramount.
Click through to read the full story.
WUN is hosting a series of webinars to help member universities benefit from each other's experience in addressing some of the unprecedented pandemic-related challenges now facing them. Each webinar will last an hour, and will be organised around the sharing of insights about a specific challenge, followed by a broad Q&A.
The focus of our first webinar, to be held on Tuesday 5 May (click through for local times) will be student mental health. The webinar will begin with the sharing of both research and practice insights and experiences from members of the WUN Student Mental Health Working Group. This will be followed by a broader discussion with all attendees.
To enable WUN as a network to best address research needs triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, WUN is making available a limited number of grants for collaborative projects that focus on research challenges related to the present pandemic, and are urgent and of the moment.
We therefore welcome special requests to support projects that a) should be undertaken now, because circumstances will be less favourable later; b) benefit particularly from collaboration among WUN partners (e.g., capitalize on the geographical and cultural diversity of the network).
Click through for full details.
