The universities of Bergen, Oslo and Utrecht have joined the 13 other members of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) - a collaboration of some of the foremost research-led universities in Europe, the USA and China.
In three years, WUN has grown from an alliance of eight universities working together in four research areas to a global partnership focusing on 14 themes. It has also co-ordinated 200 exchanges of graduate students and academics and won £7.5 million for e-learning initiatives.
The new European members will join forces with the other universities in addressing a series of research 'grand challenges'. Informatics and grid computing, earth systems science, wireless communications and sustainable development are all on WUN's agenda.
Professor Eric Thomas, Chair of WUN and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol, said: "Our network is committed to tackling some of the big challenges that will only be addressed through close collaboration between leading institutions.
"The addition of these three distinguished universities represents a major boost for WUN's collective intellectual capacity. We will be able to push forward all the faster."
Hans van Himbergen from the Utrecht University said: "We at Utrecht highly value WUN as an excellent platform for leading universities in the world aiming to promote research and education at a global level. It is an honour to have been invited by the consortium to become a member."
Dr Kare Rommetveit, Director of the University of Bergen, said: "The University of Bergen is proud of becoming a member of WUN together with the University of Oslo. The Worldwide Universities Network is truly a pioneering effort in the area of international research co-operation, making effective use of the comparative strengths of the individual member institutions."
The members of WUN are: The Pennsylvania State University; University of Bergen; University of Bristol; University of California, San Diego; University of Illinois; University of Leeds; University of Manchester; University of Nanjing; University of Oslo; University of Sheffield; University of Southampton; Utrecht University; University of Washington, Seattle; University of Wisconsin - Madison; University of York; University of Zhejiang