Research Development Fund

Call now open.

The WUN Research Development Fund (RDF) provides grants of up to £10,000, for one year, to foster research collaborations among academic staff at WUN member universities. Grants from the RDF are intended to help stimulate larger collaborative projects that will strengthen WUN and have impact, for example through giving rise to influential publications or making the collaborating partners competitive for major grants.

The RDF supports research projects directed at problems that lie within the network's principal research theme of sustainable development, and on which a diverse team of collaborating partners confers distinct advantage. These will often be problems where comparative analysis is important.

In line with the WUN Strategic Plan 2023-2026, proposals are encouraged that address problems in one or more of the following areas within the context of sustainable development:

  • Social justice and human rights; inequality
  • Sustainable world: cities and urbanization; energy transitions; water, and food security
  • Mental health; child and maternal health; ageing
  • Responsible and ethical applications of Artificial Intelligence

Eligibility

The RDF is open to academic staff at WUN member universities. A project must engage at least three WUN member universities across at least two regions. Projects may include non-WUN universities and external partners but must have an active core of WUN member universities. Projects led by early career researchers are especially encouraged. 

RDF 2025 submission timeline

Each member institution is limited to two submissions per call each year (as the lead university). Bristol researchers interested in applying should therefore follow the timeline below to allow for internal shortlisting.

Information on current and previous RDF projects can be found in WUN's research projects database.

Please contact Jo Brooks, the WUN Coordinator for Bristol, if you have any questions.

Opportunities to collaborate on WUN RDF projects led by other WUN member universities

Please get in touch with the listed contact should you be interested in finding out more about any of the projects.

University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

  • 'Network sensing and support for healthy ageing'; contact Mingshan Jia (mingshan.jia@uts.edu.au); DL 29 August 2025

Project summary:
Older adults remain disproportionately affected by digital exclusion, which limits access to essential services and heightens risks of isolation and online scams. According to the latest Australian Digital Inclusion Index, people aged 65–74 score 12 points below the national average, while those over 75 score nearly 25 points lower. This project seeks to develop a novel, network-based framework for supporting older adults by turning everyday digital interactions and local social connections into meaningful indicators of wellbeing and risk. By capturing patterns of engagement and changes over time, we aim to detect early warning signs such as social withdrawal or susceptibility to fraud, and provide timely, easy-to-understand support. Our ultimate goal is to deliver a lightweight, senior-friendly tool that not only improves digital confidence and social connectedness, but also enhances safety online — laying the groundwork for future advances in healthy ageing and responsible AI.

What I am looking for in a partner:
This is a multidisciplinary project at the intersections of digital inclusion, healthy ageing, and responsible AI. We invite collaborators across computer science, human–computer interaction, social sciences, public health, and ageing research. We particularly welcome partners from institutions in Africa, Europe, North America, and South America who can contribute regional expertise and on-the-ground perspectives to ensure cultural and contextual relevance.

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University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

  • 'Advancing crime scene reconstruction for crime against women across borders: a comparative forensic study of human and GenAI decision-making processes'; contact Paula Tarttelin Hernandez (paula.tarttelinhernandez@uts.edu.ac); DL 29 August 2025

Project summary:
Crime scene reconstruction varies significantly across global regions due to variations in legal frameworks, access to resources, training standards, and investigative protocols. Scene-related decision-making can be influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic factors, thus affecting consistency in scene reconstructions and trace interpretation - particularly evident in crimes against women, where investigative priorities, resource allocation, and decision-making may influence fairness, transparency, and reliability of justice outcomes. This project evaluates how Generative AI (GenAI) platforms compare to human decision-making when reconstructing scenes, focusing on: (1) regional and gender-based differences in decision-making among practitioners, educators, and students, and (2) how these differences manifest in violence-against-women investigations.

What I am looking for in a partner:
Seeking to collaborate with researchers in the areas of crime scene examination, decision-making, policing, gender-violence, criminology, VR, and generative AI. We would love the opportunity to collaborate with partners from Africa, North and South America, Europe, who can bring a different and unique perspective to this project.

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University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Project summary:
1. Short overview of research area and expertise o Our collaborative research team comprises the expertise from UTS in Australia and Mahidol University in Thailand, focusing on understanding dynamic microbial changes on coral reefs for sustainable conservation. Our work utilizes advanced microbial community profiling through longitudinal sample collections, 16S rRNA sequencing, and transcriptomic analyses. o Dr. Paige Strudwick: a coral microbiologist and reef restoration expert evaluating the role of coral-associated microorganisms in coral survival and resilience during reef restoration under Coral Nurture Program within the Future Reefs Research Group at The University of Technology Sydney. o Dr. Kittikun Songsomboon: an environmental data analyst specialising in bioinformatic analyses of diverse organisms at the Climate Change Clusters (C3), University of Technology Sydney (UTS). o Assistant Prof. Supathep Tansirichaiya: an expert in microbiologist focusing on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and microbial genetis with diverse applications across environmental and clinical microbiology based at Mahidol University. 2. The strengths and unique contributions our team brings o Coral reef microbiology and reef restoration leadership (Dr. Paige Strudwick, UTS, expert in coral reef restoration and microbiology) o Expertise in bioinformatics and microbiome analysis (Dr. Kittikun Songsomboon, UTS, two co-publications in clinical microbiome studies) o Microbiology and metagenomics (Assistant Prof. Supathep Tansirichaiya, Mahidol University, Faculty of Medicine, experience in cross-continental collaborations and metagenomic analysis) 3. A brief description of the project Our project, “Harnessing the coral microbiome for sustainable conservation,” aims to investigate how microbial communities contribute to health and resilience of diverse coral species during reef restoration and how they could be harnessed to foster coral resilience and ensure sustainable outcomes of reef interventions in the face of climate change. We will conduct time-series analyses on four species of coral (Acropora millepora, Pocillopora damicornis, Porites lutea, and Diploastrea heliopora) propagated for six months in in situ coral nurseries on the Great Barrier Reef. By employing both 16S rRNA sequencing, transcriptomics and rapid heat-stress assays we will illustrate the interplay between microbial diversity, coral health and resilience to thermal stress during coral propagation. The findings will help to identify if beneficial coral-associated bacterial communities and relative phenotypic rankings (most to least resilient) are retained during propagation. Consequently, the results will help guide best practices for reef conservation amid climate change by linking microbial biodiversity shifts to actionable management strategies to boost resilience. Connecting with an additional WUN member university will enable broader geographic validation and maximize interdisciplinary impact.

What I am looking for in a partner:
1. For this project, we hope to connect and collaborate with additional experts in: o Marine microbiology o Coral reef ecology and restoration experience o Oceanography and climate change impact research o Longitudinal data analysis and cross-institutional sample sharing 2. Specifically, we are seeking to partner with a third WUN member university whose researchers bring complementary strengths in these areas, ideally with field access or data on coral reef ecosystems outside Australia and Thailand.

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The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

  • 'Exploring and comparing the supportive care needs and their contributors among women having experienced pregnancy loss: A cross-cultural perspective'; contact Nelson Yeung (nelsonyeung@cuhk.edu.hk); DL 29 August 2025

Project summary:
I am planning an application on comparing the supportive care needs and their contributors among women having experienced pregnancy loss from different countries. Pregnancy loss is a worldwide phenomenon impacting millions of lives every year. To provide quality maternal care, it is crucial to understand women's unmet supportive care needs after pregnancy loss. WUN collaborators are sought to conduct a comparative study to examine the prevalence of unmet supportive care needs and their contributing factors among women having experienced pregnancy loss across different countries. We aim to recruit a sample of 1,000 women having pregnancy loss experience from each country/region (around 200 each country/region) to complete an online/on-site survey through hospital and community recruitment. To increase representativeness, we will sample participants from different gestation stages. We have done some groundwork (including qualitative interviews asking about those women's experiences, development of a tool to measure those women's supportive care needs, partnering with two major public hospitals) in Hong Kong and are happy to extend our understanding of those women's needs in cross-cultural/-continent settings. We can negotiate the components of the requested funding to support data collection among the collaborators. This proposed study has implications in services for perinatal bereavement care for parents experiencing perinatal loss, which aligns with the focus area of child/maternal health.

What I am looking for in a partner:
The relevant expertise involves obstetrics & gynaecology, public health, nursing, psychology, and social work. Topic keywords: pregnancy loss, women's health, maternal care, supportive care needs We are looking for collaborators who could readily have access to the target populations (given that the project timeframe and the potential time to go through ethical approval processes).

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University of York

  • 'Acceptably safe for whom? Rethinking the ethics of risk in AI safety'; contact Laura Fearnley (laura-fearnley@york.ac.uk); DL 3 September 2025

Project summary:
For decades, the field of system safety has designed safe systems by reducing the risk of harm to an “acceptable” level. Traditional risk assessment methodologies have worked relatively well for assuring the safety of simpler systems of the past. However, the AI systems we are developing today pose new challenges, both in their complexity and in the contexts in which they are deployed. Unlike many conventional systems, AI does not distribute risks and benefits evenly across stakeholders, and this uneven distribution may significantly affect how safety is assessed. Differential risk distributions invites us to move beyond the question of whether a system is “acceptably safe” to ask: acceptably safe for whom? This project will investigate how the distribution of risks shapes assessments of safety in AI. The project will explore the ethics of risk in AI safety, examining who makes decisions about risk impositions, who bears the risks of AI technologies, and how the answers to these questions reshape our understanding and evaluation of AI safety. We hope that a clearer understanding of the relationship between risk-imposers and risk-bearers will provide insights for AI governance as well as improving AI safety assessments.

What I am looking for in a partner:
We are looking for collaborators working in philosophy (with an interest in the ethics of risk) and sociology or related disciplines (with an interest in risk and its social dimensions). We are also looking for technical and non-technical researchers working in system safety and/or AI who would like to explore the relationship between safety and risk. We welcome potential collaborations from all WUN members. 

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University of Alberta

  • 'Mapping and modeling risk: a scoping review and predictive analaysis of domestic violence in the context of climate change'; contact Salima Meherali (meherali@ualberta.ca); DL 26 September 2025

Project summary:
Climate change poses an escalating global public health challenge, with disproportionate impacts on vulnerable populations. While its effects on food security, disease burden, and natural disasters are well documented, the indirect social consequences, particularly on gender-based violence, remain underexplored. Emerging evidence suggests that climate stressors such as extreme heat, floods, droughts, and economic instability can exacerbate domestic violence, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) like Pakistan, where systemic gender inequality already heightens women’s vulnerability. Women and girls in reproductive age groups are especially at risk, with climate-driven displacement, poverty, and reduced access to services contributing to increased exposure to domestic violence. Despite growing recognition from global organizations such as UN Women and the UNFCCC, the empirical evidence base linking climate change and domestic violence remains limited and fragmented, particularly in LMIC contexts. This project brings together an interdisciplinary team to: (i) Conduct a scoping review to map existing evidence on the relationship between climate change and gender-based violence, with an emphasis on LMICs; (ii) Conduct a secondary analysis of national survey data to examine the relationship between climate-related environmental stressors and domestic violence against women in Pakistan, using predictive modeling as a case study; (iii) Build awareness and capacity among graduate students and early-career public health professionals on the intersections of climate change, domestic violence, and planetary health; and facilitate collaboration and priority-setting for future research and policy development. The team currently includes researchers from the following WUN partners: University of Alberta, University of Sheffield, University of Ghana, UFMG, UTS and University of Queensland.

What I am looking for in a partner:
We are happy to include any other interested WUN member institutions. We are seeking collaborators working in the areas of climate change, women’s health, and gender-based violence.

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