NationMaster - Encyclopedia: WUN

The Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) is an invitation-only group of 16 research-led universities which have agreed to carry out research and research training on a collaborative basis. 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. This article is about the year 2000. ... World map showing Europe Political map Europe is one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... World map showing the location of Asia. ... Professor Eric Thomas Eric Jackson Thomas, born 24 March 1953 in Hartlepool, County Durham, has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol since 2001. ... The University of Bristol is a university in Bristol, England. ... Research is often described as an active, diligent, and systematic process of inquiry aimed at discovering, interpreting and revising facts. ... Western Illinois University A university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees at all levels (bachelor, master, and doctorate) in a variety of subjects. ... Students attending a lecture at the Helsinki University of Technology The word student is etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation verb stÅdÄ“rÄ•, meaning to direct ones zeal at; hence a student is one who directs zeal at a subject. ...

Introduction

Founded in 2000¹, the Worldwide Universities Network is an invitation-only, nonprofit group of universities from China, The Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. 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 staff². It has also developed two research-based Master's degree programmes as well as other online training courses³, (see later). These courses are written jointly by academic staff from several of the participating universities. A nonprofit organization (abbreviated NPO, or non-profit or not-for-profit) is an organization whose primary objective is to support some issue or matter of private interest or public concern for non-commercial purposes. ... The Netherlands (Dutch: Nederland) is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Dutch: Koninkrijk der Nederlanden). ... Online means being connected to the Internet or another similar electronic network, like a bulletin board system. ... There are several conceptual views of interactivity, the most general being the contingency view. ... Look up Video in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A seminar is a form of academic teaching, at a university or offered by a commercial or professional organization, in small groups where students are requested to actively participate during meetings. ... A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate or graduate course of one to three years in duration. ...

Initially, the WUN comprised ten universities⁴, but has now expanded to include sixteen⁵. The current members are (in alphabetical order): University of Bergen, University of Bristol, University of California, San Diego, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Leeds, University of Manchester, Nanjing University, University of Oslo, Pennsylvania State University, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, University of Utrecht, University of Washington, Seattle, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of York and Zhejiang University. WUN's current chair is Eric Thomas⁶, Vice-Chancellor at Bristol. The University of Bergen (Universitetet i Bergen) is located in Bergen, Norway. ... The University of Bristol is a university in Bristol, England. ... The University of California, San Diego (popularly known as UCSD) is a public, coeducational university located in La Jolla, California. ... The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also known as UIUC and the U of I (the officially preferred abbreviation), is the flagship campus in the University of Illinois system. ... Parkinson Building, University of Leeds The University of Leeds, England, is one of the largest universities in the United Kingdom and the most popular by applicants, with 52,444 applicants in 2003 for 7,228 places (UCAS). ... The University of Manchester in Manchester, England, was formed by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester (commonly known as the University of Manchester before the merger) and UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) on 1 October 2004. ... Nanjing University (å—äº¬å¤§å¦, å—äº¬å¤§å¸, Pinyin: NÃ¡njÄ«ng DÃ xuÃ©; colloquially å—å¤§, Pinyin NÃ¡ndÃ ) is one of the oldest higher learning institutions in the world, and became the first modern Chinese university in the early 1920s. ... The University of Oslo (in Norwegian Universitetet i Oslo, in Latin Universitas Osloensis) was founded in 1811 as Universitas Regia Fredericiana (the Royal Frederick University, in Norwegian Det Kongelige Frederiks Universitet). ... The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related land-grant university with a main campus located in University Park, Pennsylvania, and 23 other campuses (some called Commonwealth Campuses) located throughout Pennsylvania. ... The University of Sheffield is a leading university, located in Sheffield, UK. // History The University of Sheffield was originally formed by the merger of three colleges. ... The University of Southampton is a British university situated in the city of Southampton, on the south coast of Great Britain. ... Utrecht University (Universiteit Utrecht in Dutch) is a university in Utrecht, The Netherlands. ... The University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a major public research university in the Seattle metropolitan area. ... The University of Wisconsinâ€“Madison is a public university located in Madison, Wisconsin. ... This article is about the British university. ... Zhejiang University æ±‚æ˜¯åˆ›æ–° (Seeking truth, making innovation) Zhejiang University (æµ™æ±Ÿå¤§å¦, pinyin ZhÃ¨jiÄng DÃ xuÃ©) is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China. ... Professor Eric Thomas Eric Jackson Thomas, born 24 March 1953 in Hartlepool, County Durham, has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol since 2001. ... A Vice-Chancellor (commonly called the VC) of a university in the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries, and some universities in Hong Kong, is the de facto head of the university. ...

The network is funded principally by its member universities, who each pay a one-off fee of $50 000 to join². 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 000². The online training courses that have been developed have also been supported financially by external organisations. This article is about general United States currency. ... Sun Microsystems, Inc. ...

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 areas⁸. 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:

There are numerous individual projects within each area. Science in the broadest sense refers to any knowledge or trained skill, especially (but not exclusively) when this is attained by verifiable means. ... The red line indicates the 10Â°C isotherm in July, commonly used to define the Arctic region border The Arctic is the area around the Earths North Pole. ... Making sense of the huge amounts of DNA data (pictured) produced by gene sequencing projects is just one of the tasks faced by bioinformatics. ... Chemistry (derived from alchemy) is the science of matter at or near the atomic scale. ... Unsolved problems in physics: Is it possible to construct a practical electronic device that operates on the spin of the electron, rather than its charge? Spintronics (a neologism for spin-based electronics), also known as magnetoelectronics, is an emergent technology which exploits a quantum property of electrons known as spin... Information technology (IT)[1] is a broad subject concerned with technology and other aspects of managing and processing information, especially in large organizations. ... Wireless is an old-fashioned term for a radio receiver, referring to its use as a wireless telegraph; now the term is used to describe modern wireless connections such as in cellular networks and wireless broadband Internet. ... This article or section may contain external links added only to promote a website, product, or service â€“ otherwise known as spam. ... ... For other meanings of Pacific, see Pacific (disambiguation). ... Weathering is the process of disintegration of rocks, soils and their minerals through natural, chemical, and biological processes. ... Sustainability is a systemic concept, relating to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society. ... Terms like SOSE (Studies of Society & the Environment) not only refer to social sciences but also studies of the environment. ... The International Monetary Fund defines Globalization (or globalisation) as â€œthe growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services, free international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technologyâ€. Meanwhile, The International Forum on Globalization defines it as... Chemistry (derived from alchemy) is the science of matter at or near the atomic scale. ... Biology is the branch of science dealing with the study of life. ... A precise definition of the arts can be contentious, but the following areas of activity are usually included: Art / Visual arts Architecture Crafts Dance Drawing Film Literature Music Painting Photography Pottery Sculpture Theater Unlike art, design focuses less on the aesthetics of a thing and more on the functionality of... The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view. ...

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 made¹⁰.

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 exchange¹⁰.

The scheme (that is, the home university) pays for travel expenses and subsistence, including accommodation and any local travel costs. On returning, the individual is required to write a report describing the exchange and how it benefitted the institutions involved and the WUN at large¹¹. The following is a list of subsistence techniques: Hunting and Gathering, also known as Foraging freeganism involves gathering of discarded food in the context of an urban environment gleaning involves the gathering of food that traditional farmers have left behind in their fields Cultivation Horticulture - plant cultivation, based on the...

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 cover¹²:

The WUN intends to add seminars on wireless communications, informatics and mediæval history later¹². Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the systematic study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with the environment, with particular reference to the causes and consequences of the spatial distribution of human activity on the Earths surface. ... Making sense of the huge amounts of DNA data (pictured) produced by gene sequencing projects is just one of the tasks faced by bioinformatics. ... Social policy is the study of the welfare state, and the range of responses to social need. ... Social work is a helping profession focused on social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being (IASSW & IFSW 2001). ... Chemistry (derived from alchemy) is the science of matter at or near the atomic scale. ... Wireless is an old-fashioned term for a radio receiver, referring to its use as a wireless telegraph; now the term is used to describe modern wireless connections such as in cellular networks and wireless broadband Internet. ... Informatics includes the science of information and the practice of information processing. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... For other senses of this word, see history (disambiguation). ...

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-learning³. A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate or graduate course of one to three years in duration. ... Public policy is a course of action or inaction chosen by public authorities to address a problem. ... Management (from Old French mÃ©nagement the art of conducting, directing, from Latin manu agere to lead by the hand) characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organisation, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). ... Making sense of the huge amounts of DNA data (pictured) produced by gene sequencing projects is just one of the tasks faced by bioinformatics. ... As opposed to the computer-based training of the 1980s, the term e-learning refers to computer-enhanced training. ...

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. WUN and UKeU agreed a course in geographical information systems¹³ which does not appear on WUN's e-Learning page and the establishment of an 'eLearning Research Centre'¹⁴, funded by HEFCE, which is still running [1], obviously without the involvement of UKeU, of which the seminar series mentioned is part. The UKeU (UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited) was a company and website that promoted online degrees from UK universities. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A geographic information system or geographical information system (GIS) is a system for creating and managing spatial data and associated attributes. ... The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) acts on behalf of the UK Government to distribute funding to Universities and Colleges of Higher and Further Education in England. ...

Contents

Introduction

Themes

Research and 'Grand Challenges'

Global exchange programme

Video seminars

eLearning

See also

References

External links

Contents

Introduction GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Themes

Research and 'Grand Challenges'

Global exchange programme

Video seminars

eLearning

See also

References

External links

Introduction