Contributors: Komal Bhatia, Dr Amit Khandelwal, Marilyn Aviles, Dr Ian Scott and Professor Monica Lakhanpaul

Global research culture celebrates creativity, knowledge exchange, and innovation – all underpinned by collaboration. The modern academy employs its sharp tools to find new solutions to old problems and provide historicised perspectives on contemporary phenomena. Some ideas can set society on the path to more sustainable and equitable development, while others fall short of the promise they first held. And so, the circle of (research) life continues.

So here is a question (asked many times) in academia: What’s the best way to create an environment in which brilliant research can flourish and provide benefits for society at large?

Well, we don’t know what the best method is, but we do know of a really good one: joint seed funds.

Joint seed funds

These are a research funding mechanism in which two (or more) organisations pool financial and institutional resources to enable their researchers to work together.

Unlike large multi-million-pound consortia with an established track record of collaboration between organisations, researchers who apply for joint seed funds are looking for small pots of money for a team with little history of collaboration but lots of potential. A fundamental pillar is an innate desire to build relationships that will be equitable, bi-directional and ideally longer-term – positioned to advance knowledge and solve challenges local and worldwide

UCL has deployed such seed funds across the world with specific partners. For example, in India our current joint research seed partners include AIIMS, IIT-D, IISc and IIT Madras. Both parties contribute an equal amount of money (recognising the equal partnership between both institutions) which goes to the researchers in their respective institutes who submit competitively assessed proposals, ensuring that the project (i) is split evenly between researchers and (ii) draws on joint  and complementary expertise in both institutions. UCL are currently exploring whether joint seed funds can be expanded to include multiple partner institutions or even possibly in another continent.

As members of the UCL panel that reviewed applications for Joint Seed Funds 2021-22 to foster collaboration between researchers in the UK and India, we read, discussed, and scored dozens of proposals. We have learnt a few things about why such funding mechanisms matter, what makes an application stand out, and who can benefit from joint seed funds.

Making a difference – why joint research seed funds matter

Key message: Big, strategic research partnerships have a better chance of succeeding if there is a solid history of collaboration supported by small pots of seed funding.

There are many reasons why joint research seed funds can help UCL researchers to engage with their overseas counterpart not only because big, strategic research partnerships have a better chance of succeeding if there is a solid history of collaboration supported by small pots of seed funding, but also to use research to benefit civic society and the environment, and to expanding the international footprint of collaborations. Some of these are discussed below.

1. Anchoring institutional partnerships and building trust

Joint seed funds can help embed large collaborative programmes of research in strong teams and solid partnerships. Participating organisations can benefit from a history of smaller projects which demonstrate impact and successful completion across multiple areas of research and departments. A series of joint seed funding schemes can help build relationships and trust between researchers as well as institutions.

2. Lever to promote interdisciplinary research and public engagement

By requiring applicants to demonstrate interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration and outlining clear public engagement activities, UCL’s joint seed funding schemes promote researchers who already value these ways of working and encouraging others to really think through how interdisciplinarity can benefit their research and what they can do to involve participants, patients and the public (civic society) in the research process.

It can be difficult to launch into these practices in large research programmes, so small seed grants can be an excellent method to nudge researchers into thinking across disciplines and producing outputs for lay audiences.

3. Agile mechanism for equitable collaboration

The joint funding model has an in-built equity feature to ensure that collaborating institutions have an equal stake in each project. Small grant schemes can also enable more equitable collaboration if they specifically encourage and commend applications from groups which are gender-equal, promote the career development of early career researchers, and involve mutual learning and demonstrably equal power-sharing between the so-called developed and developing world.

4. Reputation and Image through impact

Seed funds offer a good opportunity to embed researchers’ international footprint and market their expertise. In turn this could have a longer-term benefit of enhancing their reputation not only within UCL and partner institutions, but also externally, for example, in support of strengthening bilateral engagement between the UK and India. In fact, multilateral organisations such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and World Health Organisation are more willing to connect with researchers who are culturally adaptive, sensitive and reflective.

Why joint seed funds matter for you

Key message: Large grants can seem like the obvious solution to the most urgent research questions, but innovative research often needs modest amounts of money to get started. Seed funds are small but mighty.

If you are a research student…

Small, collaborative grants are a fantastic way to gain early experience in grant management, research governance, team building and publication, as well as to practices those core research skills. You can get involved in small projects led by your supervisors or colleagues, or if eligible, lead one of your own.

If you are an early career researcher…

Seed funds can be a steppingstone to bigger grants by helping you build a track record of funding success, find new collaborators, and most importantly, enabling you to conduct preliminary or formative work that can feed into applications for individual research fellowships or early career development schemes. If you’ve been looking for something to kickstart your journey towards independence, consider applying for a seed grant.

If you are on the review panel…

Enjoy the experience of learning more about the ideas of other researchers and the perspectives of other panellists. While you will almost certainly enjoy the power you hold over the future research plans of applicants, remember that seeing how others write and structure their proposals may also help you in your own work. Joining the review panel for small grants can be a useful way for early career researchers to gain some experience in assessing and scoring proposals, and bring a fresh perspective to the scheme’s priorities, so look out for the junior panellist who is keen to learn and keen to impress!

If you are a principal investigator…

Consider applying for one yourself, especially if you have a nascent idea that needs just that little bit more impetus to grow before it can take shape as a larger grant application. Seed grants can be useful at any career stage. If you are interested in supporting less experienced colleagues, encourage them to put forward an application and provide them with constructive feedback on their ideas and offer guidance throughout the process. Seed grants provide a structured mechanism to practice mentoring skills, and to encourage leadership training within your team.

If you are leading a department or institution…

There are many ways in which joint seed funds can help deliver your institutional strategy and research priorities. It allows your organisation to test emerging partnerships through small, impact-focused projects before investing in facilities and support for long-term, large-scale research programmes. Joint seed funds are also an excellent way to focus on priorities that require targeted work or a very visible commitment to wider institutional goals.

Conclusion

Joint research seed funds, even if the sum of monies offered is small in comparison to large multimillion pound grants, help to facilitate research internationally. They have a catalytic role in building relationships between the principal investigators and their teams, helping to enhance researchers’ expertise and the reputation of the institutions involved.

Crucially, they can also be a conduit to engage in citizen science, working with local communities or simply focusing on global research challenges.

The upshot is that joint seed funds can support your academic vision and hunger through research, knowledge exchange and transfer as well as develop the skills of the next generation of students in an increasingly globalised world.

See all UCL Research, Innovation & Global Engagement seed funding opportunities here.

Dr Kartik Sharma is an alumnus of the UCL Health Humanities Centre, filmmaker and founder of Public Arts Health and Us (PAHUS), an interdisciplinary organisation undertaking public engagement and evaluation initiatives to raise awareness of health and social issues through the medium of film and the arts.

PAHUS was conceptualised in Bangkok, Thailand and is based in New Delhi, India. It comprises of a board of international academics, artists and activists and frequently collaborates with universities, government agencies, research institutes, legal firms, filmmakers and arts-based organisations both in India and the UK. With support from the Hatchery, UCL Innovation & Enterprises’s startup incubator, PAHUS will soon begin operations in London.

Here, Kartik tells us how he’s been collaborating on a range of different UCL projects including a documentary and upcoming global arts and science exhibition opening on 26 March 2021, as well as his future plans and vision for PAHUS .

Can you tell us a little bit about the documentary you’re currently shooting?

I’m shooting a travel documentary called Myths and Beliefs in Rajasthan, a very colourful, diverse and culturally rich state in India approximately the size of France. It’s a UCL-led project from Pro-Vice-Provost (South Asia) Professor Monica Lakhanpaul and it is our latest collaboration together. I have travelled through six to seven cities scattered all across Rajasthan to film this documentary. I’ve had the opportunity to interview many different people from all walks of life, including royalty living in forts and regular people wandering upon camels. It will be another five or six months before the film sees the light of day but I’m really excited about it. I love filmmaking and using it to make public health and social issues more accessible, digestible and enjoyable for a regular audience. Today’s my last day in Rajasthan and tomorrow I’m flying back to Delhi to continue work on another UCL-led project, The Early Years: A Global Art & Science Exhibition.

How was the idea for The Early Years exhibition born and what will it involve?

The process started about a year ago when Professor Monica Lakhanpaul approached me with the idea of putting on a global art and science exhibition about the first 1000 days of a child’s life. I had previously worked with Monica to design a coffee table book for the PANChSHEEEL Project and directed a film for the NEON project. The upcoming exhibition is led by Monica and UCL Great Ormand Street Institute of Child Health, in collaboration with PAHUS and our India-based partner India Alliance.

Initially we wanted the exhibition to be held in-person at a popular art gallery in Delhi, but our plans shifted when COVID-19 struck and we decided to hold it virtually. On 26 March we’ll unveil the virtual platform with films, paintings and photographs collected from an India-focused art campaign. These will be showcased in an immersive way and later housed within the PAHUS web portal. We’ll also have a panel discussion on “The Power of Arts in Public Health.” Panellists will include Professor K. VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India; award-winning photographer Mr Raghu Rai; Sir Mark Tully, former Bureau Chief of BBC New Delhi; and senior members from the World Bank, Save the Children, India and UKRI India.

How will the UCL Hatchery programme support your vision for PAHUS?

I was granted an entrepreneurial visa from the UCL Hatchery programme, which I’ll be using to set up a new base for PAHUS in London. It was very competitive and I’m very grateful for the opportunity. I hope it will help further expand my vision of making research more accessible and interesting for the general public! I hope to strengthen the link between my work in India and the UK, and eventually expand to South East Asia and East Asia. I envision PAHUS growing to be a public relations and engagement agency that crosses boundaries and acts as a bridge between the public and research – this has become all the more important as we have seen so much misinformation flying about during the pandemic.

When you build a bridge you need a strong concrete foundation with dependable pillars and UCL has been that foundation for me over the years. I am very grateful to my Health Humanities tutor, Professor Sonu Shamdasani, who allowed me to make my course as eclectic as possible. I was able to complete my dissertation, The Story of Madness in Indian Cinema, with first class honours thanks to Professor Sonu’s patience and guidance. I must also thank Mr Jivko Hristov from the UCL Hatchery who really helped me hone my business idea to make it work in a UK setting. Last but not least, I must thank Professor Monica Lakhanpaul for her continuing mentorship – I feel very lucky to have met a UCL professor who is equally passionate about using the arts and filmmaking in research settings.

As a line goes in Cinema Paradiso, “whatever you end up doing, love it”. I somehow found myself founding PAHUS – and to be honest I am truly loving this journey.

Himani Gupta studied international real estate and urban planning at The Bartlett from 2011-2012. Having worked as a spatial designer and a consultant for Ernst & Young in Delhi, Himani is now working full time as an artist, specialising in painting.

We spoke to her to find out more about her experience at UCL and how she stays in touch with the UCL community.

How did you come to study at UCL?

Firstly, because I love the campus and I’d been following it for a while. Secondly, I found the work that’s been done at the Bartlett very relevant to the direction I wanted to go in professionally. Before doing my masters I used to be a spatial designer, but I wanted to get onto the other side which was understanding the business of cities and how infrastructure and real estate are developed around them.

How did you find studying at UCL?

It was a really enriching experience because I got to learn about the politics of space in Europe and the real estate markets in China and the Middle East. The freedom we had in terms of things like choosing our dissertation was great. I could also make it more India-centric, which helped me immensely after UCL in terms of getting a job in Management Consulting in the Urban field in India, as I’d written on similar topics for my masters.

Compared to my undergrad degree in Business Studies in India, UCL was more analysis-based. It took some time but once I got used to the structure of the course it opened up a new way of looking at things, which helped me in my job in the real world and still helps me now.

What was it like living in London?

I’ve always loved London so the city was very familiar to me. I lived in Bayswater in West London so I’d cycle or walk down to the campus. We organised Thursday drinks at the UCL bar, which became a hub for us each week. I found the balance between a lot of study and a lot of socialising quite enriching.

It’s all so centrally located and I liked that we had classes in different locations across the campus; I explored all sorts of hidden buildings. Now I’m an artist and my work is about psycho-geography and understanding layers of space, and the fact that I walked quite a bit while studying in London has shaped my approach to my work.

What would your advice be for a student in India looking to study at UCL?

Figure out funding very early on and give yourself a strict budget. Once you have that figured out life at UCL and in London is very easy.  At UCL, you have an account to access a student/teaching portal where all the modules and submissions are in one place. It’s really cool because one can study anywhere. UCL has a lot of libraries and quiet corners to study, which was one of my favourite parts. I’d say try and explore as many nooks and corners as possible around the campus.

What aspects of the culture did you enjoy?

The fact that you get to hear a different language every square foot or two. Because I’m a walker I take in and absorb London as I walk through it, and as you do you get an insight into how many cultures and backgrounds exist together in this city.

The art scene and the number of galleries in London is phenomenal and the shops that offer material really works for me. Also, the food! Which is a direct function of the number of cultures that exist here.

Even after graduation, I make it a point to visit UCL on my trips to London to catch up with old and new connections.

How have you kept in touch with the UCL community?

I moved back to India in 2013 but I recently wrote to another good friend of mine from my course who’s very active in New York with the UCL alumni group there. He put me in touch with UCL’s alumni team, and through them I got involved with volunteering in Delhi. I organised a reunion event in Delhi a few months ago – about 26 of us came together for a casual mixer event at the art-themed homestay I run.

I was curious to bring together people from different professions and initiatives not just for myself but for everyone present. It’s also a great way to form new social groups. I now look forward to more events and more people volunteering in Delhi. I’m happy to open up my studio (which can accommodate up to 35 people) to those interested in having an Arts and Culture themed reunion mixer.

Tell us about your work.

I’ve got my hands in a lot of pies! I used to work in spatial design before doing my masters then I came back to India and I started working as a consultant with Ernst and Young. So I used to be in management consulting in the infrastructure and smart cities team.

I’ve also been a painter for the last fifteen years and after deciding to leave consulting I wanted to focus on it full time. My visual arts practice is drawn from my very diverse experiences in education, professions and travels. Urban and spatial exploration has been a research interest of mine for a long time and what I try and study through my art is the idea of psychogeography and understanding the materiality of space. My medium in art is painting primarily and I create large pieces of work. I work with pigments and paint. Lately, I have been creating a lot of smaller works based on mapping.

What are you working on with the Slade?

Through my work as a UCL volunteer, I was introduced to Deborah Padfield, an artist and professor at the Slade who is exploring how chronic pain is communicated through the arts in a project called Visualising Pain.

She wanted to work with a local artist and although pain is not my direct subject, the fact I could use paint and pigment in order to help chronic pain sufferers communicate their pain better motivated me to get involved. I ended up co-facilitating a workshop with Deborah (and others) in Delhi in May 2019. It went really well and made an impact on our participants who battle chronic pain everyday.

How has UCL helped you to achieve your ambitions?

It’s interesting because before coming to UCL I wasn’t particularly motivated to do ‘well’ in the conventional sense – whether that’s an educational qualification or a job – my pace was a lot slower. Which is not necessarily a bad thing but in my case I wasn’t achieving too much or doing too much with my time.

I think UCL and my experience of living in London really inspired me and opened up a channel which I never knew existed in me, which is that of wanting to achieve and working hard. I got into the habit of maintaining a diary, organising myself better, understanding before speaking or describing. I started being meticulous about my work and had I not gone through this change I would still be very bohemian and less results orientated.

UCL would love to hear from more alumni in India and around the world.  

Get in touch and find out more about volunteering at ucl.ac.uk/alumni

By Ian Morton

Professor David Osrin is Professor of Global Health at UCL and a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science. Based in Mumbai since 2004, he works in an urban health research collaboration with SNEHA (the Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action).

Researching within the broad remit of urban health, he is particularly interested in complex social interventions and research ethics, and art and science’s utility in raising public awareness of health. We spoke to David to find out more about his life and work in India…

Can you give us a brief overview of your research in India?

My research has come a long way since I first began working in India in 2004. I started out looking at ways to improve the health of newborn babies in the Mumbai region, working with an excellent organisation called SNEHA. More recently though I’ve been working with organisations like SNEHA to tackle violence against women – an increasingly important issue in India.

I also work closely with the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai, the Family Planning Centre of India, and other health professionals in the area.

What got you interested in the subject in the first place?

When I first began working here, I noticed how committed and passionate everyone was about improving public health in India. It was this passion which inspired me to pursue my research to the extent that I have.

While public health has been an issue for a long time, it’s only in the last decade that violence against women has been a mainstream topic in India. Thanks to a number of landmark legal cases the Government has begun to take the issue much more seriously, and I’m so pleased our research techniques are being used to make a difference.

What difference do you hope it will make?

My vision is to contribute to a social transformation that is taking place throughout the world with respect to equality. In the case of India, my hope is that it will continue to lead to a reduction in violence against women. One of the things that stands out for me is that when we bring the local community together, anything is possible!

Can you tell us about the Institute’s relationship with India?

The Institute of Urban Health is not the only part of UCL working in India of course, and there are other colleagues at the Institute doing great work here too. Together with our partners, we’ve succeeded in engaging state level government in India to bring about some significant policy changes. As well as the work I’ve been doing there, Dr Audrey Prost has also achieved some great results with another Indian NGO called Ekjut – on improving the health and nutrition of new born children and adolescents.

What can UCL learn from your time working in India? What can the UK learn?

Aside from collaborating with people with a different background and outlook to my own, I’ve seen the power when communities come together to tackle societal challenges like public health. Legal intervention, emotional support and shelter are needs that we all share, so what we learn in India can be applied to the UK and vice versa.

What are some of your highlights from living in India?

Having being involved in some hugely important and large-scale research projects, in true collaboration with equal partners, to deliver world-class research.

I’m proud of the fact that during my time here we’ve seen the transformation of countless individuals. I’m also really proud of the public engagement work we’ve done, bringing together the disciplines of health, art and science, which led to a hugely successful festival called Dharavi (or Alley Galli) Biennale.

What has it been like working in the Indian slums?

I am very privileged to spend my working days in an informal settlement but not to live there. Not everyone has that privilege. The impact on me has been profound, and the importance I place on certain things is very different now to when I was living in the West.

The challenges associated with finding clean water, a shelter to withstand the elements, and the need for electricity have all given me a greater appreciation of the basic health and wellbeing needs we all share.

What would you like to say to other academics at UCL thinking of collaborating with others in India?

I think they should absolutely collaborate here if they can. In my view, the academic and research capability of teachers in India is on a par with the UK. Also, I’ve never experienced being hampered by the government structures in place in India. In fact, quite the opposite.

The number of people who are willing to participate in the research has also been incredibly valuable for my research. There’s a lot of enthusiasm in India among the public for taking part in research – perhaps more so than the UK.

It goes without saying that the intercultural interaction which informs my research has also enhanced my experience here.

By Yasmin Abedin

Yasmin is a fifth year Medical student at UCL. Here, she blogs about her time spent volunteering for the charity Maternal Aid Association (Maa) in Bangladesh. 

Empower (/em-pow-er/) verb
Make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.

Women globally experience inequalities in all areas of society, from the workplace to healthcare.

Growing up in an all-female home, my mum instilled in me the importance of feeling positive about yourself, but also of being a force of positivity for those around you, especially women who have not had the same opportunities.

Guided by this driving force, in August 2018, I worked with the charity ‘Maternal Aid Association’ (Maa), leading their flagship project in Bangladesh, JourneyMaa.

Maa has a simple aim: to revolutionise maternal healthcare in resource-poor settings across the developing world.

Maternal health camps

JourneyMaa is a stepping-stone towards this goal and provides free maternal health camps and education to hundreds of pregnant women living in rural Bangladesh, by establishing a unique collaboration between volunteers from the UK and healthcare professionals from Bangladesh.

The maternal health camps involved conducting basic health checks, which are vital in preventing and detecting complications during pregnancy. These included blood pressure, urine dipstick and blood glucose measurements to screen for conditions such as gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia, some of the leading causes of maternal mortality in Bangladesh.

Emotional strength

From speaking to pregnant women, I was struck by how common it was for women to miscarry and experience neonatal deaths in Bangladesh.

The emotional strength it must take to overcome such a tragedy is unimaginable. What makes this even more shocking is that with better maternal healthcare, many losses could have been prevented.

In addition to health camps for pregnant women, we provided educational seminars for young girls to tackle the deep-rooted stigma surrounding the topic of menstruation. In many cultures, including Bengali culture, women are generally considered ‘unclean’ during menstruation. 

Due to these beliefs, there are various restrictions placed on menstruating women, as well as unsafe sanitary practices that occur.

For example, menstrual rags are used repeatedly and often improperly washed without soap and dried in damp conditions, which can fester with bacteria and insects. This poses a potentially life-threatening infection risk to girls.

Combatting stigma

To address this, we delivered educational talks and created an open space for discussion about periods to combat stigma and help the girls understand how to maintain good menstrual health. It was inspiring to hear the thoughts of the girls both before and after the seminars as it highlighted how their confidence had improved when speaking about what is traditionally a taboo topic.

Pre-seminar, they were apprehensive and shy when asked about their experience with periods. However, post-seminar, the confident manner in which they were discussing menstrual hygiene was fantastic – I was moved by their enthusiasm for learning and progression.

Bottom-up approach

I believe female empowerment through education is a strong tool to make long-lasting and widespread change. Educating women and girls has positive ripple effects in society, particularly through bottom up approaches. A bottom-up approach refers to the idea that individual actions can have a huge impact when adopted by many.

The girls we spoke to were keen on spreading their knowledge to their mothers and aunts, which meant the knowledge they acquired would span across multiple generations. These girls are the ambassadors of charge that is so desperately needed.

Educating a girl is a critical investment into their future, as well as the future of their country. As stated in a UNICEF report: “When you educate a girl, you educate a whole nation”.

Working with Maa has been incredible, and I am thrilled to be working again in Bangladesh this summer as the project manager of JourneyMaa 2019. With passionate individuals at its forefront, Maa is on its way to revolutionise global maternal healthcare, one step at a time.

This past summer, Professor Marie Lall, UCL’s Pro-Vice-Provost for South Asia, travelled to Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, with Jonathan Dale from UCL Institute of Education’s London Leadership Centre.

In Yangon they delivered a two-day workshop on school leadership to 90 head teachers from the state, monastic, ethnic and private sectors. A few academic colleagues from Yangon and Mandalay University, as well as some teacher trainers from teacher education colleges, also attended. The Myanmar partner ‘Smile Education’, a local NGO, arranged for participants to come from across the country including some remote and conflict-affected areas.

In Nay Pyi Taw Professor Lall and Mr Dale delivered a one-day workshop on policy development to 18 Ministry of Education (MoE) officials. All were senior civil servants, most holding the post of director general of their departments. After the workshop, they were asked to do an interactive briefing with government MPs sitting on the education select committees of the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament.

Professor Lall said: “Myanmar is in a reform phase and there is a great need for capacity building at government level. I have worked with different stakeholders across the board for over a decade. However, I have never worked directly with the MoE till now and it’s unusual to have access to the heads of all departments of one ministry. The event was a resounding success.”

Since the country opened up in 2012, it has been awash with aid agencies and universities who offer help and capacity building. However, UCL’s advantage is that Professor Lall has worked in the country since 2004/5 and therefore has a reasonably good understanding of the needs that arise out of the reform process within the field of education. “UCL’s unique position can be different in that we meet actual needs without trying to impose programmes that have little relevance to the complicated local context,” added Prof Lall.

As a consequence of this activity, Professor Lall and Mr Dale recently won a new £150,000 British Council grant focused on ‘Supporting the Transformation of Higher Education in Myanmar’.

These efforts are part of UCL’s growing engagement with Myanmar that aims to build capacity across the public sector as the country continues its reform process.

If you would like to learn more about UCL’s work in Myanmar, please contact Professor Lall at m.lall@ucl.ac.uk.

Bloomsbury Festival is is a five-day celebration of the area’s pioneering creativity. A recent collaboration between UCL’s Theo Bryer and Rebecca Wilson and partners in India was among work featured at this year’s festival, which ran from 18-22 October.

UCL Institute of Education’s Theo Bryer and Rebecca Wilson ran drama and filmmaking sessions with young people in and around Bengaluru for two weeks in July 2017, as part of a project supported by the UCL Global Engagement Funds.

They collaborated with Sangam, a local education centre, and worked with young people from Parikrma Humanity Foundation School, Delhi Public School and Baale Mane girls’ home.

Together the team ran a series of workshops, developed for groups of thirty, after which the participants were invited to produce short films in small groups.

Lecturer Theo and ICT Teaching Support Analyst Rebecca said they were particularly interested in finding out how approaches to filmmaking using iPads worked in these very different contexts.

“We were given a very warm reception in all our partner organisations” said Theo. “Sharing ideas with the incredible teachers, educationalists and young people that we met was a highlight of this trip.”

Students at Parikrma Humanity Foundation made melodramas based on the stimulus of the arrival of a letter.

At Delhi Public School, they made documentaries based on the model of the AJ+ news items (made by Al Jazeera) that are designed for social media.

At Baale Mane girls’ home, the older girls made melodramas and the younger girls, horror films.

Theo and Rebecca also made three films with a group of homeschooled children based in the local area.

“We were struck by the way in which the visual and cultural aspects of filmmaking facilitated this creative endeavour, so that even the youngest children were able to understand what was expected of them,” added Rebecca.

The outcomes of the project were largely positive. Theo noted: “The touch-screen technology proved as accessible in India as in our projects in the UK, although not all the children have ready access to this kind of technology – not all of them own phones, for example.

“All the young people seemed motivated by the opportunity to share what they had made with their peers, carers and teachers and this awareness of a final audience helped them to shape their work in specific ways.”

Theo said a total of 24 films were made.

“One of our favourites, Perceptions, is 36 seconds long.

“We suggest that you watch Valuables, Perceptions and The Mummy 2 as examples from each of the places that we worked in.”

 

• All the project’s films can be viewed here.
• Bloomsbury Festival website
• Learn more about the UCL Global Engagement Funds

UCL and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi are to deliver a three-day international workshop focused on finding environmentally friendly solutions to pressing challenges.

The Closed Loop Green Technologies for Rural Communities workshop, hosted at IIT Delhi from 11-13 September, will explore the reuse of solid and food waste for energy generation, improved water resources management, sanitation and energy provision.

Set up through a Newton Bhabha Fund Researcher Links grant, the workshop supports India’s Unnat Bharat Abhiyan programme with its vision of bringing about transformational change by leveraging the knowledge of academic institutions.

Connecting with local communities

Dr. Priti Parikh, Associate Professor at UCL’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, and Dr. Ram Chandra, Energy Bioscience Overseas Fellow (IIT Delhi) are the lead coordinators of the workshop.

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan connects academic institutions with local communities to address development challenges through participatory processes and appropriate technologies.

The event will bring together early career researchers from India and the UK – 15 participants from each country – to identify gaps in research, foster new collaborations, facilitate knowledge exchange, develop ideas for future grant applications and make recommendations to support the implementation of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan.

The Newton Bhabha Fund Researcher Links grant is funded by the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Royal Society of Chemistry and delivered by the British Council.

More information

• Find out more about UCL in South Asia
• Unnat Bharat Abhiyan
• Newton Fund Researcher Link Workshop Grants 

UCLSat, a satellite designed and built by UCL engineers and scientists, was launched in June from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India as part of an international mission called QB50.

The satellite is now 507km up and going overhead three times a day (six times actually, but three times in working hours).

On the current status of the satellite, Dr Rob Wicks (UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction) said: “We have our ground station here and we listen to it every time it goes overhead and we get data back. It’s working well at the moment, touch wood.”

Funded by the European Union, the QB50 mission has involved the launch of a network of CubeSats built by universities all over the world to collectively study the physics and chemistry of the middle and lower thermosphere of the Earth for the first time.

The mission has fostered a lot of collaboration across universities, science institutes and industry partners. For example, two universities in Australia help UCL listen for radio contact with UCLSat, and UCL does the same for them.

“Australian National University and Adelaide University are both helping us out with radio contact with our satellite,” explained Dr Wicks. “And that’s kind of on just a friendly, reciprocal basis. We listen to theirs and they listen to ours. There’s no official paperwork to do with that, but we are just collaborating as friendly institutions.

“It’s one of the great things about QB50 – you have these 50 institutions around the world that are now sort of semi-friendly and talk to one another about radios and satellites and things like that.”

A resounding success

UCL has been involved in the mission since 2011 and, in addition to working on UCLSat, UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) engineers also produced hardware for 13 of the other satellites.

The mission has been a resounding success. The failure rate for CubeSats is usually 40%, but the CubeSats launched during the QB50 mission is half that, at 20%.

Speaking of UCL’s achievements and pioneering vision for the project, Dr Wicks added: “UCL should be extremely happy that it has been a leader in this field of big CubeSat missions. The whole mission right from the beginning has been a struggle, because space agencies and a lot of the science community were very negative about CubeSats. They said ‘they are too small and too unrealisable – it’s a waste of time and a waste of money to try and do science with them’.

“I think we are basically proving them wrong – we can use them for education, we can use them for training and we can use them for science. We can keep them cheap. We expect that 20% will fail, but that is better than 40%, and we are going to get real useful scientific data out of it. It is only really now that the science community is waking up to this.”

Student support

UCL students have been heavily involved in the project. Masters students worked with MSSL in the early stages of the project on the design of the satellite and on simulations of the upper atmosphere, among others.

Théophile Brochant de Villiers, who worked on the CubeSat while studying for his MSc in Space Science and Engineering at UCL, is now a technician in the MSSL Department of Space & Climate Physics.

He said: “We were a small team working on UCLSat. This meant there was a lot of work and a lot of tasks that I wasn’t necessarily trained for. So I learned everything on the job; this required being proactive, and not being afraid to seek out help around the lab. I got to know a lot of amazing scientists and engineers which I still regularly interact and work with. This is what I’m most proud of.”

• Read a Q&A with Théophile about his work on UCLSat here.
• 36 CubeSats have been launched into orbit in 2017. Their positions, data, and detailed information can be found on the QB50 Display, Processing and Archiving Center.
• Find more news from the UCL Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences here.

Written by Narinder Kapur, Visiting Professor of Neuropsychology

The year 2015 saw the unveiling of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square and 2017 is being celebrated in Britain as the India-UK year of culture to mark 70 years of Indian Independence.

These events provided an ideal opportunity to uphold and renew Gandhi’s ideals for the promotion of his principles of nonviolence, tolerance and justice, and for a focus on the problems of the poor and needy in the world.

With these aims in mind, on 28 April 2017 we held an international conference at UCL entitled – Mahatma Gandhi in the 21st Century: Gandhian Themes and Values.

The purpose of the conference was to raise awareness of Gandhian ideals, to encourage people in India and the UK to think about Gandhian issues and values, and to encourage innovation in producing solutions to problems such as poor healthcare, education access and violence in society.

Topics that were covered included Gandhian perspectives on justice, education, nonviolence, and health, as well as a focus on village India and how innovations, such as frugal medical innovations, can be cheaply produced and help common conditions.

Pro-Vice-Provost South Asia Professor Marie Lall (UCL Institute of Education) outlined some of the key collaborations that UCL has with India, and we enlisted eminent speakers from the UK, India and the USA to speak on a range of topics related to Gandhian issues and ideals.

In parallel with the conference, we held a major exhibition of Gandhi-related items, including:

• Frugal innovation devices in healthcare, to parallel the talk given by Professors Prabhu and Bhargava. This included devices jointly developed by the All India Medical Institute in Delhi and Stanford University, as well as the Jaipur Limb
• A set of 100 unique photographs provided by GandhiServe in Germany
• Interactive displays where delegates explored issues related to global citizenship, altruism and moral judgment
• A virtual reality app built specifically around the Taj Mahal and Gandhi, where delegates could feel what it is like to be at the Taj Mahal and also ‘in the skin’ of Gandhi
• A Gandhi in Sight and Sound powerpoint presentation that had key speeches and video clips about Gandhi, including a Gandhi ‘Rap’ song by MC Yogi.

In the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, and in order to have maximum participation in the conference, we did not charge for attendance. Since Gandhi was keen for his values and ideals to permeate throughout India, as well as countries such as the UK, we funded five fellowships to enable young Indian citizens to attend the conference.

They were selected as part of an essay competition, with the essay including a focus on how Gandhi is relevant today, and how he can be made more relevant.

Around 100 delegates attended the event, including a journalist from the Times of India.