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August 30, 2001

Seed money available from new Pitt program stressing global issues

A new Pitt program will award seed money grants of $25,000 to support international research conferences and workshops here on global issues.

The Global Academic Partnership (GAP) program is designed to strengthen interdisciplinary research and foster development of new courses here on global themes such as international security and conflict resolution, while encouraging scholarly ties between researchers at Pitt and other institutions worldwide.

"GAP is an effort to get faculty here and at universities around the world working together on cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research," said GAP's creator, William Brustein, director of Pitt's University Center for International Studies (UCIS).

Too often, Brustein said, international scholarly exchanges consist merely of pledges between university presidents that their institutions will collaborate on research. "Nothing much comes of these agreements because faculty at the grassroots level don't get involved," he said.

But GAP grants will be awarded to professors themselves. Teams of full-time and part-time tenured, tenure-stream and non-tenure-stream faculty (including lecturers and contract faculty) from a minimum of two Pitt schools (including the regional campuses) are eligible to submit a proposal.

Projects should relate to one of the six issue areas of UCIS's new global studies program: sustainable development; globalized economy and global governance; changing identities in a global world; technology and society; international security and conflict resolution, and global public health.

Any interdisciplinary project involving these themes is eligible, but faculty from four schools will get priority for the current academic year: business, engineering, public health, and public and international affairs.

The deadline for submitting GAP applications is Oct. 31. Application forms and details on GAP requirements are available from the UCIS director's office, 4G40 Posvar Hall (8-7400), or the UCIS web site at www.ucis.pitt.edu/html/application_forms.html.

— Bruce Steele

Filed under: Feature,Volume 34 Issue 1

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