Imperial and MIT share a commitment to address key global challenges and for 2020, the MIT-Imperial College London Seed Fund will call for research into climate solutions and the transition to zero pollution.
The funding, worth $100,000 in total, will bring together researchers from two of the world’s best universities to build early-stage collaboration.
The seed fund is calling for innovations to help prevent the worst consequences of climate change and will help build a future that is free from human-made pollution.
Imperial’s Vice-President (International) Professor Maggie Dallman, said: “This seed fund marks an exciting new chapter in our collaboration with MIT and will enable our scientists to work more closely together to reduce the impact of pollution on the climate and people’s health. Global issues can only be solved with international collaboration and innovative ideas and this seed fund provides a platform for scientists to do that.”
Professor Richard Lester, Associate Provost at MIT said: “The new focus of the MIT-Imperial seed fund on climate change and environmental sustainability reflects research priorities at both institutions. The world’s leading research universities have a special responsibility to develop science-based solutions to these great challenges, and by working together on these problems MIT and Imperial can reasonably hope to strengthen their combined impact.”
The initiative builds on decades of strong connections between Imperial and MIT, including thousands of top-tier journal papers, hundreds of student exchanges and scores of academic partnerships.
These include an Africa-focused seed fund, a Global Fellows Programme that brings together some of the most promising PhD students from both universities, an undergraduate summer exchange scheme and many research collaborations.