Proposal for Travel Grant to Promote International Collaboration

In the past there have been various attempts to have joint programmes with EPSRC and other international funding bodies, such as NSF, but there has been a problem of 'double jeopardy' with two proposals. If one of the proposals was rejected by a funding body then collaboration would be difficult.The aim of this initiative is to determine procedures for international collaboration that will lead to joint funded research.Staff from Loughborough University's IMCRC will visit the NSF Design and Manufacturing Innovation grantees conference (July 2006, Saint Louis, Missouri) to meet with existing NSF grant holders to discuss collaborative work and make plans for future proposals. There will also be further discussions with NSF staff to plan an initial joint programme and to prepare the details of the proposal assessment process. The Construction members of the IMCRC will link to potential collaborators at the Construction Industry Institute Conference in San Diego, California to discuss possible plans for collaborative research and determine which is the most appropriate funding body in the USA, in the case that it is not NSF. A group of manufacturing staff will visit Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology towards the end of September 2006, to observe the work being undertaken, meet local industry partners and to establish a formal collaborative programme. Once the pilot projects are running then it will be necessary for the researchers to visit their counterparts. It is anticipated that 30 researchers will visit overseas for a week at a time.