The Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) is sending out a new call for proposals for research, education and knowledge exchange projects to be carried out at the University of Cambridge, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The deadline for initial responses is 24 April (8pm GMT/3pm EST).

The purpose of this call is to generate proposals that can be grouped together in a limited number of Knowledge Integration Communities. Each of these Communities will focus on a particular area of applied/directed science, engineering or broader technologies. (The focus of the areas will depend on the nature of the proposals received.)

The aim of these Knowledge Integration Communities is to combine research with linked undergraduate/graduate education programmes, and also to involve industry.

The call for proposals is also being circulated to other organisations - including the Science Enterprise Centres at UK universities, and regional development agencies. They are being invited to submit co-funded proposals to work with Cambridge and MIT in these Knowledge Integration Communities, which will also study new methods of knowledge transfer.

The setting up of these Communities is part of CMI's new strategic plan to encourage, and experiment with, novel and different processes of knowledge exchange and application between universities, industry and public agencies.

Professor Michael Kelly, CMI's executive director at Cambridge, says: "We want both to undertake cutting-edge research in areas where the UK has a competitive, or pre-competitive position, and to experiment with new processes of knowledge exchange between university and industry.

"We are setting up UK Knowledge Integration Communities to do this, since the most effective and successful way to achieve knowledge exchange is through human interaction."

Professor Ed Crawley, CMI executive director at MIT, adds: "In setting up these Knowledge Integration Communities, we are reaching out to other universities - and indeed to industry and to regional bodies - in order that we can both draw on their strengths, and broaden the impact of the innovations that these Communities will produce in the UK."


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