Sussex Research and the International Office have made three awards under the International Research Partnerships and Network Fund.

The initiative, financed by the University’s International Partnership Development Fund, was designed to enable the University’s Research Centres to develop and enhance international strategic partnerships and networks that facilitate sustainable research programmes.

Professor Alan Lester, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor (Interdisciplinary Research), said: “Each of these awards will enable Sussex to partner with leading research institutions around the world to conduct targeted, first-class research on an enduring, collaborative basis.”

The following International Research Partnership and Network Fund awards were made:

• Professor Magnus Marsden, Director of the Sussex Asia Centre, has been awarded funds to develop the Inter-Asian Dynamics Research Network. This interdisciplinary research network will involve the University of Sussex Asia Centre, the Asia Research Institution and Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore, the Koç University Asia Centre, and the Afghanistan Centre for Strategic Studies (Kabul). The partnership will develop original research on Inter-Asian connections, comparisons and circulations.

• Professor Maya Unnithan, Director of the Centre for Cultures, Reproduction, Technologies and Heath (CORTH), was awarded funds for Narrating Blood: An international network for cross-cultural research and intervention into blood-related reproductive and adolescent health and care- economies in India, Bangladesh, Ghana and the UK. The proposed programme of work will create a unique network of scholars across the globe to ‘talk about blood’. Drawing together complementary international and national research expertise from across anthropology, psychology, education, geography, migration, medical and public health, the programme will establish a set of analytic and methodological instruments to address the social, economic and health burden of hidden blood related conditions such as anemia in lower and middle income countries. It will focus on the way blood is narrated within policy discourse as well as perceived in terms of weakness (anemia) or stigma (menstrual) in everday family, school and livelihood contexts in poor, rural, urban and migrating populations.

• Professor Andrew Hadfield, Director of the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, was awarded funds for the UCD-Sussex Medieval and Renaissance Network. The Medieval and Renaissance Network will develop and enhance research and the study of Medieval and Early Modern literature and culture at both Sussex and University College Dublin.

Further information: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/staff/research/sussexresearch/irpn