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Volkswagen Stiftung(Volkswagen Foundation)

The University of Birmingham's Transnational Academic Partnership with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been flourishing for a decade. Since its establishment in 2014, the Birmingham-Illinois Partnership for Discovery, Engagement & Education (known as “BRIDGE”) has become one of the University's most successful and robust strategic partnerships. BRIDGE was established to foster mutual collaboration and investment between the University of Birmingham and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The vision was to deliver breakthrough research and address shared global challenges including global health, sustainability, and education access and equity. The last 10 years have seen us deliver on the promise of that vision, fostering some 115 collaborative projects across dozens of academic disciplines, producing 110 joint publications, and investing over $1.1 million into the joint seed fund. As of 2025 this number has risen to 141 collaborative projects, all focused at tackling major global challenges.


Funded Research Projects


EPSRC IAA

EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account "Developing Leaders" Award


Entanglements

Wealth and Value in the Lithium-ion Battery Chain (Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Research)


RECREATE

REcycling CRitical Elements in Advanced Technologies for the Environment


HARMONY

Holistic Approach to enhance the Recyclability of rare-earth permanent Magnets Obtained from aNY waste Stream


UKICE

UK in a Changing Europe


SCREAM

Securing Critical Rare Earth Magnets


Met4Tech

UKRI Interdisciplinary Centre for a Circular Economy of Technology Metals


RESCU-M²

EPSRC Manufacturing Research Hub in Robotics, Automation & Smart Machine Enabled Sustainable Circular Manufacturing & Materials


ATETA

Accelerating Thermal Energy Adoption


WEST

Welsh Energy Sector Training


ReLIB

Recycling & Reuse of Lithium Ion Batteries


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