Latest round of Research Forward supports cross-campus collaborations and diversity

Latest round of Research Forward supports cross-campus collaborations and diversity

Sixteen projects have been selected for funding in the second round of Research Forward, a program to stimulate innovative and groundbreaking research at UW–Madison that is collaborative, multidisciplinary and potentially transformative.

The winning projects were chosen from 96 proposals submitted by applicants across campus. They range from establishing a Microbial Natural Products Discovery Hub, to probing the origins of the universe, to examining the negative effects of poverty on adolescent academic success, to developing a new type of anti-tumor vaccine that can be used to treat cancer.

The Research Forward initiative is sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education and is supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which provides funding for one or two years, depending on the needs and scope of the project. Some of the projects that have been funded have the potential to fundamentally transform a field of study.

“Research Forward encourages collaboration among campus PIs, enhances PhD student and postdoc training, and strengthens our external grant funding requests,” says Steve Ackerman, vice chancellor for research and graduate education. “The projects we selected are truly forward-looking and use innovative approaches and tools such as state-of-the-art machine learning methods, 3D printing techniques and geostationary satellites.”

Full article including research projects and principal investigators