Universiteit Leiden

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Education, Research

Call for proposals: Birmingham - Leiden Collaboration Fund

4 June 2025

Want to start collaborating with colleagues at the University of Birmingham, or strengthen an existing partnership? Apply from 4 June for funding for a joint research or education project.

After two successful funding rounds, the Birmingham - Leiden Collaboration Fund invites researchers at The University of Birmingham and Leiden University to send in their proposals for closer collaboration of the two institutions.

Funding for new and existing collaborations

The fund is aimed at bringing the University of Birmingham and Leiden University closer together. This could be achieved by funding new collaboration initiatives, aimed at creating shared projects and activities that benefit students and staff. A second approach is to invest in scaling up existing collaborations to help them grow wider and involve more people at both universities. Both of these approaches are part of this year’s call.

The fund offers seed funding of maximum €15.000 for projects by colleagues at Leiden University and LUMC, together with academic staff at the University of Birmingham that connect research or education initiatives that grow into something larger, keeping our eyes on European funding.

In previous rounds a wide range of projects was funded, such as the establishment of a shared online depository for classes in sign language, in comparing excavation sites in Egypt and in research on plant-microbe interactions for interactions for food security and forest health.

Learn more or apply now

If you’re interested to explore your own collaboration opportunities, we could help you find a counterpart in Birmingham. You can also be involved in the collaboration by volunteering as evaluator or by connecting colleagues from Birmingham to your research or education activities. If you want to know more about the seed fund, or about the collaboration with the University of Birmingham, please contact Mechteld Bous.

Read more and apply

Past and future collaboration

Leiden University has a long history of collaborating with the University of Birmingham, starting with joint projects and initiatives focused on health, which led to Leiden’s short membership of EUniWell. Afterwards, the partnership has grown both wider and closer, involving every faculty and crossing disciplinary boundaries.

'Whenever I speak to colleagues working with UoB, I feel the energy of this collaboration. Two successful seed fund rounds show this too, we look forward to the third', says Hester Bijl, Rector Magnificus of Leiden University.

Professor Robin Mason, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International), University of Birmingham adds: 'We have such good fun collaborating.' 

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