The University of Warwick has become a United Nations University (UNU) Hub in partnership with universities in Belgium and Ghana, connecting Warwick's research, teaching and global partnerships with the United Nations' work around the world.
As a UNU Hub, Warwick will join a network that supports policy research and solves global challenges. Each Hub is a collaboration between academic institutions and UNU institutes to bridge the gap between universities and the UN system.
Warwick's Hub will be developed in partnership with two UNU institutes: UNU-CRIS, in Bruges, and UNU-INRA, in Accra. This dual partnership will broaden the Hub's international reach and support collaboration across areas including global and regional governance, sustainable development, natural resources, policy, and the future of the social sciences.
The announcement builds on Warwick's growing engagement with UNU and follows a two-day Future of Social Sciences Symposium held on campus last summer. The event brought together academics, funders and policy-adjacent organisations to explore long-term opportunities for the social sciences and identify potential strategic partnerships.
Professor Caroline Elliott, Director of UN University at the University of Warwick, said: "Becoming a United Nations University Hub is an important moment for Warwick. It reflects our commitment to working across disciplines and borders to address complex global challenges, and to ensuring that university research has a clear route to policy, practice and impact."
Professor Philippe De Lombaerde, Director, UNU-CRIS, said: "This Hub is another key milestone in the long-standing collaboration between UNU-CRIS and Warwick, merging the research excellence of Warwick with the global reach, insight and voices of the UNU-CRIS network, and UNU more broadly. To address our collective problems, we need more exchange, more connection, and more proactivity, and this Hub will bring together bright minds from across the world, creating a space to develop new insights and comprehensive, realistic and actionable solutions."
The Hub will create new opportunities for Warwick researchers, students and partners to engage with the UNU network, develop international collaborations, and contribute evidence and expertise to debates that matter to governments, institutions and communities around the world.
