Europe - Collaboration

Oxford also collaborates on a number of high-profile pan-European research projects.  

• Physics: Oxford’s department of Physics has been deeply involved for over a decade in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland.

• ATLAS: Oxford scientists have been contributing to many aspects of the LHC and its experiments, specifically to the ATLAS detector which is one of the two major experiments in particle physics being run at the collider. Key parts of the collider and its particle detectors were engineered in Oxford laboratories.  

• The Department of Physics also led a European consortium that designed the E-ELT's HARMONI spectrograph, one of the proposed telescope's key instruments.     ATLAS Group - Now that the collider is running, the Oxford ATLAS Group continues to work on a number of aspects of the project, including hardware, computing and physics analysis.   

• Mathematical Institute - In the field of mathematics, Oxford’s Mathematical Institute is one of 12 European institutions participating in the EU funded ‘Stochastic Analysis and Its Applications’ project. This collaborative project aims to develop an improved mathematical understanding of random systems and at the same time provide training and research opportunities for young researchers.  It draws on the expertise of scientists in 6 European countries and has employed at least 20 young researchers.   

• Astrophysics - In the field of astrophysics, Oxford is a key collaborator of a number of cutting edge European projects of space exploration, both those based on the earth and those journeying into space.  Oxford University scientists are taking a lead role in creating the instrumentation for the planned European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) based in Chile.

• Oxford’s expertise in astrophysics is not just confined to ground based projects like the E-ELT. Oxford has a strong history of contributing instrumentation and data analysis techniques for outer solar system missions. This tradition of excellence is being continued with Oxford’s participation in the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), a space mission to explore Jupiter and its moons which is due to launch in 2022 and reach Jupiter in 2030. Oxford will contribute instrumentation needed for the flight to Jupiter and to propose experiments to be carried out by the mission. The project involves collaborators from top universities in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain.

At the technological end of Oxford’s medical research, researchers from Oxford, Valencia Polytechnic Universities, and University of Szeged, Hungary, have been working alongside pharmaceutical companies in Fujitsu laboratories to create a simulation which models the effect of drugs on the heart, which could potentially lead to considerably safer and more accurate methods for testing the coronary impacts of new medicines. This European Commission funded project, preDICT, is part of a much wider aim of working towards the development of a Virtual Physiological Human. 

• International Migration Institute -
  The International Migration Institute in the Oxford Martin School is coordinating the THEMIS project along with three main collaborators: Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and the University of Lisbon. This international study takes a new look at how patterns of migration to Europe develop, focusing on the development of initial moves by pioneer migrants into well established migration systems. The project will encompass migration from a very broad range of countries of origin, from Brazil to the Ukraine. The IMI is also a partner in EUMAGINE, a three-year collaborative European research project which aims to investigate the impact of perceptions of human rights and democracy on migration aspirations and decisions.

• Modern European History Research Centre (MEHRC) - Oxford historians at the Modern European History Research Centre (MEHRC) are collaborating with European colleagues to explore the wave of activism of 1968. Unlike previous studies, this project explores activism not only in the democracies but also in the dictatorships of southern Europe (Franco’s Spain, the Greece of the Colonels) and in the Communist dictatorships beyond the Iron Curtain (the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the USSR). The 14 strong MEHRC team including historians from the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Spain, Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic, will focus on uncovering neglected narratives, investigating whether there were common or conflicting experiences across countries, and tracing transnational links between activists.  

• EQUALSOC - Oxford’s department for Sociology and the Nuffield College Sociology Group are joint representatives of Oxford University in EQUALSOC, a European Union funded Network of Excellence created to mobilise and develop research expertise across Europe on economic change, quality of life, and social cohesion.   

• Biofresh - The Oxford Centre for the Environment in the School of Geography and Environment is one of 19 European partner institutions in Biofresh, an EU-funded international project that aims to build a global information platform for scientists and ecosystem managers with access to all available databases describing the distribution, status and trends of global freshwater biodiversity.  
  

• NESSHI and the Saïd Business School. As an example of Oxford’s commitment to working on truly multidisciplinary subject matter, the Saïd Business School is one of the participants in NESSHI, a three year, € 1.2 million project supported by four European research agencies. It aims to map the development of new neuro-social sciences and study their impact on society. This is achieved through surveying, observing, and following several communities of "neuro-social" scholars: neuroeconomists, neuromarketers and neurophilosophers. Other participants include Institut Jean-Nicod and University of Aix-Marseille in France; University of Mainz in Germany; and Erasmus, Leiden and Groningen Universities in the Netherlands.

Oxford collaborations are not just limited to externally focused research; it is also involved in innovative partnerships looking at universities themselves.

ULab: European Laboratory for Modelling the Technical Research University of Tomorrow is an innovative think tank of five leading technical and research-intensive European universities: the Technical University of Madrid, the Polytechnic University of Turin, the Technical University of Munich, the Paris Institute of Technology and the University of Oxford, which is led by the Oxford Internet Institute. It will review, evaluate and experiment with current policy governing research, entrepreneurship and outreach activities at these five universities. It aims to help its members to understand how better to develop technical research policies for future innovation in the universities of tomorrow.

Beyond these multiple partner European collaborations, individual researchers at Oxford are collaborating with colleagues at other European universities on a broad range of research.

Oxford researchers in the Department of Earth Sciences and the Oxford Martin School are collaborating with the Budapest University of Technology and Economics to investigate new ways of removing carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

Research directed by the University of Oxford and University College Cork in collaboration with the Laboratory of Prehistory at St Petersburg, Russia,has been dating fossils found at cave sites in the northern Caucasus in Russia and produced evidence that late Neanderthals died out over 10,000 years earlier than had previously been thought.

The Oxford Internet Institute has been collaborating with colleagues from the University of Zaragoza, Spain to analyse the use of social media in riots, revolutions and protests. Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology, Switzerland, will use the latest genetic techniques to investigate organic remains that some have claimed belong to the ‘Yeti’ and other ‘lost’ hominid species.

In the medical sciences, clinical trials into a new drug for the muscle-wasting disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy led by researchers at Oxford University and the University of Bari in Italy have produced promising results.

This list gives only a brief glimpse of the multitude of collaborative links taking place between Oxford researchers and their European colleagues across all disciplines.

Oxford has also signed a number of Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) agreements with prominent European universities and research institutions to further collaborative links. Active MOUs are in place with CNRS in France, Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute of the Open University of Catalonia in Spain, and Perm State University in Russia.

The MOU with Perm State marks the 2nd such agreement between the institutions. This was renewed after the considerable successes of the first partnership which included placements in Perm State University for Oxford undergraduates studying Russian and for Oxford postgraduates doing research; annual one-month research visits by Perm professors to Oxford; completion of a 3-year project involving political scientists in Oxford and Perm to write a book jointly on Good Governance; an expedition for geography students to the Urals with Perm geography postgraduates; annual three-week study visits to Oxford by groups of teachers from Perm University; a major Oxford-Perm conference on contemporary English literature in Russia; exchanges of academics who have lectured to PSU students and faculty members in the faculties of law, physics, English, zoology, social studies and to Oxford students and faculty members in the faculties of Law and Modern Languages and Literature.

Oxford University is also a member of a number of prestigious associations and networks of excellence for European universities and research institutions.

•    The League of European Research Universities (LERU) was founded in 2002 as an association of 12 research-intensive universities sharing the values of high-quality teaching within an environment of internationally competitive research. It now has 20 members, including the universities of Oxford, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Freiburg, Geneva, Heidelberg, Helsinki, Leiden, Leuven, Imperial College, UCL, Lund, Milan, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Marie Curie, Paris-Sud 11, Karolinska, Strasbourg, Utrecht and Zurich.

•   Europaeum was founded in 1992 as an association of European universities focusing on European issues, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Its activities include research projects, annual conferences and student summer schools, lectures, joint teaching programmes, public debates, staff mobility schemes, linked scholarship schemes, and a developing knowledge platform. Alongside Oxford, the Europaeum’s membership consists of the Universities of Bologna, Bonn, Leiden, Paris, Helsinki, Complutense in Madrid, Charles University in Prague, the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. The Europaeum also has links with Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute.

•    The Coimbra Group is an association of long-established European multidisciplinary universities of high international standard. Founded in 1985, the Coimbra Group is committed to creating special academic and cultural ties in order to promote, for the benefit of its members, internationalization, academic collaboration, excellence in learning and research, and service to society. It also aims to influence European educational policy and to develop best practice through mutual exchange of experience. Oxford is among its 38 members.

 •    The European University Association represents institutions of higher education from across Europe and seeks to influence the outcomes of European policy level debates on higher education issues.