• Student mobility: what do (under)graduate students currently do? How common is international study or research for students? Is there integration between student mobility and research? What do students in your country typically hope to gain from international mobility?
• Researcher connections: what is the current status of international collaborations involving your teaching and research staff? What are the motivations for researchers to be involved in international collaborations?
• E-mobility: do any of your colleagues currently undertake joint teaching or research projects that involve electronic collaboration rather than travel? E.g., some institutions now offer joint seminars using video conferencing tools.
• What connections currently exist between your institution’s partnerships, your researchers’ connections, and your students’ international mobility?

Institutions and governments are expected to show the societal impact of their investments. This shapes university priorities to different degrees in different countries. Language science has enormous societal relevance, but this is often under-appreciated by universities and the public. Some countries are more aware of this than others.

• What are the societal issues, if any, that are most interesting to language scientists at your institution? E.g., some of the participating institutions have a strong interest in language and migration.
• What kinds of public engagement are language scientists at your institution already engaged in? This could involve outreach activities with families and schools, working with special populations or indigenous communities, or public communication via editorials, blogs, etc. (Example, Ohio State researchers run the Language Pod research lab within a large science museum.)

We are interested in knowing the existing resources that could potentially be used to support GRAIL activities. “Resources” includes not only money, but also logistical support with finding hosts, arranging visas or course access, or any other kind of support.

• What institutional or national resources are available to support student mobility? Do students self-fund? Does student mobility depend on personal or family resources? (Example: Maryland’s International Graduate Research Fellowships use a model in which  host and visitor co-fund research visits.)
• What institutional or national resources are available to support international research partnerships?
• How does your institution support or value international engagement?

The Global Research Alliance in Language (GRAIL) is an initiative proposed by U21 member universities. Its focus is on Language Science, a broad field that spans fundamental science of language (from philosophy to neuroscience) and applications in education, technology, and health. GRAIL aims to facilitate cooperation among students, among researchers, and among disciplines. The combined strength of U21 institutions could raise the profile of language science internationally, and highlight the importance of language science for broad societal challenges. If successful, GRAIL represents a scalable model of internationalisation that aligns the needs of students, researchers, and institutions.

The idea for GRAIL was floated in the Spring 2014 meetings of U21 leaders, and discussed further at meetings of U21 leaders in 2015. There have been many bilateral discussions among researchers, but the Edinburgh workshop represents the first time that researchers from across U21 have come together to develop more concrete plans for GRAIL.

Draft plans circulated in 2015 can be found here (2-pager for presidents), here (more detailed version for researchers), or here (slides for VPRs).    

Language science is an attractive theme for a global initiative: it requires a global perspective, and allows institutions throughout the world to contribute expertise in many different ways, without domination by the most expensive technology.

U21 brings together a remarkable range of talent in language science. And GRAIL aims for the backing of top university leaders. For these reasons, GRAIL offers an exceptional opportunity to raise the profile of language science internationally. Its multi-disciplinary focus already contributes to within-institution synergy.

Why rely on U21 rather than a hand-picked set of language science groups? Because of the existing commitments and infrastructure that U21 provides. The institutions are already invested in cooperation at the highest level. Mechanisms are already in place for student mobility and coordination among leaders. A hand-built researcher network could not easily achieve this level of institutional buy-in.

To show whether the proposed initiative is feasible and has broad buy-in from member institutions. And to make recommendations to be considered by meetings of U21 leaders in the following 2 weeks.

The Vice Presidents for Research and Graduate Deans will be meeting in Maryland on May 2-4. The Presidents/Vice Chancellors will be meeting in Singapore on May 11-13. The workshop is tasked with generating recommendations that they can consider. The recommendations should address the feasibility, impact, and cost of a broad U21 initiative in language science. 

GRAIL has emerged as a grassroots initiative, primarily led by researchers, and with engagement from across the U21 network. This is an attractive feature. The Edinburgh workshop has the opportunity to demonstrate to U21 leaders that this broad engagement is genuine.

Because it is a societally important issue where language science could make a difference.

Institutions are strongly motivated to show that their investments address pressing societal issues. Their stakeholders expect this (governments, trustees, alumni). University leaders are accountable to large numbers or to stories that generate broad visibility. Fundamental questions in (psycho)linguistic theory are fascinating, but they do not cut it on their own. For a language science initiative to get buy-in from institutions and governments, it is important to engage with societal challenges, in addition to fundamental science.

Language and Migration has been proposed by some member institutions as a particularly promising example of a societally important challenge that can benefit from a global perspective on language science. Some U21 groups are already active in this area. The workshop will explore this idea. Some possible public-facing outcomes are a larger conference on this topic in 2017, or op-eds co-authored by migration experts and language scientists. Note that the term “migration” covers diverse topics. In some countries there is much current interest in refugees. In other countries there is long-term interest in the international mobility of human capital, or in the status of women and children who are affected by migration of labour.

Yes and no. U21 is not a research funding agency, and GRAIL is not a grant proposal in the normal sense. 

But one of the aims of the initiative is to open up new funding streams for international projects. The GRAIL proposal aims to create cross-institution infrastructure to support more ambitious research initiatives and funding requests to governments, foundations, and international bodies. 

The expectation is that if U21 member institutions agree to make language science a leading theme for the network, then they will invest in facilitating the activities, at the level of students, researchers, leaders, or fund-raisers.

Yes, we hope so.

GRAIL is being developed through the existing structures of U21, but it is not an exclusive club. One goal for the workshop is to address how non-U21 partners can participate.

We’re happy that you found this page, and we would like to hear from you.

The April 2016 workshop is for representatives from U21 institutions, due to the need to make recommendations to institutional leaders for meetings in early May. But an explicit goal of GRAIL is to be non-exclusive. Please get in touch, and let us know about your institution and your interest.

Because small scale partnerships don’t scale up.

Individual partnerships are great if you already have them and if they are well supported. But these arise sporadically and they are less likely to lead to additional partnerships for your colleagues or your students. And they are less likely to attract high level financial or logistical support. You’re largely on your own.

We do not know of any that are just like this one. But if you know of any, please let us know.

The potentially distinctive features of GRAIL make it risky, but also an attractive target for investment. Especially if it is a generalisable model. It emphasizes aligning the interests of students, researchers, and institutions. This approach has a potentially high return on investment. GRAIL aims to facilitate synergy within institutions, and to raise the profile of an interdisciplinary field. This could yield further value for institutions and for language scientists.

U21 already has one well established thematic cluster, the U21 Health Sciences Group. This provides a useful model for how GRAIL could operate within U21. It is also different in some key respects: health sciences is a massive and well funded field; and hence it is an area where U21 is unlikely to make such a difference on a global scale.

Students are entering a world that is interconnected like never before. They need to be prepared for this.

Researchers occupy a global marketplace of ideas. And in language science the need for a global perspective especially acute.

Research universities know that their success depends on them being active and visible internationally. Their greatest resource is the talent that they attract, and they cannot afford to focus on domestic talent pools. In some cases there may be greater potential for advancement on a global scale than on a national scale, because there are fewer pre-conceptions to overcome.

So there’s broad interest in globalisation of higher education. But different strategies for achieving this. Some institutions use their established global brands to attract worldwide talent to them. Some institutions open new campuses in economic hot spots. And others invest in alliances like U21. One size probably does not fit all.