The Centre for Unusual Collaborations is thrilled to announce that five new Spark teams have been funded following the latest call for applications. These teams were formed by researchers who participated in the Spark workshops (phase one) in March and April 2024. The teams have each been granted 9.000 Euro to explore the potential of their idea in the upcoming year.

• 3HOWs4DM: Enhancing Culturally Tailored Diabetes Management: Addressing Mental Health for Minor Ethnic Backgrounds aims to create tailored healthcare solutions that resonate with the cultural beliefs/preferences of minority communities, and ensure fairness in healthcare and empower individuals while gaining insights into how culture shapes diabetes management, and how this affects mental health.
• Five-Legged Sheep aims to gain insight into the challenges faced by researchers engaging in inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations, and explore possible ways of dealing with them, from diverse (disciplinary) perspectives and across different disciplinary and institutional contexts.
• Going off the Grid brings together agroecology, materials engineering, and geometry in an unusual collaboration aimed at addressing the elusive dual challenge of feeding growing populations while also bending the curve of biodiversity via the design of synergistic and novel farm field configurations.
• Micro- and nanoplastic formation and detection through dialysis investigates the occurrence of micro- and nanoplastics with regards to dialysis, and explore solutions for this issue, which potentially threatens both environmental and human health.
• The Multiple Faces of Health explores the concept of health from a multidisciplinary perspective. What does being healthy mean in different disciplines? What do people from different socio-economic backgrounds think about when talking about (human or animal) health? How does health relate to other concepts such as welfare and diversity, and to moral concepts like inclusion/exclusion and integrity?

All teams will shortly get their own project page, so make sure to keep an eye on the Spark teams page.

Are you interested in becoming a member of a Spark team yourself? Then apply for a Spark grant by September 2.