The UW2020 program, backed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, will provide $5 million in support for 14 early-stage research and infrastructural proposals from UW-Madison.
Nearly 90 faculty members from across the university reviewed and selected the proposals from the 134 that were submitted, according to a Thursday university release. The final review committee selected participants who demonstrated ambition and an effort to kickstart interdisciplinary projects.
WARF Managing Director Carl Gulbrandsen said the organization is excited about what UW2020 will bring.
“We think the university has identified projects that are truly innovative and forward-looking in terms of addressing big research challenges,” Gulbrandsen said in the release. “That was the idea when the program was laid out.”
Through WARF, UW2020 will provide each of these first-round projects with $300,000 in funding spanning two years. A second round of nearly 120 proposals is already under review, according to the release.
The research projects reach across a wide variety of topics, including the creation of an atlas to map out the stages of Alzheimer’s disease, microtargeting in election campaigns and a study of family complexity and public policy in Wisconsin.
Infrastructural proposals include a new approach to studying inland waters, a human stem cell gene editing service and a core facility for human exercise research on campus.
Marsha Mailick, the UW-Madison vice chancellor for research and graduate education, said UW2020 was “inspired” by the research projects selected.
“By providing support to these projects, we think we can seed our research portfolio in important ways and position UW–Madison faculty and research staff for future success,” Mailick said in the release.
