Professor John C. Morris, a full professor in the Department of Political Science at Auburn University and ET da Vinci Fellow, is paying our University another visit. He will visit the UT Campus from October 21st to November 8th.
Following a successful collaboration between UT’s BMS Faculty and Auburn University circa 30 years ago, the University of Auburn reached out to UT colleagues with an eye on reviving collaboration with UT. Following two successful exploratory visits by Auburn University staff to UT in 2023, Prof. Morris (in collaboration with prof. Leentje Volker and Joanne Vinke-de Kruijf) was granted a Da Vinci Fellowship, which allows him to visit the UT now in June and once more in October / November 2024. With the support of this fellowship, we seek to further develop a collaborative partnership focusing on climate-resilient water infrastructure between Auburn University and the University of Twente.
Climate Resilience
To promote climate-resilience, Auburn and UT researchers strongly desire to expand interdisciplinary collaboration to better integrate social sciences and engineering disciplines. The goal of this exchange is to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration and to further the development and cooperation of both a long-term (5-10 year) collaborative research agenda, as well as the development of a mechanism to allow the ongoing exchange of faculty and students between the two universities. We consider this promising as both UT and Auburn have a focus on providing solutions to society, as well as furthering the development of our collective knowledge base and academic contributions. The issues around infrastructure policy, resilience engineering, design, climate resilience, and community and stakeholder participation are important to both the Netherlands and the US, and shared knowledge can enhance mitigation, adaptation, and resilience for both nations, all within the context of a changing landscape and changing socioeconomic systems.
Opportunities to become involved
- On the 6th of November, 12:45-13:30, ConcepT organizes a lunch lecture with John Morris. He will provide a short introduction to Auburn University, and the opportunities for exchange and research between Auburn and Twente.
- With the Climate Centre, we are organizing two Masterclasses “Theorizing cross-sector collaboration for water and climate challenges", specifically for PhD and postdoc researchers but others are welcome as well, see the invite below.
- If you would like to explore opportunities or to have a chat about research and other developments in the domain of climate-resilient water infrastructure in the USA, feel free to contact John Morris directly.
Invite MASTERCLASSES
What? Masterclasses “Theorizing cross-sector collaboration for water and climate challenges"
By whom? Professor John C. Morris, University of Auburn, Alabama, United States
For whom? Young researchers (PhDs, postdocs); other researchers are welcome
When? Wednesday 23rd of October, 15:45-17:30
Monday 4th of November, 10:45-12:30
Where? LA2101
Within the context of the emerging collaboration around climate-resilient water infrastructure between various Faculties of the University of Twente and Auburn University, Prof. John Morris is visiting the University of Twente once more as Da Vinci Fellow of the Engineering Technology Faculty. During his visit, Prof. John Morris kindly agreed to provide two Master classes in which he introduces participants to ongoing and previous academic research into collaboration in the United States, which is followed by a dialogue. The set-up of the second Master class will be determined based on participants’ needs and desires as well as the outcomes of the first one. Professor John C. Morris’ record of academic work spans more than thirty years, during which time he has built an international reputation for his work around the provision, funding, and implementation of water infrastructure in the US, and the use of collaboration to achieve environmental goals. Morris has written many articles and several books about various forms of collaboration and teaches courses in collaboration, public policy, organization theory, privatization, and policy evaluation in both the Master of Public Administration program and PhD in public administration and public policy programs.
