Summer Institutes
Encouraging faculty to start up new summer institutes is one way UW-Madison aims to use the WUN framework to create new opportunities for graduate students and early career researchers. A WUN summer research institute brings advanced graduate students, postdocs, and early-career faculty together with international experts for a week-long residential research and/or professional development program.
A WUN grant provided “seed funds” for the Summer Institute in Economic Geography (SIEG), allowing its faculty convenors to make successful funding bids to the journal Economic Geography and the National Science Foundation. The 2003 and 2006 institutes attracted top early-career economic geographers and leading experts in the field from around the world for the week-long institute. Grad students and postdocs worked closely with each other and with international leaders in the discipline, establishing relationships that will develop throughout their careers. In 2004, the University of Bristol hosted the institute.
