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UNIGE-Yonsei Health Culture Promotion and Globalization Initiative

Call 2014
Health
Social Sciences

The goal of this project is to promote a long·-term cross-cultural understanding and international academic collaboration between South Korea and Switzerland through an exchange of bath lecture- based and regional physical therapy activity-based programs related to health recovery and improvement, for a promotion of active aging as a foundation for intergenerational relations.

The Health Culture Promotion and Globalization Initiative will develop a strong academic relationship between UNIGE and Yonsei through the exchange of professors and PhD students from each institution who, during their exchange period, will actively
engage in a cultural exchange with the local academic community through joint-research, courses, and special physical therapy activity workshops.

projects
Participants
Prof. Michel Oris
University of Geneva
Prof. Young-Shin Won
Yonsei University

UNIGE-Yonsei Global Korean Studies Research Lab

Call 2014
Humanities
Area Studies

ln recent years Korean Studies at Yonsei University in Korea, as many other Korean studies related institutions do, have an intention to extend its studies, beyond the conventional framework of Korean studies, to the global level of research. Although Korean studies within Yonsei or Korea have relatively abundant human resources as well as material supports and they have easier access to academic esources as well, their researches could have barely escaped their conventional framework and nationalistic perspectives. On the other hands Korean studies in regions other than Korea, including UNIGE's, have suffered a shortage of human resources and difficulties in accessing primary sources concerning Korean studies in spite of securing relatively objective perspectives and fresh methodologies. ln this respect, collaboration between two research units in Korean studies can be complementary strategy to maximize merits on both sides, at the same time to minimize defects. Researchers and Students in UNIGE Korean Studies take advantage of Yonsei University's infrastructures and resources of Korean Studies as a key point in Korea. Yonsei University's Korean studies have opportunities to refine their researches keeping in touch with UNIGE's high level of researches in Humanities in general and reinforcing academic network in Europe.

The goals of the project:

  • Establishing Joint Research Lab ( 3+3)
  • Annual Academic Workshop
  • Researchers (Students) Exchanges
  • Opening Library Services
  • Establishing Permanent Inter-University Koean Studies Research lnstitute
    (UNIGE-Yonsei Inter University Center for Korean Studies)
  • Regularization of Joint Workshops or Conferences
  • Developing Joint Educational Program (Graduate Level)
  • Joint Degree
  • Dispatching Researchers (lncluding Postdoctoral)
projects
Participants
Prof. Samuel Guex
University of Geneva
Prof. Hur Kyoung Jin
Yonsei University

Thinkdesign

Call 2015
Informatics

Design Thinking is increasingly recognized as a high potential skill and approach in tackling complex challenges (also called “wicked or messy problems”). It is widely used in the areas of Service Design and management as well as throughout all steps of the Design
Science Research (DSR) methodology common in Information Systems and Computer Science. ThinkDesign is a project aiming at developing Design Thinking as a key skillset at both Yonsei and Geneva Universities based on joining forces of two professors active in this area. In doing so, the project will allow to elaborate a shared ontology on Design Thinking including scientific literature, workshops, best practices and concrete projects, based on our respective knowledge, teaching experiences and projects in our own countries, namely Switzerland and South Korea. The project will concretely test and evaluate the shared knowledge by teaching courses at both universities.

ThinkDesing has the following main objectives addressing the issue of developing Design Thinking as an academic skillset in a complex world where creativity is becoming a key factor for purposeful research and innovation :

  • Develop a shared ontology in Design Thinking based on European and Asian experience.
  • Develop and experiment new academic curricula in Design Thinking at all academic levels including executive education.
  • Offer the opportunity for the applicants to participate in the teaching of each other’s universities.
  • Allow for Yonsei PhD students to participate in the Doctoral School in Design Science & Design Thinking in Switzerland.
  • Define a plan to sustain and develop the initial effort beyond the project funding.
projects
Participants
Prof. Jean-Henry Morin
University of Geneva
Prof. Kil Soo Suh
Yonsei University

Roles of Mitochondria and ER Stress in Metabolic Diseases and Aging

Call 2016
Medicine

Maintenance of calcium homeostasis and control of oxidative stress in the cytosol and organelles are important for cellular function and survival. Persistent metabolic stress caused by unhealthy lifestyle deteriorates cellular and organellar functions, in particular in individuals with genetic susceptibility to type 2 diabetes. This disease affects 380 million people worldwide and is steadily increasing in the wake of the obesity epidemic. Accumulating evidence suggests pathophysiological implication of mitochondria and ER leading to irreversible loss of normal cell function. However, despite recent progress, the molecular mechanisms underlying organellar stress leading to metabolic diseases and aging remain elusive. Our project focuses on the delineation of mitochondrial stress and ER stress related to calcium overload and oxidative injury. The elucidation of these mechanisms should provide clues on therapeutic intervention to arrest disease progression. Our proposal aims to strengthen long-term close collaboration between eminent scientists with established expertise in the field with documented past collaborations. In addition to scientific advance, both universities should benefit from education of students and postdocs.

projects
Participants
Prof. (Emeritus) Claes B. Wollheim
University of Geneva
Prof. Nicolas Demaurex
University of Geneva
Prof. Myung-Shik Lee
Yonsei University
Prof. Kyu-Sang Park
Yonsei University

Main Challenges for Christian Theology Today

Call 2016
Theology and Religion Studies

With the theme, “Main Challenges for Christian Theology Today,” for the collaborative research project of UNIGE-Yonsei Seed Funding, we present a 3-year-long proposal. With this project, we seek to create a theological partnership between our two Theological Faculties (University of Geneva, Yonsei University). We envision a three-year program as follows: “Religious Pluralism or Religious Multiple Belonging? Comparative Approaches.” In an age of the so-called migration of Christianity to the East and the South, religious identity is in flux. What is the impact of our societies’ religious pluralism for theology? The second year’s theme, “Humanity Enhanced or Trans-Humanized: Ethical and Theological Reflections,” will deal with the future of humanity theologically and ethically. The theme of the third year, “Eco-Theology and the Call for Justice” will address the question of eco-theology in its relation to the issue of justice broadly conceived. This Theological Consultation between theologians and ethicists from Yonsei University and the University of Geneva will foster a dialogue across cultures (including theological cultures) in order to learn from one another about the current challenges theological and ethical inquiry is facing today: which challenges may be called common challenges? Which ones are specific to each context? Among the common and the specific challenges, what may we learn from one another? In the process of these three consultations, we may discover many similarities, as well as dissimilarities, in our ways of doing theology and of addressing current challenges which confront us all.

projects
Participants
Prof. Christophe Chalamet
University of Geneva
Prof. François Dermange
University of Geneva
Prof. Andreas Dettwiler
University of Geneva
Prof. Hans-Christoph Askani
University of Geneva
Prof. Ghislain Waterlot
University of Geneva
Prof. Hyun-Shik Jun Ph.D.
Yonsei University
Prof. Soo-Young Kwon Ph.D.
Yonsei University
Dr. Il Joon Park Ph.D.
Yonsei University
Dr. Yong Sup Song Ph.D.
Yonsei University
Dr. Jung Doo Kim Ph.D.
Yonsei University
Dr. Moon Son Ph.D.
Yonsei University

Emerging economies in global governance

Call 2016
Business and Economics
International Relations

The Project intended as a “Tier 1 seed grant” builds on previous research and expertise of both Geneva and South Korea based teams on the insertion of emerging economies in the global economy and their role within the current institutional framework. The seed proposal would lead to a wider project to be submitted to funding agencies such as the Swiss Network of International Studies (SNIS) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF). The project will analyse the causes for emerging and middle powers to create new groupings and institutional settings, integrating into existing ones and at the role of transgovernmental cooperation for establishing new institutions and/or reinforcing existing ones. The grant will strengthen cooperation between the UNIGE based team (composed by Prof. Sandra Lavenex, Dr. Omar Serrano and their research assistant Wang Lei) and the Yonsei team (composed by Prof. Jongryn Mo and a research assistant Hyun Jung Hee). The Geneva team has looked at the challenge that the ascent of large fast-growing emerging economies poses to the EU's and US' continued ability (separately or even jointly) to shape the international order. The Seoul-based team has looked at new governance groups among emerging countries such as the BRICS and the MIKTA. Emerging countries are increasingly attempting to organize themselves and this raises the question on whether their efforts are working and if not, what lessons they can draw from history and IR theory as well as from the mechanisms the EU and US have used to extend their regulatory reach.

projects
Participants
Dr. Omar Serrano
University of Geneva
Prof. Sandra Lavenex
University of Geneva
Prof. Jongryn Mo
Yonsei University
Prof. Junghee Hyun
Yonsei University

Big Data analytics-driven surveillance of Postmarket Drug Side Effects

Call 2017
Medicine
Informatics
Statistics

Real drug usage and post market surveillance remains a challenge. While there is a lot of information available on drugs due to regulatory processes, it has been shown that social media can help identify new drug related information (reference, Pubmed ID 27311964, 26776212, 26163365). The use of social media information streams and interactions is an important new source of data for drugs, especially to evaluate the effects of drugs outside the controlled settings of trials. In addition, pharmacogenetics, that is the influence of individual molecular process of drugs, is increasingly in focus. For example, the SLCO1B1* 5 variant has been identified to cause myopathies when statins hypocholesterolemia drugs are taken. However, the identification of populations with similar characteristics is difficult. Social networks interactions could potentially identify these populations allowing targeted genotyping with a much improved cost-benefit result. Existing bioNLP tools, such as Gimli (Campos et al. 2013), supporting natural language processing, are not easily applicable to social media. There are numerous new challenges to address, such as temporal disjunction, jargon. This joint project between TSMM (Text & Social Media Mining) at Yonsei Univ. and SIMED (Sciences de l'Information Médicale) at Univ. of Geneva aims at constructing a biomedical surveillance system in order to identify patterns and trends of medication treatments and their side effects over time (10 years). Our system will create a knowledge base by mining two main sources: scientific publications and social media. We will detect the biomedical concepts in scientific literature and also survey and trace the side effects over population.

projects
Participants
Christian Lovis
University of Geneva
Prof. Min Song
Yonsei University

Toward sustainable drought management: lessons from the multiple historical records

Call 2018
Earth and Environment
History

This proposal aims to initiate the collaboration between two teams of C-CIA (Climate Change Impacts and Risks in the Anthropocene) lab of UNIGE and HECL (Hydrology and EcoClimate Lab) of Yonsei. In this study, we are interested in understanding historical drought events across the Pacific, including Central South America and South East Asia with the data from the multiple sources. HECL, expertized in the drought analysis over the globe, plans to construct the drought index such as SPEI (Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index) over the regions across the Pacific using historical climate data sets such as NCEP and CRU. C-CIA plans to construct the historical drought data using historical archives from Korea and tree-ring data (dendroclimatology). Analyzing such drought-related data from the multiple sources together will improve our understanding of the spatial and temporal variations of historical droughts. Causes, effects, and possible mitigation of drought processes will be assessed, which are similar or different among the regions across the Pacific. At last, such understanding will provide us better management (mitigation or adaptation) strategies for possible future drought events. The detailed work packages for such study will be arranged and discussed through a joint workshop/seminar as well as occasional Skype meetings between UNIGE and HECL.

projects
Participants
Prof. Markus Stoffel
University of Geneva
Prof. Yeonjoo Kim
Yonsei University

Brainstorming over real-time analysis for the Future Circular Collider (FCC)

Call 2019
Physics

The goal of particle physics is to study the existence and interactions of particles, which are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. The theory that describes the particles and their interactions, the Standard Model (SM), has been very successfully confirmed by experiments, such the most recent ATLAS and CMS at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Despite its great success in describing nature, the SM leaves many questions unanswered; Physics beyond the SM (BSM) is required to answer these questions. The Future Circular Collider (FCC) project aims at developing conceptual designs with an energy and a luminosity significantly above what the LHC does, significantly extending the possibility to discover BSM physics.

The FCC study puts an emphasis on electron-positron high-intensity and proton-proton high energy frontier machines. A 100 TeV hadron collider in a 100 km long tunnel defines the overall infrastructure for the FCC study. The collision rates at the FCC will be of unprecedented amounts. It will be impossible to store and analyse all data from these produced events: A “trigger system”, performing real-time analysis, will preferably select the potentially interesting interactions, such as those that will contain Higgs particles or signatures of BSM physics. Typically, the trigger systems is based on fast electronics and highly performant software deciding on a real-time fashion which events to select.

Both the PIs of this proposal have played leading roles in the trigger systems in the ATLAS and CMS experiments, for more than ten years. They propose to brainstorm over the trigger system for the FCC project, building on their expertise and experience from the previous experiments.

projects
Participants
Prof. Sfyrla Anna
University of Geneva
Prof. Yoo Hwi Dong
Yonsei University

Citizen self-monitoring of Air Quality and Pulmonary Health

Call 2019

Air pollution kills 7 million people yearly, and reduces our life expectancy by 20 months, with an economic cost reaching 6% of the gross world product (WHO, World Bank). Open-source air-quality and lung-capacity monitoring encourages citizens to map their environment, and mutually take care of their health, enhancing public benefits through co-participation. We propose to combine our approaches to tackle the health-related impact of air pollution in urban centers by raising awareness and helping develop the participatory monitoring of air quality and respiratory health into evidence-based policies. We aim to organize two co-creation events to explore how participatory development of air quality and respiratory monitoring can improve health outcomes and foster civil mobilization. Yonsei and Geneva are both urban universities with active communities committed to the United Nations SDGs, to social innovation, and with renowned faculties of medicine and environment. The institutions will have the support from LogAir and Breathing Games. LogAir develops open devices and applications, to enable citizens to map air quality along their day, serving as a basis for advisories on how to lower exposure, and proposed as a starting point for evidence-based policy-making. LogAir is deploying devices on shared bikes in Geneva and partners with other organisations to expand its network around the world. Breathing Games, a member of the WHO respiratory alliance, develops controllers and games to foster self and mutual care in respiratory health. Breathing Games is a finalist of Citypreneurs, a contest organized by the City of Seoul and the World Federation of UN Associations.

projects
Participants
Prof. Jean-Henry Morin
University of Geneva
Emmanuel Kellner
UNIGE Institute of Environmental Sciences
Prof. Kim Changsoo
Yonsei School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Fabio Balli
Concordia University

Education for Sutainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education

Call 2019
Social Sciences
Earth and Environment

In 2005, a Strategy for Education for Sustainable Development was adopted by the UN Economic and Social Council, which aimed to “encourage UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) member States to develop and incorporate ESD into their formal education systems, in all relevant subjects, and in non-formal and informal education” (UNECE, 2005:2). Moreover, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the global community include Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). One of the targets of SDG 4 on quality education we find of special importance is target 4.7, which focuses on ESD. Both the University of Geneva and Yonsei University have been very active in furthering ESD for the last few years. Fostering global citizenship through ESD is a common goal of the two universities. However, at present, there is a lack of studies on pedagogical approaches for ESD in higher education. In order to fill the gap, and to position our universities as leaders in the area of ESD, we are looking to strengthen knowledge sharing and develop a plan for future course materials together. Access to the UNIGE-Yonsei Seed Fund would allow us to carry out the following: (1) field visits in both universities in order to learn and gain expertise from each other; (2) sharing of best practices in the form of case studies for pedagogical approaches, and (3) the development of a “toolbox” of teaching approaches tied to competencies and outcomes, which illustrate innovative, creative and effective approaches. The exchange visits would include workshops, panel discussions, and laying the foundations for tool kit development.

projects
Participants
Debarbieux Bernard
University of Geneva
Prof. Balsiger Jörg
University of Geneva
Prof. Marlyne Sahakian
University of Geneva
Prof. Jung Tae Yong
Yonsei University
Prof. Park Tae In
Yonsei University