The Global Research Office at the Center for Global Engagement (CGE) launched a new international platform, the Global Partnerships platform, to track and manage the University’s partnerships with universities globally.

Global partnerships are vital to enabling research and learning. These partners support student and scholarly exchanges, joint research activities, English as a Second Language Programs, scholarly meetings and events, and joint and dual degree programs.

“Understanding where UT faculty and staff have partnerships is an important step of deepening our global footprint.” Jamie McGowan, Director of the Global Research Office, commented.

Partnerships with global universities are a core aspect of the University of Tennessee’s comprehensive internationalization vision. The platform is a user-friendly web-based tool that will provide the details of formalized relationships and how these partnerships impact the University of Tennessee.

“We often get requests from faculty members, recruiters, and administrators wanting to know which institutions UT already had connections with, in certain parts of the world. It used to be that the staff at CGE would run a report and share it with the requestor.” Rachel Rui, Communications Director for CGE, said. “Now, with this new partnership platform, anyone can go online and have immediate access to the most up-to-date data. The process is fully automated and the search result is visually enhanced by including an interactive world map.”

The platform is also combined with a new strategy to taking in new global partnership requests and brief annual reports from faculty and staff.  “The platform is only as good as the data behind it,” McGowan said. “And that means intaking data at the onset of a potential partnership.”

The Global Research Office will be tracking partnership activities, productivity, and outcomes on an annual basis, utilizing this platform.

“We are already using the system to manage our relationships, and we look forward to future developments of the platform to enhance our understanding of partnerships and international engagement at UT,” said McGowan.

To learn more about UT’s Global Partnerships platform, click here.