Transatlantic collaboration: Vanderbilt, Liverpool award first joint research seed grants

Vanderbilt University and England's University of Liverpool have announced the inaugural recipients of a new joint seed grant program, which supports faculty teams pursuing innovative projects designed to grow into larger collaborations and external funding.

The Vanderbilt-Liverpool Joint Research Seed Grantprogram has its origins in a recent music event in Manchester, England, where visiting members of Vanderbilt's leadership connected with their counterparts at Liverpool. A discussion about Nashville's and Liverpool's contributions to music led to a realization that the universities also shared similar academic strengths-in music, health, national security and AI, specifically.

The notion of joining forces to generate even more impact in those areas was music to everyone's ears, and each institution has committed to match funds for the three-year seed grant program developed by the Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Innovation, and the Curb Center.

"This program reflects our shared belief that strong partnerships start with small but strategic investments," said Elizabeth Zechmeister, interim chief research officer and senior associate provost for research and development.

The goal is to seed projects that lead to publications, new intellectual property and major grant proposals while deepening connections between the faculty of Vanderbilt and Liverpool. "By supporting these collaborations at the earliest stages, we're creating the foundation for larger research endeavors that can have global reach and impact," Zechmeister said.

Seven Vanderbilt-Liverpool faculty teams received inaugural grants in 2025:

• Tucker Biddlecombe (Vanderbilt), professor of music, and Sarah Price (Liverpool), lecturer in music industries
  Scoping the choral ecology in the UK and US
• Ravindra Duddu (Vanderbilt), associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, andJanine Kavanagh (Liverpool), chair of volcanology
  Phase-field fracture modeling of fluid-driven fractures for investigating ice-sheet-climate interactions and volcanic processes
• Alex Frenette (Vanderbilt), Cornelius Vanderbilt Dean's Faculty Fellow in the College of Arts and Science, and Mat Flynn (Liverpool), senior lecturer in music industries and director of the Institute of Popular Music
  Comparing and Contrasting Models of Music Industry Internships in Nashville (USA) and Liverpool (UK)
• Yuankai Huo (Vanderbilt), assistant professor of computer science, andYalin Zheng (Liverpool), professor of AI in healthcare
  Launching the Vanderbilt-Liverpool Eye-AI Working Group: A Transatlantic Collaboration in Multimodal Medical Imaging AI
• Taylor Johnson (Vanderbilt), A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation Faculty Fellow and associate professor of computer science, andXiaowei Huang (Liverpool), professor of computer science
  Workshops on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Generative Artificial Intelligence
• David Thorstad (Vanderbilt), assistant professor of philosophy, andRobin McKenna (Liverpool), senior lecturer in philosophy
  Sociotechnical AI safety for generative artificial intelligence
• Angela Sutton (Vanderbilt), research associate professor of communication of science and technology, and Jessica White (Liverpool), lecturer in history
  Legacies and histories of transatlantic slavery Global Fellowship programme

The universities are exploring additional opportunities for collaboration.

In May, Leah Lowe, director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt, visited Liverpool to explore opportunities with faculty and research centers in music, health and culture. Liverpool faculty leaders plan to travel to Nashville to continue building these connections.

A connection that began with music has grown into a collaboration with the potential to resonate across research, innovation and a literal ocean.