The academic strand of the Birmingham-Ulsan Innovation Twins partnership aims to create long term sustainable partnerships between universities in Birmingham and Ulsan. The partnership aims to leverage key research, innovation and teaching strengths of the universities to maximise regional growth in specialist sectors between the two cities.  

In 2024-2025, Connected Places Catapult kickstarted the partnership by identifying areas of synergy and priority for collaboration. The main activities convened were to: 

•  Establish relationships between academic institutions in Birmingham and Ulsan;  
• Build long-term research and innovation (R&I) collaborations between universities in the two cities;  
• Support the development of sustainable partnerships between stakeholders across academia, industry and government 

The partnership has generated several successful funding applications by Birmingham academics to further their collaborations with Ulsan, amounting to £2.76m. Partners also concluded that the innovation twins partnership:  

1. Built confidence and know-how for collaborating on Horizon Europe, such as identifying opportunities to progress on bilateral proposals (incl. joint publications, abstract submissions, etc) 
2. Applied knowledge gained through the Horizon Europe matchmaking workshop and bid writing masterclass 
3. Allowed partners to share updates on achievements in the past year (e.g. successful proposals, value of bids submitted, etc) to explore future priorities of the Birmingham-Ulsan Innovation Twins partnerships 

The universities involved are: the University of Birmingham (UoB), Birmingham City University (BCU), Aston University (Aston) in the UK, partnering with the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and the University of Ulsan (UoU) in the Republic of Korea.

DIATOMIC International Bridges

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