Networks
Exponential Impact Effect
Our network of more than 100 institutions worldwide comprises thoughtfully cultivated partnerships allowing our faculty and students to boldly go where their passions call out to them. Through scholarship, research, and service, we offer unparalleled opportunities for global education, discovery and innovation for every member of our community.
Universitas 21 (U21)
We are a member of Universitas 21 (U21), a network of 30 research-intensive universities around the globe. For more than 20 years, U21 member institutions have worked together on issues of shared importance to our universities and to global higher education, empowering our more than 1.2 million students and 250,000 staff to share excellence, collaborate across borders, and exchange knowledge.
Our membership gives the Maryland community access to a wide range of U21 events, special programs, and collaborative groups through research, teaching, or studying. Whether you are a student, researcher, faculty, or staff, the U21 network provides the platform to internationalize your projects!
“Membership in U21 allows Maryland to connect with many of the best universities in the world at once, advancing our mission of bringing the world to the campus and projecting the University onto the world stage.”
For Undergraduate Students
U21 RISE Showcase & Awards
Real Impact on Society and Environment is an international showcase of student achievement in sustainability and social innovation, connecting student-led projects with a global network of experts. Prizes are awarded for the winning sustainability projects.
U21 Global Citizens
is a three-week experiential online opportunity designed to help you develop the leadership skills needed to advance your understanding of the most pressing global challenges of our time. Connect and collaborate with a cohort of students from across U21’s international network.
U21 Sustainable Micro-Internships
are an exclusive opportunity for U21 students to come together and work in small groups to make change on behalf of an organization. This real-world project tests students' ability to deliver results in the workplace while working with a diverse, international team and building key employability skills.
Meet the Maryland winners of a 2023 U21 RISE Award
"This international recognition reinforces to us the scale of the problem we are working to tackle. It is truly fulfilling to be working towards a solution that we know can make a real difference, and not just here. We are grateful to the strangers from around the world who have pledged their support to tell us they believe in our work!"
Marie Brodsky '23, Co-Founder of WISE Cities
For Graduate Students
Graduate Collaborative Research Awards
are designed to be flexible and encourage doctoral candidates, with the support of their supervisors/advisors, to think innovatively about how their research could benefit from engagement with other members of the U21 network.
U21 PwC Global Innovation Challenge
offers grad students the chance to showcase critical thinking and share ideas with PwC and their clients. Winners get exclusive, world-class training and professional development opportunities.
Three-Minute Thesis Competition (3MT)
provides research students with the opportunity to develop their academic, presentation, and research communication skills by explaining their research to a non-specialist audience. Each U21 member is invited to run their own internal competitions and nominate their winner for 3MT participation.
For Faculty & Staff
U21 Global Leadership Program
is an exclusive opportunity for emerging and high-potential leaders that reflects real dynamic challenges faced by U21 universities and explores the leadership required to meet those challenges.
U21 Early Career Researcher Workshops
enhance international networking and encourage collaborative research for those in the early stages of their career.
U21 Mid-Career Researcher Program
provides an opportunity to refocus and reset; to adopt the right mindset and identify the skills and attributes required to adapt and thrive within a creative and collaborative research culture.
At Maryland, we help shape a brighter tomorrow
With our long tradition of international collaboration, we continue to extend an open invitation to the exceptional minds of our partner institutions. Together, we shape a brighter tomorrow through an unwavering dedication to uniting our knowledge, resources and people.
Maryland's participation in the Big Ten athletic conference brings with it membership in the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities: The Big Ten Academic Alliance. For more than half a century, the world-class institutions of the Big Ten have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs.
Peer groups are a critical component of the Big Ten Academic Alliance; much of the work of the Big Ten Academic Alliance happens when self-organized groups of peers meet periodically to share best practices, work on initiatives together, and address shared emergent issues.
Find what resource fits your needs:
The International Fire Safety Consortium brings together worldwide knowledge and expertise to tackle the most critical and emerging fire safety challenges of our time. As the impact of urbanization, social inequality, climate change, and human migration continues to grow, greater worldwide coordination and action is urgently needed to address shared threats from fire. The Consortium engages in research, education, and collaboration with industry, government, and non-governmental organizations to help inform policy and practice, protect property, and save lives.
Universitas 21 Health Research Exchange (U21HREx) is an innovative virtual network that fosters international collaboration and knowledge sharing among students and early career researchers (ECRs) in the field of Health and Social Care. This community of practice emphasizes diversity, inclusion, and culturally responsive mentorship and professional development. This initiative, led by the University of Maryland, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and University College Dublin, is sponsored by Universitas 21 (U21).
The Partnership for Skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (PASET) is a World Bank-supported initiative of the Governments of Senegal, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Côte d'Ivoire designed to build the capacity of African universities’ doctoral training. UMD participates in PASET’s flagship program: the Regional Scholarship and Innovation Fund (Rsif), which aims to increase the pool of sub-Saharan African researchers trained to use transformative technologies to find innovative solutions to Africa and the world’s grand challenges. Through funding from PASET’s Rsif, UMD programs, units, or labs can host doctoral researchers from leading universities in sub-Saharan Africa working in a wide variety of fields addressing climate change and shared challenges.
As part of its mission to bring together "science, industry, government and economic leaders to develop new energy technologies and facilitate the transfer of technology ideas into a reality," the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute (MEI2) is a member of the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy. This global coalition includes the European Union, and partners from two dozen countries around the world.