Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) has signed a memorandum of understanding with three British universities to cooperate on research focused on rural change and policy in North America and Europe.

The Cornell team is led by development sociologists associated with the Polson Institute for Global Development. The British partners are from the Centre for Rural Economy at the University of Newcastle, the Institute for Transport and Rural Research and the Arkelton Centre at the University of Aberdeen, and the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) Millennium Institute in Inverness Scotland. The memorandum of understanding has four objectives: scholarly exchanges and visits, cooperative and possibly international comparative research, postgraduate training, and exchange of research materials.

The United States and United Kingdom share many similarities in rural structure and in patterns of social and economic change, but there are also important differences. These similarities and differences provide a fertile area for cooperation in research, teaching, off-campus instruction and policy analysis.

The inter-university cooperation was inaugurated March 20-21 with a research workshop held in Newcastle, England. More than 40 scholars from the four institutions, and from Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, met to identify themes that cut across their various research interests. They also identified specific activities that could be pursued by research partners with a particular focus on agro-environmental systems, social exclusion and vulnerable populations, the food system, rural governance, linkages between localities and other national, regional and international levels of social and economic organization.

"This is an exciting new partnership that will enhance our ability to conduct cutting-edge international comparative research on social change and public policies affecting rural people and communities throughout North America, Europe and other more developed regions of the world," said David Brown, Cornell professor of development sociology on leave at the University of Newcastle.

For more information about the memorandum of understanding and CALS, contact James Haldeman, senior associate director of international programs, at (607) 255-3035 or jeh5@cornell.edu.