On 12 June, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new initiative supporting higher education collaboration between both countries and with emerging economies in the next five years. This new programme, called ‘Global Innovation Initiative’, is a global university partnership action which will support multilateral research, science, technology and engineering projects in the areas of climate change and sustainable development, and promote higher education cooperation.  The objective is to support 40 trilateral partnerships in the first year, involving some 120 universities worldwide. Over the five-year period, the programme is expected to involve up to 600 higher education institutions. The Global Innovation Initiative is the first multilateral higher education partnership initiative launched by the US and UK governments. It will be funded by the two governments - the US State Department and Britain’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) – as well as the British Council. Two coordinated calls for proposals will be published annually in the US and the UK under the same programme name. The first call for proposals will be published in October 2013. Grants are expected to be awarded in early 2014. British Council – Press Release