“In November 2001, the University of California, Santa Barbara, along with 22 other renowned universities, endorsed the establishment of the International Quality Network (IQN) on Spatial Cognition hosted by the University of Bremen. This IQN was started on 1 Jan 2002 with funds from the Future Investment Program (ZlP) of the German Government under the administration of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The network in general and the link between Santa Barbara and Bremen in particular have resulted in numerous fruitful interactions, including exchange of faculty members and doctoral candidates, exchange of publications, joint research projects, and joint conferences. These exchanges were instrumental in the establishment of new research centers, including the Transregional Collaborative Research Center SFB/TR8 Spatial Cognition at the Universities of Bremen and Freiburg in 2003 and the Spatial Center at UCSB in 2007. Both centers pursue far-reaching goals regarding the understanding and utilization of spatial thinking in cognitive agents, including humans and machines, for the benefit of science and society.”
UCSB Geography Professor Martin Raubal and Christian Freksa, Professor for Informatics at Universität Bremen, hammered out many of the details of a new UCSB-Bremen Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) during Martin’s visit to Bremen last year. Upon his return, Martin organized the UCSB side of the agreement, which involves interaction between several UCSB departments, the UCSB Office of Research, and Michael Witherell, UCSB Vice Chancellor for Research: “The planned cooperation between the two Universities is special in the sense that it goes beyond the traditional teaching and research exchange. It is very interdisciplinary, involving the Departments of Geography, Psychology, Computer Science and the Media Arts and Technology Program, and also the UCSB Spatial Center.”
The new MOU became official on March 15, 2010 during Freksa’s visit to UCSB, and Raubal states that, as a next step, “Prof. Carmelita Görg, Associate President for International Relations from Bremen, will be visiting UCSB at the beginning of June. I will then go for a 3-week research and teaching stay at Bremen in June/July 2010, which is funded by Bremen.” The MOU goes on to state that, “In order to extend the effective and mutually beneficial cooperation and develop academic and cultural exchange in education, research, and other areas, the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Bremen hereby agree to cooperate toward the joint development of their research efforts. The areas of cooperation will include any program offered at either university which is felt to promote the above-mentioned goals…Such programs may include: exchange of faculty members, exchange of students, sharing software and data, joint research projects, joint telepresence colloquia, joint conferences, joint teaching projects, and joint cultural programs.”
UCSB Bremen signing 3 15 10_best.jpg<|>3008<|>(Left to right) Martin Raubal with Christian Freksa and Michael Witherell during the signing of the MOU on March 15, 2010{|}Witherall.jpg<|>1695<|>Michael Witherell, UCSB Vice Chancellor for Research. The head of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Dr. Witherell, was appointed vice chancellor for research at UCSB in 2004. Witherell also holds a faculty position in the Department of Physics{|}Raubal_2008.jpg<|>384<|>Martin’s research interests include cognitive engineering for geospatial services, cognitive semantic interoperability, location based decision services, spatial cognition and wayfinding, time geography, and agents and artificial intelligence
