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17 June 2011: Twitter helps to strengthen collaborative research with Taiwan

Professor Mark Harvey has been invited to be a Visiting Scholar at the National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan to facilitate collaborative research on sustainable consumption and bottled water, with Dr William Li, a graduate from the Department of Sociology. 

The collaboration stemmed from a job posting to the Department's Twitter and Facebook feeds for a research officer to support Professor Harvey's ESRC funded project on bottled water. Dr Ben Anderson who co-manages the feeds said "We post all sorts of 'news' to twitter and facebook including new projects, publications and job or studentship opportunities. In most cases we are simply looking to engineer serendipitous connections - just as happened here." 

The research project is part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Sustainable Practices Research Group, led by the University of Manchester, in which Professor Harvey and Dr Anderson from the Department are partners. Professor Harvey is due to visit Taiwan in November this year.