Academic collaborations
Our academic collaborations are crucial to our service offerings and ongoing growth.
We collaborate with several prestigious Universities in the UK and continental Europe, while also acting as a public engagement partner.
A selection of our academic collaborations is listed below, in alphabetical order.

WHAT OUR ACADEMIC COLLABORATIONS ACHIEVE
BabyBrains®️ is part of the multidisciplinary group WOW - From the Womb to the World, based at the University of Essex. WOW brings together different perinatal professionals with the goal of improving the experience of pregnancy, birth and parenthood for parents and babies.
We are the public engagement partner of a large conglomerate of universities (Warsaw, Cambridge, Nijmegen to name but three), working together in the EU-funded SAPIENS project. SAPIENS is all about social development and how it dynamises and shapes the rest of cognition. BabyBrains®️ has the role of making sure that students learn about public engagements and that findings get effectively shared with the wider public.
Since 2017 BabyBrains®️ collaborates with the University of Essex on different research and engagement projects. Examples are the study “It all starts in the womb”. At the moment we are developing a new workshop for the BabyBrains®️ curriculum. BabyBrains®️ Body. This new training/workshop is being developed in collaboration with the University of Essex and will be released in January 2023. It will focus on the way babies make sense of their own bodies… and other people’s. The implication for parenting are immense and go from healthy nutrition to truly educational games.
BabyBrains®️ is the nominated public engagement partner in Sarah Lloyd-Fox’ UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, based at the University of Cambridge. The ambitious goal of this project is to better understand the perinatal period and to develop specific interventions, with a specific focus on the effects of poverty on brain development and function.
CALL FOR PARENTS
FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
Help science and learn how to observe your child with the curiosity of a scientist!
Scientists need parents to help them. They invite parents and babies!
We help different academic teams in their campaigns for the recruitment for participants in studies: we find out what they are researching, what questions they ask themselves, what parents can observe at home that a scientist would love to see as well…and we tell you all about it.
Find out which projects you may participate in here and via our e-newsletter:

Birkbeck University - The Bedtime Boost Trial

OVERVIEW OF OUR ACADEMIC COLLABORATORS

University of Cambridge
BabyBrains is contributing to develop global public engagement strategies as part of a MRC-funded Global Mental Health Project in India and the Gambia.
In addition, we collaborate with Dr Sarah Lloyd Fox, using science to empower parents and perinatal professionals around the world. Our work with Dr Lloyd Fox is funded by her UKRI grant.

University of Essex
BabyBrains has collaborated with Dr Silvia Rigato at the Essex Babylab for several years.
Our first longitudinal research project (It All Starts In the Womb) is drawing to an end and we are beginning to see mind-blowing data about perinatal wellbeing for mothers and how this is related to their children development. We are also enthusiastic members of the From the Womb to the World Multidisciplinary Group with the goal ok making science more accessible to parents.
BabyBrains® Body was developed our of our collaboration with University of Essex.



Goldsmiths, University of London
BabyBrains is working with Drs Evelyne Mercure and Caspar Addyman to offer perinatal professionals BabyBrains training at Goldsmiths University.

Birkbeck, University of London
In collaboration with Drs Emily Jones and Mark Johnson, BabyBrains is developing an “intelligent” version of the BabyBrains app that is able to adapt to the preferences, needs, and unique development of each child-parent pair.
This work is funded by the ESRC and is presented in this video.



University of Warsaw
BabyBrains is part of a large workgroup that brings together many universities from the whole of Europe.
with the goal of studying the social development of the human infant in depth. BabyBrains is the
public engagement partner and offers internship placements to a number of students, as well as
education on how to use science to empower parents. This project is coordinated by Dr Tomalsky
and funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.

PAST ACHIEVEMENTS
In the past, we have worked with researchers at the following institutions:
University of Cambridge - Braintools, a Global Health Project
University of London, Birkbeck College - Teach-brite, a tech project for parental education
Goldsmith University - exploring perinatal wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic
University of Oxford - perinatal wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic
WE WELCOME NEW BABYLABS & UNIVERSITIES
If you are a scientist and want to make sure your science has an impact, we will be delighted to assist you in that, by either helping you communicate more effectively, or by doing so for you.
Please review our partnership information and contact us via our website to start the conversation!
