In the past, the Consortium had awarded Research Fellowships to qualified faculty or research staff of UC members, enabling them to spend up to one year in another Consortium member university to conduct research along the UC’s priority thrusts and in an area of mutual interest to the home and host universities. As of 1 February 2007, a total of 11 research fellowships were supported by the Consortium.

The Consortium has now set its sights on implementing collaborative research projects in its priority areas of sustainable management of natural resource systems, food and agriculture policy, biotechnology in agriculture, food and health, information and communication technology, bioinformatics, and data management in agriculture. It is envisioned that the research projects would be jointly implemented by the UC members.