By Eric Matthews–

A new international scholarship may be coming to U of L. Director of the the Darwin Centre Trust, Patrick Pietroni, visited campus Jan. 17 to speak about the scholarship.

The Darwin Scholarship will be available in 2018 and funds postgraduate research on the importance of compassion, cooperation and altruism in a scholar’s chosen field of study for up to four years.

Darwin Scholars gather at the Darwin Centre’s headquarters in Shrewsbury, UK each summer to share their findings and discuss how to implement them.

The Darwin Centre aims to better understand the function and importance of compassion and to find ways to practice compassion more effectively.

To support the scholarship program, the Centre is launching a research journal to showcase scholars’ work and an academic center named the Darwin International Institute for the Study of Compassion.

The program is only offered at universities that have signed affiliation agreements with the DIISC, but Pietroni says he expects U of L to join that group in weeks.

U of L’s Department of Urban and Public Affairs and the International Center for Compassionate Organizations arranged Pietroni’s presentation at the Chao Auditorium.

Headquartered in Louisville, the ICCO has developed numerous programs for Louisville’s Compassionate City Campaign.