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Ancora Imparo, August, 2008

6 August 2008

Over the last month, I have been involved in a number of international activities that epitomise the breadth of Monash University's international engagement.

The first was to attend the official ceremony at the High Commissioner's residence in Kuala Lumpur where the Australian Prime Minister awarded an honorary AO to Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah in recognition of the role he has played as chair of the Sunway Group and its not-for-profit subsidiary, the Sunway Education Trust, in the success of Monash University's Sunway campus in Malaysia. In this event and the accompanying formal lunch and State dinner for Prime Minister Rudd, the importance of education in building links between Australia and Malaysia was emphasised with Monash University being particularly identified in the award ceremony.

I then attended the Board of Trustees and associated planning meetings of the University of Sharjah in London. The Board is chaired by the Ruler of Sharjah who has built a close relationship with Monash University and more widely with Victoria following the successful role played by the Faculties of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, and Pharmacy in the establishment of the Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy at the University of Sharjah. The Ruler is an enlightened man, with two earned PhDs from UK universities (Exeter and Durham) and active interests in Portuguese exploration, preservation of the biodiversity of desert plants and in wild life preservation in the desert with the creation of a large sanctuary. He is determined that the unique role of the University of Sharjah will be as a university firmly embedded in the history and culture of the region but genuinely outward looking, admitting students of all faiths and engaging with universities throughout the world. He is keen to extend his partnership with Monash University and has agreed to provide funding towards a Chair of Islamic Studies within the Centre for Islam and the Modern World at Monash.

In London I was able to meet with the Victorian Agent-General, David Buckingham, and the Provost (Vice-Chancellor) of University College London (UCL), Malcolm Grant, about extending our current partnership with Kings College London (KCL) in the field of medical science to include UCL and Imperial. Following that, I had a brief visit to Warwick University to follow up an earlier visit by our DVC (International) Stephanie Fahey and VP (Finance) David Pitt to explore the establishment of a comprehensive partnership with Warwick. Warwick University is an excellent fit for Monash -- established in 1965, it has quickly become one of the leading universities in the UK, with the fifth highest ranking in the last Research Assessment Exercise.

Warwick has an outstanding division specifically charged with building industry engagement, WMG Innovative Solutions, directed by the imposing and influential Lord Bhattacharyya. He was liberal in his advice about the secrets of getting a successful program for university and industry partnership for mutual benefit.

There are already active collaborations between Monash and Warwick in the areas of stem cell science involving the Monash Institute of Medical Research and in materials science, where Maria Forsyth from Materials Engineering is undertaking a sabbatical program. There are several other areas of common interest in the humanities and social sciences as well as in science, engineering and health sciences. The next step is to have a more comprehensive research-mapping exercise which will be conducted when the PVC (equivalent to our DVC) Research, Mark Smith, and an accompanying delegation visit Monash in late 2008 or early 2009. Mark already knows Monash well as he spent several years at CSIRO Clayton in the 1990s and collaborated extensively with Monash during that time. Student exchange, joint PhD supervision, funded research collaboration and benchmarking will be direct dividends from the partnership that will complement our established partnerships with KCL, Newcastle and Nottingham in the UK.

On the way back from the UK, I attended the dinner at Monash University's Sunway campus in Malaysia celebrating its 10th anniversary coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Monash University. It was a wonderful event which came after a two-day education symposium and a two day research symposium led by the relevant DVCs and in which the Associate Deans from the involved faculties took part. The progress made by the campus has been stunning. Together with the Sunway campus Pro Vice-Chancellor Robin Pollard, I visited the Vice-Chancellor of UPM. This University has also made outstanding progress since its expansion from an agricultural college to a university and will join the University of Malaya and UKM as major partners of Monash University's Sunway campus in Malaysia.

At the end of the month I spent two days at our South African campus for a Board meeting and to meet most of the staff and the student association. The progress of the campus is quite remarkable. It now has over 2500 students and its financial position is continuing to improve markedly with this year's operating deficit likely to be about $4m compared to a peak in 2003 of over $12m. There have been some problems relating to IT services and with the new residential block but these have been or are being sorted out. Overall, the campus is an incredible achievement and it will be great to have more of our Australian students accessing the amazing cultural and educational experiences available at the campus and more generally in Africa.

Towards the end of the month, I hosted two significant delegations in Australia. Of course, each month we have many international visitors, but I have particular reason to refer to these two. The first was led by the Iraqi Ambassador and included the Cultural Attache and the President of al-Nahrain University. This delegation referred to the warm relationship already established between Iraq and Monash and the opportunity to expand research higher degree training. Opportunities for more extensive research collaboration were sought. The extreme resilience of the Iraqis (al-Nahrain University was not closed for a single day during the war and subsequent insurgency) and their commitment to education and research were very apparent. Fortunately, the security situation in Baghdad has improved significantly and the delegation was very optimistic about the future.

The second delegation was from Chile. I signed an Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of Universities Australia with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Chilean Government has established a $6b Bicentennial Fund to provide scholarships for the best Chilean graduates to undertake PhDs in a limited number of 'like-minded' countries which includes Australia. It is expected that around 500 fully-funded scholarships per year will be available for PhD students wishing to study in Australia. Their philosophy is that they should take advantage of the resources boom which is benefiting Chile as well as Australia by investing in their brightest students. This is another wonderful opportunity for Monash.

Finally, I attended along with several other colleagues from Monash, an inspirational fund-raising dinner conducted by the Jewish community to establish a medical research fund called AusIMed to support collaborative research between Australian universities and hospitals and the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem. The event was orchestrated by our Senior Deputy Dean of Medicine, Leon Piterman, and the fund was launched by the Federal Minister for Health Nicola Roxon. The committee has been generous enough to name me as the Patron of the Fund.

Monash's international strategy has many dimensions. It has been a defining element in the unique path that Monash has followed and a major reason why we are the only university aged 50 years or less ranked in the top 50 universities in the world by the Times Higher Education Supplement (UK). It is a key factor in raising our international profile which contributes to our success in the 'global war for talent' amongst academic staff and in our continued success in attracting international students.

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