A global partnership

Monash's reputation as a high-quality research institution has fostered collaborations between the university and dozens of other institutions around the world. These partnerships and the strength of Monash's research is attracting more and more scientists who are keen to work with the university on innovative and influential projects. PENNY FANNIN reports.

Fulbright Scholarship Since commencing her studies at Monash University in 1997, Dr Rita Harika, 24, has achieved everything she set out to do and more. full story

About six years ago, a delegation from Thailand's Mahidol Uni-versity visited Australia in search of someone who could isolate and refine compounds from herbal extracts. Up to 80 per cent of the drugs used in Thailand are herbal, but the active ingredients in these medicines are rarely known. The Mahidol scientists found the person who could isolate and identify the active compounds - Dr Magdy Iskander from Monash's Department of Medicinal Chemistry.

Their successful research collaboration continues today and has extended to a teaching partnership, with Dr Iskander co-supervising two PhD students and a masters student from Mahidol University.

The collaborations of Monash staff encompass all faculties and involve dozens of countries. Some prominent examples include:

• the Monash University Accident Research Centre's collaboration with the Swedish National Road Administration, which covers road safety public education campaigns, rural road safety initiatives and bike helmet usage;
• the Monash Asia Institute's project that aims to improve living conditions for people living in Asia's largest slum (see page 10);
• the stem cell research being conducted in conjunction with researchers from the US and Singapore; and
• the Victorian College of Pharmacy's collaboration with research groups in the US and Switzerland to develop a new class of low-cost, fast-acting drugs for treating malaria.

Professor Stephen Parker, a Monash deputy vice-chancellor and chair of the university's Europe Steering Group (which guides the university's European activities), says the strong collaborations established by Monash staff are proof of the university's reputation as an innovative and research-intensive institution.

"Institutions from around the world recognise the talents of our researchers and continue to show interest in establishing collaborations," Professor Parker said. "In many cases, these collaborations are advancing research to a far greater extent than would have been possible had the research teams been working independently. Collaborations encourage a rigorous exchange of ideas that our researchers transfer to their work and, through teaching, to their students."

Several university collaborations have stemmed from Monash students and staff being awarded internationally recognised scholarships such as the Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships. Professor Parker says the university is actively strengthening its relationships with institutions from around the world, both in research and in the delivery of student programs.

As part of its drive to foster links with Chinese academic institutions, Monash entered a special arrangement with Beijing's Tsinghua University earlier this year that will see the two institutions deliver postgraduate programs at each other's campuses.

The two universities will initially aim to develop the joint delivery of postgraduate programs, which in turn will strengthen Monash-Tsinghua academic cooperation as well as links between China and Australia.

Monash's international focus is also attracting funding from agencies such as the Australian Research Council (ARC).

In August it was announced that Monash would lead a national research centre dedicated to developing machines that are capable of interacting with their environment. The ARC Centre for Perceptive and Intelligent Machines in Complex Environments, headed by Professor Ray Jarvis from the Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, is a collaboration with the University of Melbourne, Curtin University and the Australian National University as well as universities in Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Germany, the US and Canada. It has received Federal Government funding of more than $5.6 million over five years.

Networks of intelligent sensors, machines and databases have uses in security, health care and civil disaster support, says Professor Jarvis.

"Animals, other insects and microbes interact purposefully with their environment through information gathered by biological sensors," he said. "Our challenge is to equip machines with agility, artificial sensors and computational systems that have been inspired by the biological world.

"The ARC Centre with its extensive collaborations will be able to undertake fundamental research on complexity, scalability and human/machine interactions, with the ultimate aim of developing systems with real-life applications such as a user-friendly robotic wheelchair, a limited-capacity robotic humanoid and a fire-fighting robotic vehicle with primitive search and rescue capability."

Just as Professor Jarvis's collaboration seeks to develop better machines, other university partnerships aim to create better educational programs.

Associate Professor John Loughran from Monash's Faculty of Education is working with colleagues from Canada and The Netherlands to identify better ways of providing teacher education.

Dr Loughran has been working with Professor Tom Russell from Queen's University, Canada, and Professor Fred Korthagen from the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands for the past two years, trying to find new ways of enhancing teaching about teaching, a challenge to the traditional model of teacher education.

"The work is derived from the ongoing problems in many occupations whereby university preparation for a profession is often seen as the theory, while on-the-job experience is seen as the practice,"

Dr Loughran says. "We have been working at ways to reconceptualise teaching to combine theory and practice to bring together these distinct practices.

"It's about making teacher education appropriate, relevant and meaningful for student-teachers and teacher educators."

Action: For more information on research at Monash visit the research website.

Rhodes Scholarship

Dr Nathan Grills, 26-year-old Monash University medical graduate and recipient of a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship has already worked in desperately poor hospitals and health centres in Africa, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
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