Martin Henson

Visit from the Universitas Islam Indonesia ...

We were pleased to host a delegation from the UII in Yogyakarta -- a city I like very much. Pictured here is the Vice Chancellor of UII, Prof Edy, with our deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof Rob Massara. We're involved in several interesting projects in Yogyakarta, including PhD training and research visits.

 

JNU-Essex Alliance ...

The Vice Chancellors of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, Professor B B Bhattacharya (middle) and the University of Essex, Professor Colin Riordan (right) signed an agreement that establishes an institutional alliance between the two universities. 

The Alliance creates a close bond between the universities, integrated vertically from the Vice Chancellors downward, and horizontally across almost all the academic areas that the institutions have in common. In addition the aim is to make connections between areas of professional service too.

 

 

JNU delegation at Essex ...

We were delighted to host a visit to Colchester from Prof Vaishna Narang and Prof H C Narang, from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Prof Narang visited Prof Andy Spencer and Dr Sonja Eisenbeiss in the Department of Language and Linguistics. Prof H C Narang visited Prof Peter Hulme in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies.

Among other discussions, plans for a workshop on common interests in Linguistics at JNU in March were developed. Prof Spencer and Dr Eisenbeiss hope to travel to Delhi in the next couple of months.

Visit to Universitas Gadjah Mada

An excellent few days spent in the company of colleagues at the Universitas Gadjah Mada, one of the most important universities in the region. I gave three talks, two of them informal – to faculty members and to students. I also gave a keynote presentation "The Strategic Management of Research — an international perspective" at the International Conference on Higher Education Management, that took place between 14 and 15 October.

We later discussed many issues of mutual interest, including educational and research opportunities between our two universities, and we are looking forward to welcoming colleagues from UGM to Essex in the near future.

Visit to Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India

A flying but amazingly intense visit to JNU again, following the Vice Chancellor of JNU (pictured), Prof B B Bhattacharya's visit to Essex in June. I had the great pleasure in renewing old acquaintances and making new friends. It was good to meet with people from Life Sciences, Linguistics, Sociology, and Philosophy again, but the main focus of the visit was to meet people in Biotechnology, Molecular Biology, Information Technology, Law and Governance, International Development, and Art and Aesthetics.

JNU has a beautiful campus; it is spacious and wonderful to walk through at first light and in the evening -- indeed, at any time!

Interesting times ahead for us I think ...

Dr Hock Meng Tan …

We were delighted to welcome Dr Hock Meng Tan and his wife to the University. Dr Tan is Vice President and Director of the Corporate Performance Manage Center at HELP University College in Malaysia. It was a pleasure to meet and discuss matters of mutual interest and exchange views on Higher Education in the UK and in Malaysia.

Visit from Southeast University, China

 

 

We were delighted to host a delegation of senior academic managers from the Southeast University in China today.

SEU is located in Nanjing, the former capital of China; it was founded in 1902, is one of the top 20 universities in China, in the top 10 for scientific research, and has 5 disciplines ranked in the top 5 within the country, including biomedical engineering and wireless telecommunication. There are over 27,000 students at SEU, of which over 10,000 are postgraduates. So, SEU resembles Essex in having an unusually high proportion of postgraduate students, if not in its overall size!

The Delegation was headed by Prof Wang Baoping, SEU's Vice President; he was accompanied by Prof Shi Lanxin, Director of the Office for International Cooperation; Prof Keting Gui, Executive Vice-Dean of the Graduate School; Prof Jianlong Chen, Dean of the Department of Mathematics; Prof Chen Xiaoshu, Deputy Dean of the School of Information Science and Engineering; and Prof Guo Xiaoming, Director of Personnel.

We all look forward to developing further the educational and research collaborations that we have already established.

I hope to visit SEU towards the end of next month.

Academia.edu …

This networking site, specifically for Higher Education is really very nicely designed, and is crying out to be better populated and used. Many of us are using lots of different networking sites to help us in our work. It appears that the only reason Academia.edu is not the obvious choice at the moment is just that it is not so well known. Register your presence! You'll find your university, faculty and department for sure – and probably a few research students/assistants you don't know yet!

The link is: http://www.academia.edu/

For example, Noam Chomsky and Stephen Hawking are registered -- so why aren't we all?

Let's make good use of this – it's just for us!

Visit to the University by Dr Mohammed Al Haddad

Dr Mohammed Al Haddad is Head of the Department of Computer Science within the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, KSA.

Mohammed has just completed two weeks visiting the School of Computer Science and Electronic Systems here at the University of Essex exploring possibilities for research cooperation and helping to progress various collaborative ventures between the two universities. 

Visit to the University by Professor Olusegun Oke

The University of Essex was delighted to host a visit by Professor Olusegun Oke, council member of the Osun State University in Osogbo, Nigeria -- a new university founded in 2006.

Prof Segun was educated at Reading and Cambridge Universities and has previously spent time as a visitor at Sussex. He was the founding Vice Chancellor of the University of Technology, LAUTECH in Ogbomoso.

We are looking forward to taking our discussions forward into actions that will create exiciting links between the University of Essex and the Osun State University.