The University of Queensland has won the 2013 Australia-Latin America Business Excellence Award presented at the Australia-Latin America Business Council (ALABC) annual dinner in Brisbane.
The award is a joint initiative between ALABC and the Council on Australia Latin America Relations (COALAR).
Presented annually since 2001, the award seeks to highlight success and excellence in strategy, growth, innovation and commitment in business relations with Latin America.
UQ Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education (ICTE-UQ) Deputy Director and co-chair of the UQ-Latin America Strategy Group Mr David Nelson accepted the award on behalf of the University.
He said building UQ relationships with Latin America was a team effort.
“UQ has made a sustained and strategic commitment to long-term engagement in Latin America with key government agencies, corporates and selective universities,” Mr Nelson said.
This is the second time UQ has won the award (first in 2009), and Mr Nelson won the ALABC Outstanding Contribution Award in 2004.
Mr Nelson said that UQ’s ‘Power of Partnership’ strategy was yielding strong results in Latin America through joint publications, shared capacity development, collaborative research, technology transfer, English language capacity building and institutional strengthening.
UQ has a growing number of Latin-American students, particularly at the research-higher-degree level.
Mr Nelson said the challenge for the future was to continue to expand on the momentum and facilitate transitions to professional careers for UQ’s Latin-American graduates.
ALABC Queensland Vice-Chairman Tim McLennan said the award applicants for 2013 were of a high standard.
“The Australian education sector members of ALABC are highly committed to Latin America and this is demonstrated through a range of activities,” he said.
“The University of Queensland has demonstrated its long-term commitment and clear strategic approach to collaboration across Latin America.”
The ALABC Brisbane annual dinner followed the seventh annual UQ-Latin American Colloquium, supported by the Latin American diplomatic corps in Australia, the Queensland State Government and industry.
Media: Aleyda Perez Soler, UQ International, 33651906 or a.perezsoler@uq.edu.au.
About UQ’s engagement with Latin America:
UQ has enjoyed long and successful engagement with Latin America since its first students from the region arrived in the early 1980s. In 2005, UQ established the Latin America Strategy Group to provide higher-level support to research relationships and to develop a long-term commitment to the region through an international engagement model focused on capacity-building initiatives. The success of the UQ strategy for Latin America has been based on a ‘solutions’ approach to partnership engagement. The establishment of the English Language Institute in Antofagasta, Chile is an example of this ‘solutions’ approach, with the focus on regional development and quality English-language training to help the Chilean mining industry internationalise their communications and engagement. The more recent establishment of a JKTech Office in Santiago, Chile to service the growing demand for technology transfer and innovation across the region is another example.
