The University of Queensland has announced the establishment of its Indonesian office to support research, education and alumni activities and increase engagement with industry partners.
It comes on the back of Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Debbie Terry’s recent mission to Indonesia, where she met with universities, leading research partners and government officials just days before the State Government announced a new Trade and Investment Queensland Centre in Jakarta.
Professor Terry said an increased presence in Indonesia would give UQ the opportunity to build on the significant and valued agreements it already has with the Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education, University of Indonesia and the Eijkman Institute of Molecular Biology in particular.
The University has a proud history of engagement with Indonesia, particularly given the country’s strategic future importance for Australia.
“Our collaborations with Indonesia have always been strong and it is tremendously important that we continue to foster and build those relationships at a time when Asia is increasing its significance globally,” Professor Terry said.
“This represents a substantial commitment and many initiatives will flow from this to the benefit of Queensland and Indonesia.”
She said the UQ office could be co-located with the Trade and Investment Queensland Centre, which would enable the University to contribute to a whole of Queensland Government approach to Indonesia.
The University will play its part in education, research and capacity building in complementary areas of economic development including energy and use of renewables, resources development, tropical agriculture and sustainability.
“UQ has recently been ranked in the top 10 in the world by the QS World University Rankings in Environmental Science, and Agriculture and Forestry so we are an obvious research partner for Indonesian institutions,” Professor Terry said.
Almost 200 UQ researchers from 18 schools, four institutes and nine centres have been involved in research collaborations with Indonesian experts over the past decade, resulting in The University of Queensland being the only Australian university listed in the top 20 global universities to co-publish with Indonesian academics.
The Jakarta office is expected to open in late 2013.
Media: Anna Bednarek, UQ Communications, 07 3346 7691 / a.bednarek@uq.edu.au
