Minutes of URGE Annual Assemblies
URGE Annual Assembly 2012
In 2012, the AU-based Erasmus Mundus application on Educational Anthropology, with the UoA as one of the partners, had reached an advanced stage of preparation when an error encountered by one of the European partners meant that it had to be postponed to the next round in 2013. There was a lively discussion about the literature, concepts, approaches, practices and examples of universities' approaches to entrepreneurship. The intensity of the discussion on academic entrepreneurship meant that the meeting continued an hour longer than planned.
URGE Annual Assembly 2013
Mayes (UoA) discussed organizing an 'Outreach' to the Ministry to direct the results of the URGE project to officials who could use them. UNIVBRIS is celebrating the centenary of the School of Education and Robertson planned to include a report of the URGE project in the exhibition. Miri Davidson (student UoA) explained that she, Stephen Turner and John Morgan from the papers of the conference "Death of the Public University?" in a special issue of the journal Argos Aotearoa called, 'The University Beside Itself'.
Administrative issues raised and revealed by membership of URGE
It seemed that the University of Auckland is everyone's, it encompasses the whole city. The other side of the marketing weight was that it maintained a focus on the quality of the university's offer to students. The Academic Dean of Research at the Auckland Faculty of Arts was adamant that professional leadership was necessary for research and that academics should be as free as possible just to do the work and that grant management should not be left to them . with.
Reports of Administrators’ secondments
Dan Cook, Director of Administration/School Manager for the Graduate School of Education
To arrange a meeting with Airini, one of the Heads of Schools (airini@auckland.ac.nz), which unfortunately could not be arranged during my stay. To read the book Alan Macfarlane (Anthropologist) "Creating the Modern World" - discusses the role of trusts in the creation of modern society. Financial control at the college is highly streamlined, with a single office serving the entire college.
Dual reporting lines for finance staff through the university finance office and the education faculty. It was clear that the amalgamation of the old teacher training colleges and university departments seven years ago into the Faculty of Education still had not fallen into place. Everdina is the Business Manager for Te Whare Kura, the interdisciplinary research theme based in the Faculty of Arts but spanning the University.
To what extent does the university's financial management policy help and hinder the work of. Thegn is Director of Research for the Faculty of Arts, most recently in this role. The role of the director of research was more about maintaining and building the intellectual life of the Faculty than about meeting financial targets, and at least in the Auckland Faculty of Arts, the publications and performance of the PBRF were seen as a higher priority than the generation of research income. .
I did a photo studio of a large part of the Epsom and Symonds campus, and can produce photographs if needed. It felt like the space was used as a metaphor for the purpose of a university in the design of the buildings. The engineering building's suspended portico was like an elaborate visual joke about the discipline.
Lynette Read (UoA) Report on Visits to Bristol University and Aarhus University, September-
21 in the International Office – to discuss their roles in the URGE project team and their individual research projects. Two of the team members were planning to come to NZ soon as part of the URGE exchange program and I was able to provide advice on budgeting for a few months' stay and general information about the practicalities of living in NZ. I also met with Astrid Cermak, Research Officer at the Research Support Unit and Niels Henrik Meedom, Head of the Research Management Service at DPU.
In the following week 10-14. October, meetings were held with members of the URGE team and research leaders at DPU to discuss the development of an application for funding of the Initial Training (PhD) Network in January 2012 and an Erasmus Mundus application in April 2012 Accompanied by Niels Henrik Meedom I also went to the main campus of Aarhus University in Aarhus and met with senior leaders there – Anne Marie Pahuus (vice dean for research), Johnny Laursen (Ph.D. head of school), Steen Weisner, (Head of talent development), Rene Dybdal Petersen ( advisor for knowledge dissemination, Faculty of Arts) – to ensure their support for the development of an ITN application. A further meeting was arranged with Marianne Ping Huang (vice-dean for Education, Faculty of Arts) and Lene Hjøllund, (adviser for Education, Faculty of Arts) to discuss the development of the Erasmus Mundus application.
The outcome of both meetings was an agreement in principle on the development of both applications, and a request for further information from Sue Wright, providing further details on the proposed ITN and Erasmus Mundus programmes. During the week of 17-19 October I had further meetings with Sue Wright and also met two other members of the URGE team: Dr Dirk Michel-Schertges, lecturer in education and Martin Bech, a PhD student of Sue Wright. An agreement has been reached between the three universities to submit an ITN funding proposal and apply for a joint Erasmus Mundus master's degree in January 2012.
I gained a better understanding of the international research funding environment and of the role of the research development manager internationally.
Lynette Read’s (UoA) Visit to INORMS Conference and Department of Education (DPU), AU
24 In addition, I met with Martin Bech (one of Sue's PhD students), Dr. Dirk Schertges and dr. Gritt Nielsen, three other members of the URGE team who plan to visit UoA later this year at different times. Astrid and Sue are also coming to UoA in the second half of 2012, so there was a lot to discuss about the practical aspects of these visits, which last from one to four months. I also met with Dr. Anne-Marie Pahuus, Vice-Dean for Research at the Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University, and Niels-Henrik Meedom, Director of the recently established Center for Research Innovation at the Faculty of Arts, who were very interested in the development of thematic research initiatives at the UoA.
In summary, I think that both the conference and the visit to the School of Education at Aarhus University in Copenhagen were very worthwhile. As the only New Zealand representative at the conference, my presentation helped raise the profile of New Zealand, and particularly the University of Auckland, in the field of international research management. The International Training Network in Higher Education, which will start in 2013, and the proposed Erasmus Mundus Master's program in Educational Anthropology (if the application is successful) will contribute to our international reputation in these areas of education and research.
Proposed Erasmus Mundus Masters Programme Application 2013
In the first semester, all students will take a compulsory basic module in educational anthropology at the DPU in Copenhagen. In the second semester, students will complete one compulsory course on ethnographic research methods and preparation for fieldwork and two elective courses at the universities of Aarhus, Durham or Stockholm. In the third semester, students have to complete two compulsory modules – 1) An independent project involving fieldwork 2) A field-to-text module.
Students will be able to choose a supervisor for the project from any EU or third country partner and carry out fieldwork in that country. They can choose a thesis supervisor from any EU or third country partner and will receive one-to-one guidance on their thesis. It will be mandatory for students to take a minimum of 30 ECTS (= 60 NZ points) in two European countries.
Non-EU scholars can only complete 15 ECTS at non-EU institutions, and EU students can study 1 or 2 semesters outside Europe. Consortium partners can choose to waive part of the tuition if they wish. The group is expected to be 30 students (10 European and 20 non-European).
Partner institutions will receive part of the fees for the courses and supervision they provide and part of the funding for visiting researchers.
Proposed ITN (Initial Training Network)
List of Participants in UNIKE ITN project
- Astrid Cermak (AU)
- Niels Henrik Meedom, Director of Danish Centre for Culture and Learning (AU) to Auckland
- Conference Paper by Read and Henckel to INORMS conference, May 2012
- Abstract
- Power points
Contact person and host institution: dr. Melissa Spencer, Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland. 33 Dr. Susan Morton, Director, Growing Up in New Zealand, University of Auckland and Kerry Price, Business Development Manager - Medicine and Health, Uniservices. Miriam Ross and Paul Wolffram, Film Programme, School of English Language, Film, Theater and Media Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington.
Dr Alfio Leotta, Film Programme, School of English, Film, Theater and Media Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington. Kirsten Moana Thompson, Professor and Director of Film Programme, School of English, Film, Theater and Media Studies, Victoria University of Wellington. Brian Annan and Mary Wootton, Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland (Mary is also associated with Uniservices Ltd).
Professor Joerg Kistler, Director, Institute for Biotechnology Innovation and Analeise Murahidy, Business Manager, Science, Uniservices ltd, University of Auckland. Sector Research, Commissioned Research, Government Relations Everdina Fuli (Te Whare Kura), Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland. Professor Diane Brand, Dean, National Institute of Arts and Creative Industries, University of Auckland.
Financial management, incentives, faculty management and change management Nic Mason, Research Opportunities Manager, Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland. Melissa Spencer (ARTS TE WHARE KURA), Grant Writer/Research Developer, Faculty of Arts, The University of Auckland. Gary Patterson, Director, Faculty of Finance, Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Law, University of Auckland Financial management.