Workshop on Research Collaboration with UCLA & RMIT University

Monday 30th March 2009

Attendees:

Prof. Felicity Roddick, Associate Dean, SET R & I

Prof. Charlie Xue - SHS

Prof. David Mainwaring – SET

Prof. Dayanthi Nugegoda – SAS

Dr. Margaret Hamilton – SCS&IT

Dr. Nichola Porter - SAS

Dr. Louis Doukas - SAMME

Dr. Sergei Schreider – SM&GS

Assoc. Prof. Jianku Hu – SCS&IT

Dr. Ibrahim Khalil – SCS&IT

Ms Georgina Douglas – International & Development

Dr. Caroline Northwood – SET

Ms. Sandra Pereira - SET

Apologies:

Dr. Madeline Reeve – PVC, International & Development

Prof. Irena Cosic – Associate PVC, R & I - SET

Prof. Tony Dalton – Associate PVC, R & I - DSC

Prof. Trang Thomas - SHS

Assoc. Prof.Trevor Stevenson - SAS

Dr. Nira Jayasuriya - SCECE

Prof. John Buckeridge – Head of School - SCECE

Summary

On behalf of Dr. Reeve, Ms Douglas welcomed Prof. Aroni on his 26th annual visit and staff from the College of SET to the workshop She noted that Prof. Aroni is well known to RMIT and has cultivated a relationship with staff in a number of areas and explained that the purpose of the workshop was to explore and establish further collaborative research between RMIT and UCLA.

Prof. Felicity Roddick, Acting Associate Pro Vice Chancellor Research and Innovation, opened and facilitated the workshop. She introduced Prof Aroni noting that this was his 26th visit to RMIT and provided a brief overview of his role at and relationship with RMIT. Prof. Aroni is emeritus professor at UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning. His role is to establish and maintain an extensive network of exchange relationships between UCLA and Universities around the world. He has visited RMIT University as the Director of the RMIT - UCLA Exchange Program almost every year since the first agreement for academic collaboration between RMIT and UCLA was signed in 1990. The agreement covers collaborative research projects, organising joint academic and scientific activities, exchange of research and teaching personnel, exchange of students and exchange of publications. The most recent agreement was signed in 2003 and is due for review. Summary information about UCLA was provided to workshop participants.

Prof. Aroni thanked Ms. Douglas and Prof. Roddick and expressed his gratitude for the opportunity provided by Dr. Reeve to visit RMIT. Prof. Aroni noted that he is keen to pursue and renew past collaborations and to establish new ones with a focus on the future. Previous visits to RMIT have included group discussions, joint seminars and have led to 88 student exchanges. As part of the interactions over the 26 years, he has met with a number of senior staff including the VC, PVCs, Deans and senior administrators within RMIT.

Prof. Aroni’s aims for this visit are to establish academic cooporation with RMIT Vietnam and he expressed the hope that recent meetings with RMIT Vietnam President, Mr. Mann would help improve arrangements in 2010 onwards. Prof Aroni also intends to facilitate the development of new ideas in the areas of East/West medicine, and water resources research.

Professor Felicity Roddick, School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, gave a brief presentation on some of her past and present collaborations with UCLA, which developed out of Prof Aroni’s past visits to RMIT. As a result of these visits, 2 workshops have been organised by the water research group at RMIT. One of these, the RMIT-UCLA joint workshop on “Water and the Environment: Policies and Practices in the Water Industry” held in Melbourne in 2002 was well attended by state and local government and community groups.

Dr. Jayasuriy and Prof. Roddick travelled to UCLA in 2003 to conduct collaborative research and Dr Eric Hoek of the Civil and Environmental Engineering School visited UCLA in 2005 on an RMIT Foundation Visiting Research Fellowship to work on the development of reverse osmosis membranes. PhD students from the group have also visited UCLA, exchanging research methods and techniques.

Professor Charlie Xue, head of the RMIT Traditional and Complementary Medicine Research Group (RTCMRG) and Professor Ka Kit Hui, Department of Medicine UCLA, have a long term, established research collaboration on Eastern and Western medicine. Collaborations with UCLA have involved

·  WHO Expert Advisory Meeting at RMIT 2003

·  International Symposium on Harmonisation of Traditional and Modern Medicine 2005

·  Professor Ka Kit Hui’s appointment as Adjunct Professor at RMIT since 2008

Future collaborations expected include:

·  Joint supervision for higher degree by research candidates investigating the public health issues associated with the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Australia and the USA

·  Development of joint research grant applications through the NHMRC in Australia or NIH in the USA

·  Joint publications in the use of CAM for chronic diseases particularly its relevance to geriatric medicine and integrative medicine

·  Promotion of integrative medical care. Toward this end collaborations have been established with more than 10 public hospitals in Australia and China, through externally funded research projects

Other participants briefly outlined their research interests to identify areas for future collaboration with UCLA.

Ms Douglas concluded the meeting by encouraging those that were keen to collaborate, to meet with Prof. Aroni during the next few days of his visit at RMIT.

J:\Research & Innovation\Research Management\ResearchFocusWorkshops\UCLA\Summary April 09.doc