SEATTLE, WASHINGTON. A $450,000 deal between The University of Queensland (UQ) and the University of Washington (UW) will fund new opportunities for study and research exchanges spanning the Pacific Ocean.
Trans-Pacific Fellowships will support high-achieving students and staff from the two universities to learn and conduct research on each other’s turf.
UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said the fellowships expanded the options for UQ students and staff keen to enrich their educational experience or advance their research by collaborating at a leading US state university.
“The fellowships will be open to final-year undergraduate students, Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Philosophy candidates and postdoctoral and senior professorial researchers,” Professor Greenfield said from UW in Seattle.
“UQ students will gain credit towards their degrees from the UW exchange.
”Our universities have an agreement for cultural, educational and scientific cooperation, and we conduct important collaborative research in areas including health (vaccine development, early disease detection and population health) and bioengineering.
“The financial aid provided by Trans-Pacific Fellowships will encourage exchanges that lead to permanent personal and institutional friendships, as well as the pooling of the universities’ expertise and resources to derive better teaching and research results,” Professor Greenfield said.
UQ and UW are together contributing up to $150,000 per annum for the initial three year life of the fellowship agreement.
From UQ, it is envisaged that one undergraduate, one Doctor of Philosophy or Master of Philosophy candidate, and one postdoctoral or senior professorial researcher will take part in the exchange in the first year, 2009. Application rounds will be annual and competitive.
Exchanges will vary in duration from a few weeks for a senior researcher to identify strategic collaborations, through to a semester (approximately four months) for an undergraduate student and up to six months for a postdoctoral or senior professorial researcher.
More information for prospective fellows is available from Donna Hannan, d.hannan@uq.edu.au
Media contact: Fiona Kennedy 617 3365 6060
