Expanding UON’s international engagement in 2018

Monday, 9 April 2018

For the third consecutive year the University of Newcastle has facilitated the $10,000 International Development Scholarships for our professional staff.

International Scholarship

The Scholarship enables us to support our staff to ‘be their best and give their best’ by providing the opportunity to attend conferences and form relationships which will have a long term benefit for the University.

In 2018 the four recipients will travel to diverse countries in Europe and North America collaborating with other international higher education institutions and industries across a great diversity of areas such as Business Intelligence, community and tertiary engagement and design thinking approaches to innovation.

Congratulations to the 2018 winners:

  • Taona Afful, School Executive Officer at the School of Architecture and Built Environment, will attend the Design Thinking: Connecting Innovation and Strategy executive program at the University of Toronto in Canada. The program teaches a design thinking approach to innovation where participants will prototype and retest challenges. Taona aims to incorporate these innovative techniques to SABE’s and UON’s strategic projects.
  • Debbie Booth, Senior Research Librarian in the Library, will attend the Summer School of Scientometrics at the University of Vienna. The aim of this program is to investigate current strategies, emerging research and new developments in the provision of bibliometric and research impact on citation analysis services. Debbie aims to integrate this best practice back into the UON Library service.
  • Alisha-Jane Laney, Administrative Assistant in the School of Creative Industries, will visit the University of West England and the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow to gain understanding of how they support and celebrate their graduates by showcasing their successes to employers and industries. Alisha hopes to include this knowledge into UON's current programs to help shape the new culture and community in Newcastle and facilitate bridging the gap between tertiary and community.
  • Rob Maggiotto, Business Intelligence Business Analyst in  the Strategy Planning and Performance, will attend the EduData summit in Boston and visit world-leading institutions in the fields of data analytics and machine learning to collaborate and understand business and artificial intelligence strategies. Rob will bring back the latest thinking and new partnerships, providing UON with an opportunity to advance in this area.

Tina Crawford, Director of People and Workforce Strategy said the selection committee was once again impressed with a high calibre of applicants.

“The four professional staff members will be excellent ambassadors for our University. This development will enable benchmarking in high value areas, which will lead to implementation of quality improvement projects that align with areas of strategic importance for the University as well as providing valuable networking opportunities,” Tina said.

“Our previous scholarship recipients have said that these overseas experiences have been both inspiring and re-energising and a great way to develop further and understand how UON fits into the international context,” Tina said.

The recipients were acknowledged at a reception with the Vice-Chancellor, colleagues and family on Tuesday 10 April.

The International Development Scholarship recognises high-performing and high-potential staff and provides development opportunities for the recipients while bringing benefit to UON through international engagement and collaboration.

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