April 18, 2019, by Lisa Chin
Dongguan University of Technology Visit to UNM
This post is written by Ms Vimaleswari Danapal, Assistant Manager at the Graduate School, University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM).
UNM recently played host to three co-supervisors from Dongguan University of Technology, China from 8th -10th April 2019. The supervisors were here to learn more about managing research students, processes and procedures involved in every stage of PhD and understanding the fundamentals of establishing a graduate centre back at their university.
The Graduate School worked closely with Faculty of Science & Engineering (FOSE) to arrange a range of useful presentation sessions which covered areas such as research student supervision and monitoring, research governance and integrity, research collaborations and Vitae’s Researcher Development Framework. These were delivered by members of academic staff and professional services.
The opening remark was delivered by Prof. Deborah Hall, Vice Provost of Research & Knowledge Exchange and she gave an overview of the university, history and establishment of UNM, student numbers and her vision on the university research strategy. In her speech, Prof. Deborah emphasized UNM’s research vision was to enhance the wealth and health of Malaysia and South East Asia. She further explained the research vision ecosystem which comprised of research centres, world class researchers, institute for policy & engagement, industrial collaboration/commercialization, transdisciplinary research and international collaboration. She also went on to highlight that UNM churns out about 400 publications yearly.
Meanwhile, Prof. Andy Chan, Dean of FOSE decided to have an informal chat with the co-supervisors during his session. He shared some pointers in the session which included the tight security policy imposed by some industry partners. He explained that communicating with them is a challenge as no email exchanges or Skype calls are allowed. Every meeting has to take place at their premises only and this is a challenge that researchers face at the university. The supervisors from Dongguan University were keen to collaborate with UNM on neutron scattering research but unfortunately we had to decline as there were no experts in this area.
The co-supervisors also took the opportunity to meet their current students and do progress checks with the main supervisor in between the presentation sessions. Heads of Department and Directors of Research from FOSE were invited for networking lunch sessions with the Dongguan University co-supervisors to discuss on possible future collaborations and to give them leads on respective contacts at their university. Overall the visit was useful and productive for both universities and we hope to see more PhD students benefitting through this programme in the future.
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