Indonesian academic exchange an opportunity for unique collaboration
Pacific Media Centre Director, Professor David Robie will join academics from around the world in a global academic exchange with Indonesia's Universitas Gadjah Mada. In return, seven academics from the Indonesian university will visit AUT for the first communication and publication research collaboration of its kind in New Zealand.
The seven academics from Yogyakarta, led by Gadjah Mada University's Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) director Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni, arrived in Auckland recently for a two-week visit featuring workshops, seminars and joint research projects.
They will also be collaborating with their newly published research journal IKAT, the PMC's 23-year-old Pacific Journalism Review and AUT Library's Tuwhera research platform on a major project involving ecological communication and Asia-Pacific maritime disasters.
Dr Robie is one of six academics invited by CESASS as part of the Indonesian government's World Class Professor (WCP) programme to strengthen international publication and research studies. He will visit Gadjah Mada University for two weeks later in October, joining Professor Thomas Hanitzsch, chair and professor of Communication Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen, Germany; Professor Judith Schlehe, professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at University of Freiburg, Germany; Dr Magaly Koch from the Centre for Remote Sensing at Boston University; Professor Hermann M. Fritz from Georgia Institute of Technology; and Dr David Menier, associate professor HDR at Université de Bretagne-Sud, France.
Head of the School of Communication Studies, Professor Berrin Yanikkaya welcomes the Indonesian academics and recognises the role of the Centre.
"David has for many years run a vibrant and dynamic research centre out of the School of Communication Studies. The Pacific Media Centre has become a focus for research and political commentary and thanks to David's energy and commitment has attracted many overseas scholars whose research has further enriched the unique perspective that the centre offers on Asia-Pacific affairs." Berrin said.
"I'm extremely pleased to host our guests from Indonesia and to join with them in congratulating David on this acknowledgement of his life's work."
Find out more about the visiting academics on the Pacific Media Centre website.