03 August 2021
Vice-Chancellor Dear
ACU Membership Subscription Year 2021-2022 I am delighted to welcome you to a new year of ACU membership. Your invoice will arrive shortly, and I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the benefits available to you as an ACU member. As our nations continue to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ACU remains committed to supporting our member universities and ensuring that our vibrant global network continues to thrive – through opportunities to connect, learn and influence. Connect By connecting universities across borders, the ACU enables members to share insights and develop new collaborations. Our Regional Committees and virtual VC roundtables create forums for university leaders to engage with each other and shape ACU strategy. Through our Ambassadors Summits, we offer online spaces to debate key issues in internationalisation and broker new relationships. Our policy networks and communities of practice in Climate Resilience, Peace and Reconciliation, Higher Education and the SDGs, Supporting Research, and HR in HE connect nearly 2,000 colleagues across our membership and continue to grow. Our new Challenge Grants offer targeted support for collaborative work focused on each network or community’s priority themes. Learn The ACU provides a platform for member universities to learn from each other and drive innovation. Our funding opportunities for university staff and students support initiatives in a range of key areas, including virtual mobility, gender equality, and early career research. We have transformed our events and grants to support online engagement, ensuring that our members can continue to experience the benefits of international collaboration. Our new podcast – The Internationalist – takes on the current debates in higher education, featuring expert insight from students, academics and practitioners across the Commonwealth. Influence The ACU champions the role of higher education in sustainable development, seeking to influence policymakers at the highest levels within and beyond the sector. On behalf of our members, we use our accredited status at the UN and in the Commonwealth to promote the message that higher education must be supported and protected as an integral part of the education ecosystem, even as the funding landscape shrinks. Looking to the year ahead, we will provide opportunities for our members to influence policy agendas at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers, and UNESCO World Higher Education Conference. We are also proud to bring our members’ voices into high level forums including COP26 (the UN Climate Change Conference) and the Commonwealth Games. Our funding opportunities for university staff and students support initiatives in a range of key areas, including virtual mobility, gender equality, and early career research. We have transformed our events and grants to support online engagement, ensuring that our members can continue to experience the benefits of international collaboration. The calendar for 2021/22 grants is attached to this email. We believe that international collaboration is the key to tackling global challenges – and that, in these extraordinary times, it matters more than ever. We look forward to another year of working together to build a better world through higher education.
Yours sincerely |
