UC researchers head to Europe on exchange
15 December 2011
Four University of Canterbury researchers are heading to Europe this month after becoming the first UC scholars to be accepted onto a prestigious European Commission exchange programme.
(From left) Gabriel Weibl, Hamish Woodside and Abel Reyna Rivera.
Four University of Canterbury researchers are heading to Europe this month after becoming the first UC scholars to be accepted onto a prestigious European Commission exchange programme.
PhD students Hamish Woodside, Gabriel Weibl and Robert Brears, and postdoctoral researcher Abel Reyna Rivera, will travel to Europe as part of the Erasmus Mundus international doctoral and postdoctoral mobility programme run by the European Commission.
The programme, which has been operating for the past 10 years, aims to promote student exchanges globally between European universities and tertiary institutions in non-European countries to strengthen co-operation between higher education organisations.
The University of Canterbury, through the National Centre for Research on Europe(NCRE), became the lead Australasian partner in a consortium of 10 European and Australasian universities that were accepted into the programme in 2010.
The consortium involves six European universities — the University of Limerick(Ireland), the University of Bath (United Kingdom), Sciences-Po Paris (France), Free University Berlin (Germany), Charles University (Czech Republic), LUISS Guido Carli (Italy) — and four Australasian universities — Victoria University of Wellington, the Australian National University, the University of Sydney and the University of Canterbury.
Hamish will be located at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom looking at the European Union’s development policies in the Pacific.
Abel, who is going to Foundation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris, France, will be working on a comparative study of regional economic integration in the European Union, following a primarily supranational path, and Australia-New Zealand economic integration following a liberal, intergovernmental path.
Gabriel is heading to Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, where he will look at the internationalisation efforts of European universities and international student mobility, while Robert will be based at the Free University of Berlin in Germany where he will research urban sustainability in European cities.
The four UC researchers said they were looking forward to their exchanges, saying it was a good opportunity to collaborate with others working in similar areas.
The Erasmus Mundus programme allows for 99 fully funded doctoral and postdoctoral exchanges between the 10 participating universities over a four year period. The programme is open to any doctoral or postgraduate student at Canterbury or Victoria University of Wellington working on European Union-related topics within the social sciences.
The NCRE will next year host seven students and academics from Europe, with one student hosted in conjunction with the University’s Mathematics and Statistics department.
For more information please contact:
communications@canterbury.ac.nz
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