'Going Global' educational conference opens in CT

© Jannis Werner – 123RF.com

Going Global is an annual conference offering an open forum for global leaders of tertiary education to discuss issues facing the international education community.

Both institutions have a number of initiatives as part of their emerging partnership. From classic forms of international activity, such as visits and lectures by faculty in each university and exploring funding opportunities to support student mobility, to more ambitious plans for joint appointments and an idea for a co-designed and co-hosted conference about ‘equal partnerships in an unequal world’.

Former British High Commissioner to South Africa, Dame Nicola Brewer, is now UCL’s vice-provost (international) and will contribute to the ‘University partnerships: delivering international impact’ session on Wednesday, 4 May.

“As London’s global university, UCL is looking to build reciprocal relationships of mutual trust and respect with partners around the world to co-create fair solutions to some of the most pressing global challenges,” says Brewer. “Our global engagement strategy provides the framework and the focus for this approach. The partnership with Wits is a great example of how diverse and geographically distant universities can work together and learn from each other to deliver greater impact together than they could apart.”

Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, Wits deputy vice-chancellor, says the partnership is a perfect fit for Wits. “The university is located at the heart of a large metropolis that is grappling with a set of dynamics that are often characterised as a collision between the challenges of the ‘developed global north’ and the ‘developing global south’. This makes Wits and UCL ideal partners, as global city universities, to share expertise and make a unique contribution in addressing some of these challenges.”