Archive for category: NEWS

The European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Julie Bishop MP, today launched the EU‑Australia Leadership Forum at the headquarters of the European External Action Service in Brussels.

The Leadership Forum will provide a platform for leaders, senior and emerging,  from the fields of business, media, non-governmental organisations, civil society, think tanks, politics and academia from both countries to collaborate on new ideas to promote and deepen the relationship between the European Union and Australia.

“Our relationship with Australia already benefits from high levels of cooperation, as you would expect from close partners”, said the High Representative/Vice-President, Federica Mogherini ahead of the launch. “I am hopeful that the Leadership Forum will help to bring together creative minds, of all ages and of all backgrounds, to take our cooperation still further”, she added.

“The Leadership Forum will encourage senior and emerging leaders across industries in Australia and the European Union to work together on ideas to further strengthen the Australia-EU relationship and promote close collaboration on addressing global challenges”, the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop said.

The Leadership Forum will be composed of an EU-Australia Senior Leaders’ Forum, and an EU-Australia Emerging Leaders Forum, held back to back annually, alternately in Australia and in Europe, with the inaugural event to be hosted in Australia in the first half of 2017, and regular sectoral policy workshops covering topics including security, counter terrorism, trade, education, innovation, migration and development.

The launch of the Leadership Forum reflects the overall strengthening of relations between the European Union and Australia. Recent progress on an EU-Australia Framework Agreement, the joint scoping for a free trade agreement and now the Leadership Forum are exciting developments enhancing an already strong relationship.  The High Representative also looked forward to welcoming Ms Bishop to Brussels on 4-5 October for the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan.

Congratulations to Lucy Turnbull on being awarded the German Cross of the Order of Merit for services to Australian German bilateral relations. Lucy has been Honorary President of our sister organisation in Australia for the past three years and has also been active in the Australia Germany Advisory Group.

Lucy is also Chair of the biotechnology company Prime Bioscience and is a regular visitor to Germany.

For further information please click on this this link to the Austrade website.

The Australia-Germany Joint Research Co-operation Scheme is a joint initiative (PDF 1.2MB) of Universities Australia and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Germany’s national agency for the support of international academic cooperation.

It aims to foster research collaboration of the highest quality between Australian researchers from Universities Australia member  universities and German researchers from German universities and research institutes.

The scheme will support exchanges for Australian researchers to spend time at partner institutions  in Germany and for collaborating German researchers to spend time at Australian universities. Researchers must be working on a joint research project with their German counterparts, rather than simply furthering their own individual research in Germany.

The support of early career researchers and junior scholars is a significant focus of this scheme.

Click here to see a list of the projects funded for 2016-17 (PDF 105KB).

Eligibility for Research

Australian applicants must be:

• employed as an academic staff member in a teaching and research or research only role at the Australian university administering the application and with a contract at that university that is valid for the duration of the relevant funding period; or
• enrolled for the duration of the relevant funding period as a PhD or Research Masters student at the Australian university administering the application and part of a research project application submitted by an eligible staff member at that same university.

The scheme is open to Australian researchers at participating Australian universities in all academic fields involved in a collaborative project with German research partners.

Proposals must provide opportunities for exchanges between early career researchers (ECR). However it is not compulsory to be an ECR to apply.  Researchers from the Humanities and Social Sciences are encouraged to apply.

Details of eligibility for German applicants are available on the DAAD website here.

Application Dates

Applications open on 4 April 2016 and close on 17 June 2016. Applicants will be informed of the outcomes in writing in November 2016. Project funding will commence in 2017.

The application form is available to download here (DOCX 832.6KB).

Further information

The full terms and conditions of the scheme are available here (PDF 138.5KB) and must be read before applying.

The full list of projects funded in 2015 can be downloaded here (PDF 105KB).

A comprehensive list of frequently asked questions can be downloaded here (PDF 167.5KB)