Dr. Rajanathan (Raj) Rajaratnam from Geography and Planning, BCSS was successful in obtaining a $49,500 grant from the Federal Government’s 2016 New Colombo Plan funding for overseas student mobility experience in Asia. It was one of six successful applications from UNE in a total of 1056 applications received by the Federal Government. Under this grant, 15 undergraduate students will be subsidized on an intensive field based learning experience in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan in 2017. This is a cross disciplinary teaching initiative involving Ecosystem Management in the School of ERS and in close cooperation with Bhutan’s Ugyen Wangchuk Institute for Conservation and Environment (UWICE) with whom UNE has a Memorandum of Understanding covering teaching and research exchange.

This project, in an overseas physical and cultural setting, will provide UNE students with practical experience within a global educational context to further motivate them in their study, and actively promote UNE’s profile for international teaching connectivity in terms of course delivery, course content and pedagogical practice.

In total UNE received funding of $244,200 for six student mobility projects in the Indo−Pacific. This funding is in addition to the $45,000 that UNE will receive in 2017−2018 for the second term of one 2016 round multi−year project, on the successful completion of relevant milestones.

New programs include a short-term field study program to Bhutan – Himalayan ecology and biogeography and a Semester Exchange for Law Students to Thammasat University in Bangkok