An awe sensation trickled down my spine as I stood in front of the University of Vienna main campus, looking at a huge banner hang down on the wall just above the entrance gate at Universitätstring 1, 1010 Vienna. The banner had this sentence: “Celebrating 650 year anniversary”, indicating how long this university has been in operation. Al Azhar Indonesia University is about to celebrate its 13th birthday this year. As one of the world’s oldest Universities, many great things had happened here. Nine Nobel laureates have been produced, including Konrad Lorenz, the founder of Comparative Behavioral Research, and the economist Friedrich van Hayek.
I visited this university as a Director of International Office of UAI, on February 12th, 2015, with three goals in mind: to introduce and promote UAI; to seek for available scholarships to UAI faculty members and/or students; and to explore potential research collaborations between scientists of the two universities.
The meeting took place in a warm and comfy room, despite the cold winter weather and accumulated snow that heavily fall the day before, resulted in the cancellation of most major public transportation. An Austrian hospitality shown by Ms. Dipl. Kult. Larissa Lippert, the Head of Team Administration, International Office, University of Vienna, and the hot coffee provided made the discussion came alive and cheerful.
International Office of the University of Vienna offers advice on funding opportunities for cooperation projects in Higher Education (Erasmus+), mobility programs and provide contracts management and assistant to legal support. Since 2010, this office has been supervising a funding framework called Erasmus Internship Program. For those interested in post graduate scholarship, and research collaborations, University of Vienna through its International Cooperation and active network policy, has established a University network specifically targeting Southeast Asian Countries, called: ASEA-UNINET. This network was initially founded in Austria, but now has developed to include most of Europe. The goal is to initiate and promote research cooperation projects with and in South East Asian countries through: initiation and support of research projects; acceleration and support of scientist, university teacher and student exchanges; and improvement of the mutual recognition of degrees.
The forms of cooperation that are supported by this program are:
- Short visit for the purpose of preparing a cooperation with power presentations;
- Education and training in a specific area of work or with regard to certain verification procedures and methods;
- Block courses (approx. one month) in the sense of short-term visiting professorships;
- Jointly planned research programs at various partner Universities; and
- Educational activities: training courses, workshops and field trips.
For detailed information, please see https://international.univie.ac.at
Dr. Vanny Narita has pioneered and is representing UAI in an international project called LEADER (Links in Europe and Asia for engineering eDucation, Enterprise and Research exchange). UAI has signed a Partnership Statement in 2014, and at this moment in process of signing MoU with European universities.
University of Vienna was founded on March 12th, 1365, by the Duke Rudolph IV. Currently it has 15 faculties and four centers, with about 92000 students, 2600 of those are International students. Research platforms of this university, among other, are Quantum Phenomena and Nanoscale Biological Systems, Marine Rhythms of Life, Active Ageing, Cognitive Science, Life Science Governance, Ethics and Law in Medicine, etc.
Ms. Dipl. Kult. Larissa Lippert, the Head of Team Administration, International Office, University of Vienna
It is our hope at the International Office – UAI that faculty members, and also students of UAI could take advantage of these opportunities at the University of Vienna.