This time, UAI travelled to the southern hemisphere of the globe, to Perth, Western Australia.  Australia – voted the best country in the word by OECD in 2014, ahead of Norway, Canada and Sweden – has a world class education sys­tem and institutions. Murdoch University is an example of Australia’s finest education.  It ranked in top 5% of university worldwide based on Times Higher Education (THE) 2013-2014, and QS World University Ranking 2012.

Recent Australian Government audit targeting on re­search ex­cel­lence re­ported that Mur­doch University is performing at world class standard (or above) in over 85% of the assessed areas. 

I visited Ms. Pearl Chua Kyseli­cova, the Senior Interna­tional Relationship Manager of Mur­doch University, at 90 South Street Campus, Perth.  In this visit I had an additional goal from my usual objectives when visiting International Of­fices abroad, that is, not only: 1) to introduce and promote UAI; and 2) to search for potential scholarships and research collaborations to UAI faculty members and students; I also visited  Ms. Risa Swandari, our  staff at the Biology Study Pro­gram, UAI, who is currently pursuing her Master Degree of Science at this Univer­sity.

With Ms. Risa Swandari, Staff of Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Al-Azhar Indonesia

There are four areas of research priorities at Murdoch University: 1. Primary food production; 2. Climate change, en­viron­mental sustainability and adaptation; 3. Human and animal health and welfare; and 4. Future security.  For UAI faculty members who are interested to do a col­laborative research with the sci­entists at Murdoch University, KUI has the names of the scientists in charge of each priority, or one may visit its web­site: http://www.murdoch.edu.au/.

There is good news in term of scholarship! Murdoch University is listed as one of the targeted universities for scholarship from both Indonesian (KEMEN RISTEK and DIKTI) and the Australian governments. Examples of scholarships pro­vided by the Australian government are listed at the end of this note.  Ms. Risa Swandari is supported by the AUS-AID scholarship, encouraged through KUI.

One more thing, Pert is a convenient flying dis­tance from Jakarta.  It’s only about 5 hours flight, the same duration one takes to fly from Ja­karta to Jayapura. I think it is an essential point to be considered, especially for faculty members with small or young children, who would like to do a Ph.D program or to do a joint research at Mur­doch University.  They could enroll in the program without having to leave their family too far, and with shorter distance it allows more frequent visits.  Consider, for example, as a com­parison, those who are studying at University of Toronto, in Canada, or Brown University in Washington. To visit Jakarta during the holiday, it would take them about 25 hours of flying time alone.

Murdoch Univer­sity has world class education and research facilities, with relatively short distance to UAI. It is my hope that this information could help you decide which university you will choose. I would like to thank Ms. Chua for her hospitality, and for providing transport facility to the airport. All the best.

 Following are some of the links to the Government of Australia scholarships:

http://www.beasiswapascasarjana.com/2015/01/beasiswa-australia-awards-2015-2016.html

http://newinternationalscholarships.com/study-australia-endeavour-scholarships-and-fellowships/