Professor Sandra Goulart Almeida and Professor Peter Lennie. Credits: Foca Lisboa

Professor Peter Lennie met UFMG’s President Professor Sandra  Almeida after three days of meetings and activities at UFMG

Professor Peter Lennie, Executive Director of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), a research focused organization of higher education institutions that UFMG has been integrating since 2017, paid a three-day visit to UFMG. He was greeted by Professor Sandra Almeida, who reaffirmed UFMG’s interest in intensifying its participation in the group, which brings together 23 universities from 13 countries on five continents. UFMG is the only participant institution from South America at the moment.

During his visit, Professor Lennie held meetings at the Dean for Research, Dean for Graduate Studies and at the Dean for International Affairs’ offices. He also gave a talk introducing WUN to sixty research leaders and people involved in internationalization from UFMG academic community. ‘In these meetings, the ambition of the University, the strength in research and the interest in projects of international collaboration were very clear,’ he said. According to Professor Lennie, the network bets on the importance of connections between universities so that each of its members ‘take full advantage of the talents distributed around the world’.

 Professor Almeida emphasized that UFMG has privileged the participation in networks with which there are shared goals, values and concerns. ‘This is the case with WUN. We have identified great potential for collaboration with other member institutions, many of which are already partners. It is a great opportunity to focus our efforts and intensify joint action’ said the President, who is attending the next WUN annual general meeting, which will take place next week in Dublin, Ireland.

 Project Leadership

 UFMG had in 2019 its first project selected in the WUN main research funding program – Research Development Fund (RDF). The initiative entitled Intercultural Communication in Interaction: Multimodal Approaches, is coordinated by Professor Ulrike Schröder of the Faculty of Letters, and addresses language teaching. The project is a joint collaboration with the University of Alberta (Canada), University of Potsdam (Germany), University of Sheffield and University of Leeds (UK).

During the meeting to discuss UFMG’s engagement in the network, Professor Almeida and Professor Lennie also addressed WUN initiatives aimed at finding solutions to the pressing problems of its members, such as the issue of mental health in academic communities. They also discussed the issue of attacks as an attempt to disqualify the role of universities and devalue higher education and scientific research, suffered by higher education institutions in various countries.

 WUN has as a primary goal to face major challenges with innovative solutions, drawing on talents from diverse cultural and geographic backgrounds, on issues such as climate change, public health (focusing on diseases such as cancer, cardiorespiratory diseases and diabetes) and understanding between cultures. WUN also invests in education, through graduate mobility programs and experience sharing at undergraduate level. The network counts on the partnership of governments, industries and international organizations.