WTUN’s first student competition “What does “Digital Creativity” mean to you? ” has reached its first stage of shortlisting.

Students from WTUN member institutions were invited to take part in a student competition and submit a project proposal that would help to address an issue connected to one of the 3 WTUN’s chosen UN Sustainable Development Goals; Clean Water and Sanitation, Good Health and Wellbeing, Sustainable Cities and Communities. The proposals were required to contain an element of public engagement, have a societal impact and use digital creativity.   

The competition has now closed to new entries, and we received a total of 38 proposals from 9 different institutions. Of those; 8 focused on Clean Water and Sanitation, 12 focused on Good Health and Wellbeing and 18 on Sustainable Cities and Communities. There was a good geographical spread with proposals from many of our members taking part. The entries were scored on several criteria including use of public engagement, societal impact and harnessing digital creativity. Proposals were also assessed on their feasibility and cost effectiveness. The students rose to the challenge and submitted excellent proposals to a very high standard. The assessors (made from the WTUN Operational Board) had a very hard job but have shortlisted teams from the following institutions:

• Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte
• Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
• FH Oberösterreich University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria
• University of Bradford

All shortlisted teams have now been asked to produce a short video showcasing their proposal. Keep an eye out on WTUN social media channels for these over the coming weeks.

The winning team will be announced in early June – good luck to all the shortlisted teams!

The annual WTUN exchanges programme is now open for applications.

Each member institution is welcome to submit up to 2 proposals for assessments.

This year WTUN would like to encourage two-way and multi-way exchanges. For the further information please visit the exchanges page.

We also welcome applications that are continuations of impact that has come from the previous rounds of exchanges.

We look forward to your submissions.

The Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT), in Japan and the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria (FH Upper Austria), are the latest institutions to join the World Technologies University Network (WTUN).

They join Koforidua Technical University, in Ghana, which also joined WTUN during 2019, to form a thriving network of 25 technology-focused institutions from every continent. Each member is committed to working collectively and collaboratively to develop pragmatic and sustainable solutions to global challenges.

In particular, both SIT and FH Upper Austria are firmly focused on the benefits of international networking to provide the best-possible opportunities for students as well as delivering world class research.

Benefits to WTUN membership include opportunities to take part in exchanges and collaborative research, as well as making links between institutions, industry, NGOs and SMEs. Our annual congress, hosted by one of the member institutions, offers valuable opportunities to keep up-to-date with WTUN activities and acts as a springboard for new collaborations.

Professor Brian Cantor, Chair of WTUN, said: “We’re delighted to welcome these three new members to the WTUN network. Each of them will bring distinctive strengths that will enable us to pursue our overall aims of bringing together the collective technology research power of our members to address some of the worlds most complex and systemic challenges.”

Shibaura Institute of Technology, in Japan, is one of the country’s top global universities, focusing on  nurturing practical engineers to lead Japan’s industrial development. Founded in 1927, SIT has three campuses, two in Tokyo, and one in Saitama, about 30 km to the north of the capital. The Institute’s philosophy of ‘learning through practice’ informs teaching and research across its four faculty with a firm emphasis on developing competent, skilled and creative individuals capable of making a sustainable contribution to society.

Shibaura’s president, Professor Masato Murakami, “WTUN draws together like-minded institutions with an emphasis on global exchange programmes and partnerships. As well as opening up opportunities for students, we hope that, through our membership of WTUN, we will be able to extend our research capabilities – this is key for increasing our ranking both globally and regionally. We’re also very pleased that SIT’s emphasis on gender equality is also a priority for the WTUN and we’re looking forward to joining with WTUN’s initiatives in this important area.”

The University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria (FH Upper Austria) is the country’s strongest university of applied sciences in terms of research. It has 6,000 students studying at campuses in Hagenberg, Linz, Steyr and Wels and brings in research grants worth around €20M per year. The university’s strengths in technology, including AI, energy and renewable energy, medical engineering and food technology, make it an important partner for companies both in Austria and neighbouring countries.

The University also has a strong focus on international collaboration, fostering a large network of around 250 partners across all five continents. Membership of the WTUN will enable the University to further strengthen its collaborations in technology and engineering research.

Dr. Günther Hendorfer, co-ordinating WTUN activities at FH Upper Austria, said:  “We’re very much looking forward to engaging in joint research programmes across all of our areas of research expertise. We’re also keen to invite WTUN specialists to come and talk to our students in our new PhD college that is currently under construction and to taking part in the WTUN Student Competition.

“A priority for FH Upper Austria is to ensure that we have sufficient qualified engineers – intiatives such as WTUN could be really valuable in developing a common approach to bringing new young people into the field of engineering.“

We are happy to announce that Professor Shirley Congdon has taken up her post as Vice-Chancellor at WTUN’s Network Host, University of Bradford.

Shirley, who has been an active member of the Operational Board and will now sit on the General Board, is the first female Vice-Chancellor at the University of Bradford. She was previously DVC (Academic) and she has over 28 years’ experience in the higher education sector. During that time, she has worked at several universities and undertaken a number of significant strategic leadership roles, including Head of Department at Teesside University and Dean of School and Director of Academic Delivery at Liverpool John Moores University.

Read more about Shirley’s appointment.

Professor Lynne Jack, Chair of WTUN Student Competitions working group and Director of Research at one of our founding members, Heriot-Watt (Malaysia) has been named the first female president of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE).

‘I am delighted to take on this role of CIBSE President. As we face the ongoing challenges of urbanisation, increasingly high energy demand and continued environmental change, we must find ways of decarbonising our built environment. I am very proud to be part of an organisation that is so invested in the development of competencies and the sharing of knowledge required to deliver against carbon targets’. – Professor Jack

Congratulations!

See more about Professor Jack’s appointment.

One of WTUN’s founding members, Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences turns 10 this year and the institution celebrated in style with various activities, a concert and their own commissioned beer!

Happy Anniversary HSHL!

See more of their celebrations

Technology universities – Making knowledge work

The 21st century has seen the growth of a global market in information and knowledge. Science and innovation have become the key drivers of economic growth and societal development and technology universities are at the forefront, doing applied research that can be translated directly into benefits for people and society and delivering professional and vocational courses that enable their graduates to move directly and successfully into high-skilled job markets.

Unlike the traditional role of conventional universities as ivory towers for contemplative study and scholarship, technology universities are now playing a direct role as creators of wealth and motors for economic, social and technological change.

At the same time, the problems confronting the world are increasingly complex and systemic. Obvious examples are endemic poverty and ill health, climate change, energy and water supply, and collapsing states, migration and terrorism.

Collective strength

The World Technology Universities Network or WTUN has been launched as a response to these challenges.

WTUN consists of a wide range of different universities, geographically diverse, large and small, public and private, new and old, resolutely non-elitist and non-exclusive, committed to working together to do cutting-edge, challenge-led research and to provide socially relevant education for the next generation of global citizens.

The objective is to harness our collective strength, resources, expertise, experience and intellectual capital to make knowledge work for the benefit of society.

WTUN activities include sharing best practice on collaborative research to tackle the world’s problems, developing new teaching methods to educate global citizens, enhancing interactions with business, commerce, government and non-governmental organisations, creating new companies and small and medium-sized enterprises, running innovative student competitions and developing joint policy statements on key issues.

These activities contribute to all 17 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, with four identified as initial priorities: gender equality; good health and wellbeing; clean water and sanitation; and sustainable cities and communities. We have three major current workstreams, on gender equality, innovation and entrepreneurship and the application of technology in learning.

Expanding the membership

WTUN was discussed initially at the first annual World Technology Universities Congress or WTUC1 in 2016, and was then launched at WTUC2 the following year in Bradford in the United Kingdom, with 18 founder members from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. WTUC3 was held in Chennai in India late last year, when a number of other universities joined, and yet more indicated that they would join this year.

The network is growing rapidly, with an ambition to reach up to about 50 members over the next few years. Associate members include businesses and NGOs such as UNESCO, with over 300 additional university links.

We are actively seeking new members to contribute to this growth and strengthen all our activities. WTUC4 will take place in October in Taipei, Taiwan, and all universities, institutes, government agencies, NGOs and partner institutions are welcome.

Professor Brian Cantor is vice-chancellor of the University of Bradford, United Kingdom, which is a member of the World Technology Universities Network.

This article was originally published and  is available at University World News

The WTUN has formally signed up to the SDG Accord, the collective commitment by the global higher education sector to help deliver the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The decision to become a supporting partner to the Accord is part of the network’s ongoing work on the SDGs which began in 2018.

Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Coventry University, Joanne Dobson, who chairs the WTUN Working Group on the SDGs, explains: “Our idea was that the Sustainable Development Goals could provide the network with a clear focus and direction for its activities, within the wider theme of technology. SDG4, which is ‘quality education’, was obviously important to all our members. But we wanted to find out which of the other goals would most resonate within the network.”

The Working Group surveyed WTUN members during 2018 and identified three more Sustainable Development Goals that were considered the most relevant to activities within the network: SDG3 – good health and wellbeing; SDG6 – clean water and sanitation; and SDG11 – sustainable cities and communities.

“We took these to the WTUN Congress in Chennai in November 2018 and ran a session during which members presented on the work they were already doing to further these goals,” says Joanne Dobson. “The idea of adopting the goals as our focus was widely endorsed by members and ratified by the Board at the Congress. The only change was that members asked that a fourth Sustainable Development Goal – number 5, gender equality – was also added to the list.”

Work is now beginning to embed these goals into the WTUN’s activities. The network’s exchange programme, which funds visits between member institutions to build research partnerships or share best practice, now stipulates that half of all exchanges must directly address one or more of the four SDGs. Participants from these exchanges will be reporting back to the network during the 2019 Congress hosted by the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in November.

A Gender Equality Working Group has also been established, to identify what the WTUN can do to support its members on this goal. And of course, members will be encouraged to sign up to the SDG Accord themselves as institutions.

Only institutional signatories to the SDG Accord have to submit a formal report on their activities, which is then compiled into a report to the UN. As an endorsing partner network, the WTUN is not expected to report, but Joanne Dobson is keen that the network does so.

“We’re just starting out with this initiative, but we have a strong base to build on and more ideas to put into practice,” she says. “Compiling an annual report on what we, as a partner network, have supported and enabled our members to achieve would be a valuable exercise and help to show progress. And as more members join the network, we’ll continue to review the SDGs we have chosen to make sure we’re focusing on those that are most relevant to our mission in both research and education.”

On 1 January 2019, Tampere University of Technology and the University of Tampere merged to create the new multidisciplinary Tampere University. The university is Finland’s second largest.

The foundation-based university also became the majority shareholder of Tampere University of Applied Sciences. This new higher education community in Tampere will be made up of 30,000 students, 330 professors and 4,400 other staff members.

The underlying premise of the new university is the realisation that the problems faced by humanity have changed. A multidisciplinary approach will not only deliver more effective responses to global challenges but also open up new opportunities for science and its applications.

Technology, health and society are at the core of the university’s research and education and its strength lies in the combination of these areas. With the means of novel operating models, the university sets of to create scientific and societal value throughout the process of knowledge creation, from independent, multidisciplinary basic research to innovations and practical development. The university aims to develop inspirational and open learning and cooperation environments as well as new types of research, development and innovation platforms that support active life-long inclusion and diverse interaction with a wide variety of stakeholders.

The new university’s first President is Dr. Mari Walls. Before joining Tampere University she worked as President and CEO of LUKE Natural Resources Institute Finland. She has also held Professorship in Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences at the University of Turku.

The university’s Provost is Professor Jarmo Takala. Previously he has held the position of Vice President responsible for the research and doctoral education at Tampere University of Technology (TUT). He has been a Professor on Computer engineering since 2000 at TUT and has also held positions of Dean and Vice Dean of Faculty of Computing and Electrical Engineering and Head of Department of Computer Systems.

Tampere University values its international collaborations and looks forward to developing our partnership. We believe that human potential is unlimited and that you and us together, we can make a difference.