About IARU

In the spotlight: Getting to know our IARU members

Dr Rui Brandao

Director of IT Services (Chief Information Officer), ETH Zürich

IARU Cybersecurity Group Lead

Rui has more than 25 years of experience in various IT functions with more than 18 years in management positions. Today he is the CIO of ETH Zürich and in this function is responsible for all central ICT infrastructures, applications, and services. The central ICT department currently employs around 350 people. Rui puts a special emphasis on encouraging women for apply for IT jobs and is a sponsor of the IT-Women@ETH network.

Rui has been leading the IARU Cybersecurity Forum since 2020. “Finding the balance between academic freedom and the need for efficiency and security in IT is a special challenge for all universities,” says Rui. “Cybersecurity remains an ongoing issue that requires constant attention. Ultimately, it is all about being better and faster than potential attackers.”

The Cybersecurity Forum held its first meeting in 2018 at NUS and 2019 at UCT. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the forum had to meet in a series of online meetings since 2020 and the annual meeting is finally planned to take place in June 2023 at ETH. The forum aims to create a mechanism for sharing knowledge, experience, and methodologies about cybersecurity in higher education, prompted by cyber-attacks on several universities.

The participants are currently focusing on two areas of interest: (1) management and governance aspects of cybersecurity and (2) technical methods for cyber detection and defence, on which the members of computer emergency response teams (CERT) are having lively exchanges.

Rui has been facilitating the online discussion during the Covid-19 pandemic. He is now looking forward to finally meeting the IARU participants in person. The forum in Zürich is planned to continue the discussions on both the management and CERT levels.

Cybersecurity Forum

The IARU Cybersecurity Forum aims to facilitate exchange on cybersecurity topics between IARU members. It was initiated in 2018 at a 2-day inaugural event at NUS.
Following the founding of the group, the primary topics have been sharing cybersecurity practices, collaboration on joint development of KPIs and benchmarks, the formation of virtual teams and the creation of a shared online platform.
The next Cybersecurity Forum will take place on 13-15 June 2023 at ETH Zürich.

CYBATHLON 2024

A flagship project of ETH Zürich, CYBATHLON is an initiative that brings together education, research, outreach and technology transfer in the field of assistive technology. Through a variety of international competitions and events, teams from universities, companies and NGOs complete everyday tasks using technology developed to help those with disabilities.

Each team of developers and their ‘pilot’ - a person with disabilities who will use the assistive technology - compete in races across a range of disciplines, including brain-computer interfaces, arm/leg prostheses, exoskeletons, assistance robots and wheelchairs. The examples below illustrate the conditions and tasks the technologies are challenged with:

Brain-Computer Interfaces

The brain-computer interfaces (BCI) race uses cutting-edge technology to enable direct communication between the human brain and a computer. BCI detect specific activation patterns in the brain and translates them into control signals suitable for interacting with computer-based processes. This can be particularly effective for assisting those with tetraplegia or locked-in syndrome (people living with paralysis of numerous muscles of the body) with carrying out daily activities independently. In CYBATHLON 2024, the competition tasks will require teams to use BCI to generate and control multiple commands to drive a vehicle in an animated scenario, both as a planned activity and in response to environmental changes.

Robotic Exoskeletons

The challenges for robotic exoskeletons lie in their limited ability to adapt their movement patterns to situations and also the time-consuming procedures for fitting them to the person and later removing them. Despite this, exoskeletons offer other advantages, including enabling an upright posture and gait for paraplegic users (which counteracts some of the problems associated with long-term wheelchair use) and being able to communicate with peers at eye level while standing. The tasks in CYBATHLON 2024 emphasise variability and uncertainty about the exact structure or arrangement of the various objects. As well as using the exoskeleton without crutches, pilots will also be tested on overall body balance and reaction to dynamic elements.

32 teams have already registered for next year’s events and ETH is keen to encourage applications from teams based at IARU universities for the 2024 edition. At their meeting in Zürich in January 2023, the IARU Presidents endorsed this idea and so the Secretariat would be grateful if you could publicise the project to any interested groups in your institution.

More information about CYBATHLON 2024 can be found on the project website.

Please do This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you would like to know more or have any questions.

Global Internships Program

After the travel disruption of recent years, we are delighted to see the return of in-person internships as part of the Global Internship Program (GIP). The GIP provides international work experience and research opportunities to IARU students, which are incredibly valuable for broadening academic horizons and building cross-cultural understanding.

Applications are now closed but the diverse range of disciplines and opportunities for our students can be seen below:

The University of Tokyo Research Internship Program

Focusing on the natural sciences, UTRIP is a summer internship scheme that provides undergraduates with the opportunity of working in a world-leading laboratory in UTokyo. The internships are available in the five departments of the Graduate School of Science: Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science, Chemistry and Biological Sciences. This valuable opportunity for IARU students is partnered with a range of enrichments activities: a short Japanese language course, an excursion outside of Tokyo, a Japanese culture workshop and interaction with current UTokyo students.

University of California, Berkeley

Based at the Department of Ethnic Studies and supporting the work of the IARU Global Transformations Group, this internship is designed to assist with the coordination and implementation of the group’s migration and publication initiatives. There is also the opportunity to support other research activities and provide assistance with the Borderlands field course based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Australian National University

ANU’s internship is based in the Mathematical Sciences Institute, working with Associate Professor Pierre Portal in his research work on the stochastic Navier-Stokes equation. This equation is a fundamental building block of the mathematical modelling of fluid mechanics and also plays a key role in climate change modelling. The intern will participate in an accelerated version of ANU’s undergraduate course on stochastic analysis, and study some of the graduate course content and key papers on the subject.

IARU Newsletter

Newsletter 1 Newsletter 2

Newsletter 3 Newsletter 4

Newsletter 5

Our IARU newsletter was created to keep members updated about discussions and decisions from the Presidents' and Senior Officers' meetings, showcase the work of our groups and initiatives, and share other news from within the IARU community. We would love to receive any feedback, suggestions or content for future newsletters, so please do get in touch with the Secretariat on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

IARU Newsletter Issue 2

The IARU newsletter was created to keep members updated about discussions and decisions from the Presidents' and Senior Officers' meetings, showcase the work of our groups and initiatives, and share other news from within the IARU community. We would love to receive any feedback, suggestions or content for future newsletters, so please do get in touch with the Secretariat on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

You can view the newsletter as a pdf or explore the content through the links below.

New IARU Chair elected

We are delighted to announce that Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, has been confirmed as the next Chair of IARU. She was unanimously elected at the Presidents’ Meeting in May 2022.

Presidents' Meeting 2022

For the first time in two years, the IARU Presidents were able to meet in person (with Peking University joining online), to discuss and share ideas on common challenges and areas of interest.

Senior Officers' Meeting 2022

In the historic surroundings of Christ Church, Oxford, the Senior Officers gathered together for their annual meeting in September 2022, sharing regional updates and developments from their universities. Future plans for the Global Internship Program and the IARU Courses were discussed, and the proposals for the new Education Committee and Early Career Collaboration Grants were refined and approved.

Updates from Groups & Initiatives

We are delighted to see the re-newed enthusiasm and energy from the IARU groups for in-person meetings and new projects. Many of our groups have exciting plans and proposals for 2023.

In the spotlight: Getting to know our IARU members

Roxanne Missingham serves as University Librarian and Director of Scholarly Information Services at Australian National University. She is also the current group lead for the IARU Librarians’ Contact. Find out more about her work and the future plans of the Librarian's Contact Group.

The new IARU education committee

The IARU Education Committee held an initial brainstorming session online in October. This new committee was proposed by the Secretariat in 2021, partly out of a desire to re-energise work in education in the wake of the severe disruption caused by the pandemic.

Early Career Collaboration Grants

The Secretariat has received the backing of the Presidents for a new version of a proposal, made at the 2021 Senior Officers’ Meeting, aimed at fostering research links between IARU members.