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. Senior Officers agreed that there was a need for single, ongoing point of coordination within the Alliance for our range of educational initiatives: IARU courses, the Global Internship Programme, the Global Transformation Field Course, and the joint online courses that have been organised between a few institutions in recent years. The committee’s current membership includes colleagues from ANU, NUS, PKU, UCB, UCPH, UCT and Cambridge. Anne Bruun, International Director at Copenhagen and former Global Summer Programme Coordinator, has kindly agreed to lead the committee going forward. It is envisaged that the committee could improve the efficiency and value of IARU’s education work by doing the following:

Look to the future and make suggestions for new initiatives as appropriate.
Maintain up-to-date knowledge of what is happening in IARU’s educational offering as a whole, how it is working, and acting as a source of general advice. The committee would also serve as IARU’s institutional memory about what has been tried, what has succeeded and what could be improved.
Act as the primary point of communication and coordination in IARU on education, keeping initia- tives informed about each other’s work and identifying opportunities for cooperation.
Serve as a forum for all colleagues working in education to identify, and work together on, oppor- tunities and common problems.
Help to reduce the vulnerability of initiatives anchored at a single institution and/or with a single individual.

The committee’s first meeting saw an extensive discussion of what a distinctively IARU educational offering should look like, the key considerations in running any education programme, and a commit- ment to frame the next discussion in terms of what core principles and guidelines should inform our education initiatives. The responsibilities and remit of the committee will also be established. Any colleagues who are interested in joining the committee, especially at institutions which are not yet represented, are very welcome to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..