Frontiers and Friction – The challenges and rewards of international, interprofessional and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Speaker: Dr. Micheal Spence

Dr. Michael Spence took up his post as President & Provost of UCL on 11 January 2021. Prior to this he was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sydney (2008-2020), which under his leadership rose to first in Australia and fourth in the world for graduate employability. He was also responsible for the largest philanthropic campaign in Australian history, raising a record one billion Australian dollars.  

Dr. Spence is recognised internationally as a leader in the field of intellectual property theory and holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Law from the University of Oxford, where he headed Oxford’s Law faculty and Social Sciences division. He has university qualifications in English, Italian, Law, Theology and Korean, and learned Chinese while in Oxford.   

In 2017, he was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours for service to leadership of the tertiary education sector, to the advancement of equitable access to educational opportunities, to developing programs focused on multidisciplinary research, and to the Anglican Church of Australia. Dr. Spence is an ordained Minister in the Anglican Church.

Venue: Qiushi Lecture Hall, Zijingang Campus 

Abstract: Last year, researchers in the UK and China co-published over 19,000 research papers. Behind that extraordinary number is an extraordinary story, one of finding common purpose across cultures and domains. If the exchange of knowledge, thought and practice across divides has become an integral part of the academic life of the modern university, then how do universities equip our students with these ‘interface’ competencies?