News

Items of Interest

Cooperative Professional Development

On 6 October 2009, the French Ambassador to Australia signed two Memoranda of Understanding with Australian universities in relation to cooperative professional development.

With the signing of these agreements, two initiatives were launched.

• Mutual Recognition of Qualifications
   
  The first agreement, between Universities Australia (the body representing 38 Australian universities) and the French Embassy (representing the association of French universities), is the culmination of five years' working together on defining the scope of the initiative, the first of its kind in Australia.  It provides a framework for the mutual recognition of periods of study and designated higher degrees, for the purpose of facilitating shared study at the respective higher-education institutions of each country.
   
• French Corporate Internships
   
  The second agreement, between the French Embassy and the Universities of Sydney, New South Wales, Melbourne and Adelaide, together with Monash University, provides a basis for Australian students to undertake internships with each of ten French multi-national companies established in Australia.  Half of each internship is intended to take place in Australia, and the other half in France at the headquarters of the company or one of its branches.  The objective is to encourage the mobility of Australian students and to give them the opportunity to gain professional experience in French companies.  The program will also provide French companies with the opportunity to identify prospective managers with a good knowledge of France.
   
  The ten French companies involved are EADS (Airbus/Australian Aerospace), Thales, Turbomeca, Suez Degrémont, BNP Paribas Australia, Alstom, Areva T&D, Veolia Transport, Total and Altios International.  For further details, please click here.
   

Australian Participation in the European Seventh Framework Programme

The Forum for European-Australian Science & Technology Cooperation (FEAST) advises that there appears to be some confusion regarding the opportunity for Australian involvement in research being conducted within the scope of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Commission.  Potential participants in the programme are accordingly encouraged to refer both to the  FEAST Bulletin  regarding this matter and to the latest relevant  FEAST Discussion Paper.

Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration

With 2009 marking thirty years since the first meeting of AFAS Victoria, the focus of that year's Annual Reception for Members was to celebrate this significant anniversary.  Some 60 members and guests gathered at the St Kilda premises of the Alliance Française de Melbourne to join in the gala event, with the guest-of-honour being the Honorary Consul-General for France.

Prior to the Annual Reception, a brief review was presented of some key achievements over the years by AFAS Victoria, a PDF copy of which (1.1MB) is available for download.  As a complement to this presentation, a dispay of past newsletters and documents was put together for perusal.  Additionally, copies of selected minutes and newsletters from the first years of the association have been made available to members for reference by logging in to the Members' Zone. The evening also provided an appropriate occasion for the election as Honorary Life Member of John Acton, in recognition of his long years of service to the Association in the role of President. For further details regarding the Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration, please refer to the supplementary event summary.

AFAS FEAST-France Fellow wins Innovation Award

On 3 July 2009, AFAS FEAST-France Fellow Micah Atkin was presented with the INNOVIC International Next Big Thing Award™ 2009 for his handheld medical diagnostic system, a low-cost testing system built to enable anyone to perform laboratory quality tests quickly and easily.

The system is the size of a mobile phone and the test strips about the size of a credit card.  Most test results take about 2 minutes rather than hours in a laboratory.  The testing options are endless, but our first priority was to create a test for tuberculosis.  This disease kills over two million people a year.  Over 90 million tests are done annually, but the accuracy with the current century-old method of testing is less than 50 per cent. Ms Joss Evans, CEO of INNOVIC, the not-for-profit organisation that runs the International Next Big Thing Award™ said the handheld medical diagnostic system has the potential to save millions of lives. Further background on Micah Atkin and his diagnostic system is available by reference to an article which appeared in The Australian newspaper of 18 July 2009.

AFAS Bulletins