Global Academies Launch Event - Questions & Comments

Andrew Martin: This is an excellent launch, and clearly required to impact on EU Transition and Covid recovery. My question is how will the global academies work across sectors to directly support impact on the small businesses in Wales and to deliver direct economic growth into wales rural and urban economies.

The Global Academies include intervention programmes that are already having an impact across multiple sectors, ranging from our extensive Food and Drink HELIX programme through to our Twenty20 Leadership skills development for SMEs, both of which work in urban and rural regions. We have recently started a new project that will look at circular economy interventions in the Public sector, and have over 40 PhD students placed with Welsh Organisations researching matters of importance to their hosts.  The Global Academies will continue to build upon and expand our support for SMEs in Wales in a number of ways:
-    We will work with our academic experts to establish what skills and support they are able to deliver into the wider society, and to think creatively about how their expertise might be applied across disciplines. We will continue to help our business collaborators to apply for schemes such as KTPs and Welsh Government-funded SMART programmes to get key funding to support business growth and innovation
-    We will continue to develop our taught master’s provision to develop our graduates into future leaders in their fields. By ensuring all our taught provision incorporates the Cardiff Met EDGE set of skills (Ethical, Digital, Global and Entrepreneurial), our Graduates will be able to help support the businesses that will eventually become their employers.

Mike: Really exciting set of academies - well done. What inspired Cardiff Met’s approach to these Global Academies?

The concept of the Global Academies is an accumulation of knowledge and insights from across the sector whereby it is recognised that innovation occurs at the interface between different disciplines. There have been similar developments in Russel Group universities and we have examined these making them our own using our excellent research profile as a basis. (The 2014 Research Excellence Framework rated Cardiff Met with the best quality profile amongst the post-1992 universities with 80% of our submission as internationally excellent or world-leading.) The Global Academies facilitate work between the disciplines at Cardiff Met building on a track-record of impactful interdisciplinary innovation. With increased facilitation and a strong academic community willing to work outside their comfort zones the Global Academies will enable Cardiff Met to make a step-change in our research and innovation.

Julian Phillips: Can you outline the short-term goals for the next 6 months and your longer 5 year goals?

In the short term we will raise awareness of the Global Academies and address any practical issues with their establishment. Key to this will be making students, staff and partners aware of their involvement in and contribution towards the Global Academies whether this is in research, innovation or education. The benefits of interdisciplinarity will be promoted and those conducting new research and innovation activity will articulate their contribution to global challenges.
Over the longer-term larger scale and more impactful projects will be developed and funded – enabling us to meaningfully address more global challenges with a broader scope for using interdisciplinarity to think creatively about solving problems. Our Master’s degrees will continue to diversify based on new knowledge arising from the research and from the evolution of the challenges.

Geraint Jones – KTN: I would be interested in how you will balance / leverage Place against Global impact

Cardiff Met has long-standing experience in transitioning Place-based relationships to leverage Global connections – then feeding back the new Global knowledge for the benefit of our more local connections.
An example of this is the work undertaken in PDR, which over many years focussed on supporting Welsh SMEs. This experience in place-based intervention helped develop a very practical skill set and an in-depth understanding of ‘what works’. Taking this knowledge, PDR secured a portfolio of European-funded projects worth more than €8.6 million (including €2.5 million for Cardiff Met), leading these initiatives through their entire lifecycle from developing the initial concepts, through to evaluating impact across the EU.
The knowledge, skills, and expertise gained in conducting these projects has fed back to more Place-based interventions, including the UKRI Clwstwr project which provides support for Wales’ creative screen-based sector.
Global Academies help staff to start locally, and then branch out to more international projects, whilst bringing the expertise back to Wales.

What do you think needs to happen for the Global Academies to maximise their full potential?

We understand that people are at the heart of our Global Academies, and we believe in order to succeed we need to make sure our future leaders are equipped with skills around collaboration, grant writing, creativity, project management and networking. The Global Academies are a way to reach out and work with partners to effect real change for some of the World’s most pressing problems-to do this we will continue to develop our external networks and share our expertise as widely as possible.

How will the success of the Global Academies be measured and/or determined?

The Global Academies are a strategic priority and will enable Cardiff Met to achieve the measures of success set out in our Strategic Plan. They are a key part of our institutional research and innovation strategy and act as an enabler for a step-change in research and innovation across the University. They also contribute to our civic mission and international strategy. Progress against our strategies is monitored on an on-going basis internally, by our Board of Governors and externally by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.

Michael Rye: Would you be able to let me know how many Honorary consuls are attending?
The launch welcomed nearly 200 delegates from all over the world, including attendees from Belgium, Finland, Canada, Egypt, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

Marlies Hoecherl: Would it be possible to receive your slides following your presentation?
The full video of the launch is available above with all the slides.

How can staff get involved in the Global Academies?

The Global Academies build on our institutional strengths and their scope is broad so everything that we do can be captured within them.
Staff can get involved with the development of the Global Academies by contacting the Head of their relevant Global Academy or getting involved in activity provided through Research and Innovation Services such as Interdisciplinary Workshops or Global Academies Activities and plans to extend engagement are underway so keep an eye on the webpages for more opportunities.

Will the TNE partners be involved in research - to use their expertise and to support their research capacity and build the partnerships beyond teaching?

We would love to hear from our TNE partners about ideas for collaborative research, and will working closely with our Global Engagement Office to see how we can deliver more Research and Innovation with our valued and established partners.

How can an alumni from Cardiff met can take part in global academy?

We are always happy to hear from our Alumni to discuss how we might continue our relationship beyond graduation. Alumni are welcome to contact us directly, and by letting us know about your plans and situation we can explore how we might extend your association with Cardiff Met more generally, and the Global Academies in particular. Our staff at the Development and Alumni Office are also on hand to discuss any occasions for collaborations, so please get in touch to join their register and stay updated on life at Cardiff Met and future knowledge transfer opportunities.

Hi, I would like to be involved in this, how do I ensure that I can be?
If you are Cardiff Met Staff, please join one of our workshops or email Research and Innovation Services to introduce yourself! If you are an external stakeholder, a student, or an alumnus then please contact us, we love meeting new people and will explore together ways of future working.

Michael Hughes (CSSHS): It seems most logical that development of interdisciplinary research would lead on to the development of postgrad. taught programmes. Is that the anticipated order of things?

Yes – we plan to maintain our current position of research-informed teaching, ensuring our students are equipped with the most up-to-date knowledge in their chosen fields. The Global Academies are a way to build on this.

How will you pivot to meet market demands. So that courses can be kept up-to-date and relevant?
All our courses are informed by research, keeping the content up to date and current. Cardiff Met is an agile institution, and we act on market intelligence we gather quickly. We already work with employers to ensure our graduates have the skills they need upon graduation to enter the world of work, and we include ‘enterprise education’ as part of the Cardiff Met EDGE through all our curricula to ensure our courses are fit for budding Entrepreneurs. We will continue to assess our courses and ensure they meet not only the needs of our students, but help our students to meet the needs of the global community.

Keith Smyton: How will the Cardiff Met Global Academies link with other Global Food Institutes? and especially considering your MoU's with international partners?

The Food Industry Centre will engage with our existing international partners to inform them of the Food Science, Safety and Security Global Academy. to the Food Science, Safety and Security Global Academy will enable us to further develop relationships with international partners we have previously worked with and identify new potential global partners. These relationships will involve both industry and research teams.

Alun Hardman: A Question for Prof Crone/Prof Hanton - the connections between sport and public health have been identified - what other ways do you see connections developing in the GA between Human Performance (sport) and other 'global' problems - i.e. international relations conflict, peace, security, economic development, environment, technology and innovation, migration.

The matter of connecting the remits of our Global Academies to a range of global issues is very much at the centre of our mission, especially where it relates to our having identified the UN Sustainability Development Goals and the Well-being of Future Generations Act as our civic agendas. We need to be thinking in novel ways about how health and human performance are embedded in these sustainability and wellbeing frameworks, and this is the work that we will undertake with the support of our international partners which will equip us with a thoroughly global outlook.

Tom James (Deputy Director Innovation Aneurin Bevan University Health Board)
The innovation team at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board look forward to working with the Global Academies
 
Helen Fulton (Learned Society of Wales)
Great to see such an ambitious venture being rolled out. Looking forward to hearing more about the activities of the Global Academies.
 
Tarun Anand, Universal Business School
Congratulations. We look forward to collaborating with Cardiff Met. to amplify the impact

Catherine Marston, Wales Higher Education Brussels
Thank you very much for this very informative discussion. We look forward to working with you to highlight the Global Academies to European networks. It was a very useful event that gave me a great sense of what the Global Academies are aiming to do and what activities are included.

Prof Brigadier GPS Cheema is a of the Indian Army. Currently serving as the director of the Cardiff Undergraduate Programme at the Universal Business School in Mumbai:
Great initiative! Look forward to collaboration with Cardiff Met.