New Vice-President for Monash alliance

Professor Andrew Coats has been confirmed as the first joint Academic Vice-President of the Warwick-Monash Alliance. Professor Coats will also serve as Director of the Monash-Warwick Alliance strategy.

Professor Coats will take up his new role on February 4 2013 but will engage in preparations from October. He described the alliance as “ground-breaking” and a “global alliance in research and teaching excellence.” The alliance’s first senior research posts will be advertised before the end of September.

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick, Professor Nigel Thrift, described Professor Coats as “an experienced academic leader with three decades of international experience in six of the world’s leading universities”.

Monash University’s Vice Chancellor, Ed Byrne, also endorsed Professor Coats, describing him as an “accomplished researcher, teacher and administrator … quintessentially suited to harness the many exciting opportunities our Alliance will present.”

The appointment follows June 2012’s alliance agreement. When the agreement was signed, the Vice-Chancellors of both universities jointly described the Alliance as establishing Warwick and Monash as “‘globally connected’ universities,” responding to the “needs of students in the global age” and seeking “solutions for increasingly complex global problems.”

Some key initiatives have already begun. These include a £200,000 grant from the Australian Research Council to build collaboration in engineering and £500,000 has been awarded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to build up connection in physical sciences from now until March 2013.

Students from both universities will also benefit from a joint PhD agreement which will recruit from late 2012. Students from Warwick and Monash will co-produce Warwick’s on-line peer-reviewed journal, Reinvention, for undergraduate student research from all disciplinary areas.