On Tuesday 10th March, the college hosted a Global Engagement Showcase in the O’Brien Science centre. 

Opening the event, CHAS Vice-Principal for International Associate Professor Aifric O’Sullivan outlined the goal of the event as being to increase the visibility and accessibility of global engagement activities across the college, and in the wider university. 

We were delighted to hear from Professor Dolores O’Riordan, Vice-President Global Engagement, who remarked that our college is highly engaged globally through partnerships and networks across faculty,staff and students. Professor O’Riordan noted that the many successful activities across CHAS have done a huge amount to build the university’s reputation. 

In the opening session, ‘Global Partnerships’ we heard from Associate Professor Jack Lambert about his work as co-chair of the Una Europa Network Self Steering Committee on One Health; and from Dr Marco Garcia Vaquero on his personal experience of building successful research collaborations through the UCD/UC Davis partnership. Finally in this session we had an excellent student panel discussion, chaired by Damien Dempsey, Marketing Manager in the School of Agriculture and Food Science. A highlight of the morning was hearing directly from students, who shared their personal experience of the benefits of adding a global experience to their education.. They spoke about how these opportunities can broaden perspectives, open up potential career pathways, and provide exposure to different approaches to clinical practice. The panel also emphasised the range of supports available within the university to help students access and make the most of these opportunities.

In the second session, ‘Global Experience for All’, Dr Sulagana Maitra showcased her personal experience with the Erasmus International Credit Mobility programme and her collaboration with the university of Makerere in Uganda; and Dr Joel Rockwood spoke about his involvement with the UCD Volunteer Overseas programme describing the several projects currently underway, including a student devised ‘Healthy Habits' project. 

Finally, we heard from Mike Talbot about UCD’s Global Regional Strategies, following which Mike chaired a panel of CHAS faculty and staff who all shared their experience of many years’ collaboration with partners in China, Africa, North America and South Asia. The panel agreed that successful global partnerships take time to build and that as well as bringing research and educational benefits, developing successful relationships can be its own reward.