What's New
MU-CEL in discussions to establish teaching and research affiliations with other leading Centres and Institutions in Brazil , Italy , Australia and the United States . Click here for more details.
Over the past two years MU-CEL has worked hard to strengthen its international links with a number of leading universities and environmental research centres. This has enabled MU-CEL members to take advantage of a number of exciting research initiatives and enhanced the Centre's reputation both in Australia and overseas. It has also, in part, led to a significant increase in the number of students who have applied and been accepted into MU-CEL's PhD programme. The following outlines further initiatives undertaken within the past six months.
Professors Michael Jeffery and Donna Craig recently spent a number of days at the University of Sienna , Italy where they held discussions with the Director of the Centre for Law & Biotechnologies (CLB) and his colleagues. As a result of these meetings further discussions are under way to conclude an MOU between MU-CEL and CLB to promote teaching and research opportunities of interest to members of both Centres.
Negotiations are also well under way to conclude similar arrangements between MU-CEL and two Brazilian Universities - the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, (UFSC) Florianopolis, Brazil and the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). Both institutions are leaders in the area of environmental law in Latin America and MU-CEL has established a close working relationship with a number of Brazilian environmental law colleagues.
Professor Jose Rubens Morato-Leite of UFSC will be returning to Brazil in December after completing a 10 month visit as MU-CEL Visiting Research Fellow. Ms Heline Sivini Feirreira, a PhD candidate under Professor Leite's supervision, also visiting from UFSC, will continue on with her studies here under the local supervision of Professor Jeffery until March 2006.
Professor Fernando C. Walcacer, Professor of Environmental Law and Coordinator of the Environmental Law Office, Centre for the Environment at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) visited Macquarie University in July in conjunction with the 3rd IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Colloquium hosted by MU-CEL. Professor Walcacer also serves on the IUCN Academy’s Editorial Committee chaired by Professor Jeffery established to edit the hard cover publication of Colloquium papers to be published by Cambridge University Press in April 2006.
Discussions to establish closer research links are also proceeding with Professor Paul Martin, Director of the Australian Center for Agriculture and Law (AgLaw) at the University of New England in Armidale. MU-CEL and AgLaw are in the process of finalizing joint research funding applications for two projects, one involving a new strategy for protecting Indigenous knowledge and the second involving the evolution of Indigenous involvement using market-based instruments.
In addition, MU-CEL is presently undertaking preliminary discussions with another leading research center in the United States .