CUHK
News Centre

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) presented a public lecture by Prof. Ian Chubb, Vice-Chancellor and President of Australian National University (ANU), on ‘Australia’s Engagement with Asia – The Role of the National University’ today (9 September) on campus. About 120 guests attended the lecture, including CUHK staff and students, and members of the academic and public sectors.

In the lecture, Professor Chubb discussed how research and teaching on the Asia-Pacific at ANU serves as an important national resource for Australia – how it helps to build bridges between academics and policy-makers, and the broader Australian and international communities, which in turn fosters trusted people-to-people networks between nations and strengthens Australia’s engagement with Asia.

Professor Chubb was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University in January 2001. Prior to that, his career includes six years as Vice-Chancellor of Flinders University and senior executive appointments at Monash University and the University of Wollongong. He has served in various capacities on a number of peak bodies – Higher Education Council and the National Board of Employment, Education and Training, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Australian Research Council (ARC), as well as the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. He was chair of the Australian Vice-Chancellor’s Committee in 2000, chair of the Group of Eight Universities (Go8) from 2004 to 2005, and President of the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) from 2006-2009.

In 2006, Professor Chubb was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for ‘service to higher education including research and development policy in the pursuit of advancing the national interest socially, economically, culturally and environmentally and to the facilitation of a knowledge-based global economy’.

Long a believer in the value of public education, and in the importance of a robust higher education system for the economic, social and cultural prosperity of a nation, Professor Chubb has been influential in the sphere of higher education for two decades. He has been a powerful commentator on higher education policy and planning, quality, distance education and resource allocation. Most recently, as chair of the Go8 he played a significant part in moderating some of the impact of the 2003 Higher Education Reform Bill. He is widely quoted as an authority on higher education in the media and is in much demand nationally and internationally as a speaker in higher education meetings and conferences.