Along with my appointment in September of 2015 came an underscored mandate to increase our international engagement level and number of international partnerships and collaborations. This is an endeavour I am pleased to be leading and am happy to report now on some of our activities to date.

With the engagement of Pauline Rankin in January, 2015 as Associate Vice-President (Research and International), the Office of the Vice President (Research and International) (OVPRI) became well-equipped to take on the internationalization vision for Carleton University.

As many of you know, internationalization, or more specifically, Global Prosperity, is an important component to the Strategic Integrated Plan and is therefore a lynchpin to the international planning for OVPRI. Internationalization is defined by the AUCC, and therefore Carleton as "institutional efforts to integrate an international, global and/or intercultural dimension into the teaching, research and service functions of universities."

As such, Pauline has spearheaded an Internationalization Benchmarking Project whose goal is "to undertake a comprehensive analysis of internationalization activities at Carleton across the academic, research and student services portfolios and offer recommendations for improving our internationalization efforts campus-wide." You are invited to review the Executive Summary of the report here.

This important project is now off the ground with the completion of the initial report and the establishment of a new Steering Committee on Internationalization which will implement recommendations as well as coordinate activities, collaborations, communications and help us build on our internal culture around internationalization here at Carleton.

On the operational side of things, we are in the midst of further defining the nature of our core services around our international activities and Carleton International in general. I'm happy to say that they include a more extensive, coordinated and targeted engagement with the city's diplomatic initiatives. We have welcomed many delegations to our campus over the last six months, and have been invited to an increasing number of diplomatic events in the city.

Carleton University has signed an MOU with the Sao Paulo State Research Council (FAPESP) to co-fund a faculty mobility initiative that would promote collaboration between Carleton faculty and researchers in universities in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. We plan to launch the first call for applications in the near future. A representative from FAPESP will be visiting Carleton from April 11-12 to give a presentation on a number of programs supporting collaboration.

In terms of travel, as was mentioned in last month's issue of This Month in Research, I was honoured to join the Premier of Ontario's delegation to India in early February. During this mission I was successful in renewing two Memoranda of Understanding for Carleton University: one with Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), and another with TERI University in Delhi. I also made several connections with other post-secondary education institutions, which will no doubt yield exciting partnerships.

Our Manager of the Canada-India Centre, Harry Sharma will be travelling to India in April with the Mayor of Ottawa's trade mission. He will be accompanied by Jerry Tomberlin, Dean of the Sprott School of Business. They will also be seeking to strengthen existing partnerships and forge new collaborations in strategic areas.

Also this spring, Pauline will be travelling to the Netherlands in the latter half of May with a group of Canadian university presidents invited by the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Economic Affairs. Priority topics for discussion and discovery will include life sciences and health, startup hubs, energy, water management and high tech opportunities. We are pleased to be able to join this group.

In order to increase Carleton University's competitiveness, a solid and sustainable internationalization strategy is important. With the creation of a mechanism to coordinate international activities on campus, the establishment of internationalization elements within core strategic initiatives, and by carefully defining a strategic approach to target and support more international research opportunities and international research goals, Carleton is poised to become a great leader on the international front.