On August 17 the Swiss Australian Academic Network was delighted to welcome 45 of its members and partners to a special event at Melbourne´s Royal Society, opened by SAAN´s president Matthias Ernst and his welcoming words.

On the occasion of the Rio Summer Olympics and the prevailling threat of the ZIKA Virus predominately in Brazil, Melbourne based and Swiss born Professor Christian D. Doerig, Head of the Department of Microbiology at Monash University, gave an insightful talk.

In order to present the guests with a different topic as well, Prof Doerig´s presentation was followed by Peter Althaus, a most successful Swiss wine maker from Tasmania. 20 years ago, Althaus chose to  close a former chapter of his life when he finished his employment with IBM and started his “Domaine A” winery.  Our guests were interestedly listening to his rather unusual life story.

Peter Althaus was keen to provide SAAN´s guests with a wine tasting. Given the attendee´s response there was no doubt about the quality of his wines.

The Swiss Australian Academic Network kindly acknowledges its guest speakers and long-term partners for their generous support.

Photos: Brittany Scott

The Australian public broadcaster and the world´s biggest multilingual media company SBS has recently released an audio segment about the Swiss Australian Academic Network.

SAAN´s president Matthias Ernst gave the German speaking audience a detailed insight in the organisation´s history, structure and aims. Mr Ernst also got the chance to talk about the well-performing exchange between Swiss and Australian academics.

SAAN would like to thank SBS for the opportunity!

Link (audio segment in German):

SBS: Swiss Australian Academic Network (SAAN)

On April 28, SAAN´s Melbourne based Executive Board was delighted to spend the evening having dinner with the newly appointed Honorary Swiss Consul in Victoria, Mrs Manuela Erb.

SAAN got the chance to bring Mrs Erb up to date with its organisation as well as its past and intended activities. Both parties had the oppotunity to discuss all kind of matters related to the Swiss community in Australia. SAAN is pleased to have a strong relationship with Switzerland´s official representatives in Australia and is looking forward to developing this in the future.

On the occasion of the APAIE 2016, SAAN hosted a reception on the evening of Feburary 29 together with the Swiss Science and Technology Network of the Asia-Pacific. We were delighted to welcome almost 50 guests at the Royal Society of Victoria.

The APAIE (Asia-Pacific Association for International Education) is an annually held well-known forum in the Asia-Pacific region, which brings together policy-makers and education experts from around the world. This year´s conference took place in Melbourne´s Convention and Exhibition Centre. A Swiss booth was set up at the APAIE to act as a meeting place for the Swiss institutions and their partners.

The event was being held on the first night of the conference and brought together various delegations: representatives from both Swiss universities and embassies as well as key stakeholder from Australia, China, Japan, Korea and Singapore. SAAN was represented by its Melbourne based executive board.

After the welcoming words from SAAN´s president Matthias Ernst and Mark Engler, Science, Technology and Education Coordinator at the Swiss Embassy in Canberra, and accompanied by appetizers, our guests took the chance to network and engage in discussions on further collaborations.

SAAN would like to thank its partners, particularly Mark Engler and the Embassy of Switzerland in Australia, for their kind support.

Find our Annual Review 2015.

Content:

• President’s preamble
• What is SAAN?
• Who is SAAN?
• What is SAAN´s missions/goals?
• Who supports SAAN?