Spotlight

Sixteen nursing students from Southern Cross University recently completed a three-week placement at KLE University in Belagavi, Karnataka, India, as part of a New Colombo Plan Mobility Grant.

It was the third trip for Southern Cross health students in 2024, in what many students described as a "life-changing" experience. They visited the Prabhakar Kore Hospital, exploring high tech labs and Intensive Care Units and spent several days at the Shanta Vrudhashram, an old age home in Kinaye, where they conducted geriatric assessments, provided health education on mental wellbeing, and participated in a cultural programme of song and dance.

"India's patient-centred care was incredibly inspiring. I observed students treating patients with the same care as family, which is a level of compassion I haven't seen before. It made me reflect on how we can incorporate similar values into healthcare in Australia," said student Ninah Waters.

It’s just one example of a global strategy the University has pursued in recent years in tandem with increased student mobility, that has accelerated since COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted.

“We’ve always been invested in learning abroad,” said Southern Cross Director of Global Engagement, Christine Martin. “But if there is one thing the pandemic showed us, it was the real value of creating global opportunities – both for students who develop a global outlook, building their confidence to pursue global careers, but also to build deeper connections that support our research."

The New Colombo Plan is an initiative of the Australian Government to deepen knowledge of the Indo-Pacific in Australia by supporting Australian undergraduates to undertake study, language training and internships in the region. Southern Cross has been a constant and enthusiastic participant in the program.

“Even now, I struggle to fully describe how it touched us and changed our perspectives. What I've learned is that we have so much more to learn from others, and that constant reflection is key," said Bachelor of Nursing student Hannah Williams.

Professor Christina Aggar accompanied the group and said the Southern Cross students were deeply impressed by the efficiency of primary healthcare centres in India. “They remarked particularly on services like immediate blood test results, which are not available in rural Australia,” she said.

“Students also found the integration of religion into daily life inspiring, noting how it was seamlessly expressed through dance, food, care, and overall lifestyle.

“In terms of their careers, these students will be global practitioners, who have a deep understanding of what life and healthcare can look like in other countries.”

“The future lies in this capacity to develop our students as global citizens who are invested in working together for the global good,” said Ms Martin.

The University has a longstanding relationship with hospitals and healthcare providers in India. Indian academics are also regular visitors to Southern Cross where a rich cultural and professional exchange takes place. A new program of knowledge transfer will begin this year with visits by Indian academics to Southern Cross.

In 2025, Southern Cross University will host three KLE lecturers as part of a research mentorship. The collaboration has resulted in international conference presentations and published papers on pandemic impacts, digital communication, and leadership for internationally qualified nurses. Additionally, there is a shared research interest in planetary health and climate change, aligning with a research strength at the University.

Global research partnerships a hothouse for knowledge exchange

It’s one of dozens of international relationships this mid-sized Australian university is nurturing, which are bearing fruit not only in student opportunity but in research outcomes.

The University’s Distinguished Professor Peter Harrison is an Australian pioneer in coral ecology who invented the novel coral IVF larval reseeding method to renew degraded coral reefs.

The first reef trial was successfully completed in 2013 with then-PhD candidate Dexter dela Cruz in the Philippines, supported by research funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). This was the first study to show that increased larval supply and settlement directly onto highly degraded and algal phase-shifted reefs could successfully restore breeding coral populations within three years.

Since then, many successful reef trials have been done on damaged reefs in the Philippines supported by additional ACIAR funding.

The technique has also been successfully trialled on damaged reef areas in the southern Great Barrier Reef (GBR) at Heron Island, in the central GBR and up to the northern GBR. These trials have been supported by funding from the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, and have attracted the interest of global philanthropic organisations such as Tiffany and Co Foundation and the Paul G Allen Family Foundation among others.

Naturopathic medicine is another research area that has seen tangible results from global exchange. The third annual natural products forum was hosted by Southern Cross in late 2024, attracting collaborators from around the globe.

Director of the University’s National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine Professor Jon Wardle said he had seen the local natural products industry blossom thanks to international knowledge exchange.

“If we want a sustainable, profitable natural products industry that is delivering for people and business, we have to look globally. There is so much to learn from different approaches to traditional and scientific knowledge out there and our investment as a University in building these partnerships is already paying dividends both in the expansion of our clinical trials unit and in the opportunities for our students to study abroad.”

Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Mary Spongberg said that investing in global partnerships was key to the University’s research strategy.

“If we are to have any hope at all of achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals, we must cooperate and collaborate wherever we can with others doing similar work around the world.

“Universities are uniquely placed to do this and Southern Cross is a good example of where this has worked very well. Even though we are one of Australia’s smallest universities, we can have a big impact on the global stage by investing in our partners, valuing the knowledge exchange that takes place in good partnerships with an open mind and mutual respect for what we can all bring to the table,” she said.