Rector of UIN Sunan Kalijaga, Prof. Drs. KH Yudian Wahyudi MA PhD, received Prof. Vanessa Lemm and delegation from Flinders University, Australia, Friday (July 12, 2019). Prof. Lemm is the Vice-President and Executive Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. During this visit, Prof. Lemm was accompanied by Dr. Priyambudi Sulistiyanto (Senior Lecturer) and Mr. David Nettlefold (Manager for International Recruitment and Engagement affairs). The visit of the Flinders University delegation was a response to the visit of the delegation of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in March, led by Prof. Al Makin (Head of the Institute for Research and Community Service).

At that special moment, Prof. Yudian warmly welcomed the Flinders delegation and expressed his support for academic cooperation programs between the two universities. As it is in line with the internationalization that is the priority of the Chancellor's work program, Prof. Yudian said that academic cooperation is absolutely necessary to add insight and global competitiveness among the academics of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University. This collaboration will primarily be directed at the development of Islamic studies and the introduction of the expertise of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in this region to the wider academic community.

Prof. Al Makin, who also attended the Flinders delegation, informed that Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University will dispatch three researchers / lecturers to Flinders University for research collaboration in September. On the contrary, Flinders University will send a TESOL teaching staff to become a fellow at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University before the end of this year. Both universities agreed to increase the intensity of their cooperation in the 2020.

Outside of the university-to-university cooperation scheme, Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University and Flinders University also took the initiative to collaborate with the Ministry of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia in organizing a scheme specifically for doctoral students training. This special scheme is offered as a solution for language problems which often become obstacles for doctoral students prospective from the Religious Islamic State College (PTKIN) background. In this particular scheme, Flinders University offers courses to improve academic writing skills and English language training as an integral part of doctoral education. (Noory)