Prof Andrew Deeks
IAU President (2022-2026)
President and Vice-Chancellor, Murdoch University, Australia
biography

Welcome to the IAU. It is a privilege to be the current president of this historic, important and inclusive network of universities. We are open to membership by recognised not-for-profit universities and university associations from around the world, with a membership fee structure which recognises differences in economic conditions between countries. Consequently, we have the greatest diversity of membership of any university association, providing universities with the opportunity to work with like-minded institutions from all regions of the world.
We also provide Higher Education with a global voice which is independent of the pragmatics of national politics and geopolitics. As recent events have shown, a national government has levers it can use to control the voice of universities within its borders. The voice of the IAU is one which no government can control, able to speak of the value of higher education for all who have the capacity and desire to benefit from such study, irrespective of economic capacity. We also speak of the need for all nations to work together to address the most pressing global challenges of our time.

We work together to address some of these challenges, particularly in the areas of our strategic priorities: Globally-engaged and Value-based Leadership; Internationalisation for Society and the Global Common Good; Higher Education for Sustainable Development; and Digital Transformation of Higher Education. Under our new Strategy 2022-2030, with two consecutive Strategic Action plans (2022-2026 and 2026-2030), we will be looking particularly for initiatives we can undertake together that will bridge across the priority areas. All four of these priority areas contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which are a focus for many of our Member universities and organisations.

If your university or association is already a Member of IAU, I look forward to meeting up with you soon at an IAU event. If your university or association is not yet a member of the IAU, please encourage your decisionmakers to consider joining.