Narrowly missing the cherry blossom season, Tony Young, Alina Schartner and Adam Brandt visited the University of Tokyo in March. The research trip was linked to a collaborative project funded by the NU Internationalisation Strategic Fund. For the past year, the ALC team have been working with Yu Maemura (Tokyo University) and Mike Handford (Cardiff University) on a mixed-method needs analysis to explore how engineering students and staff in both locations approach intercultural communication.
Despite significant jet-leg, the ALC team conducted a focus group with international engineering students at Tokyo University and gave two presentations to two very different audiences. One for professional engineers, reporting on the findings from the needs analysis, and one for Tokyo University staff on the internationalisation of UK higher education. Both talks were well-received!
The team are now writing up their research findings for publication later in the year.
