How human and cultural values impact on important issues in society will form the basis of a new collaboration between The University of Western Australia and the Arrowad Group in the Middle East.
UWA has signed an agreement with Arrowad, a group of institutions with core activities in developing human resources and improving institutional performance in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, to provide expertise through its innovative Centre for Human and Cultural Values.
Centre Director Professor Julie Lee said the partnership signed between the two organisations would assist Arrowad in its aim of developing strong and meaningful corporate values within the Arab cultural context and increase UWA's knowledge and expertise in a key region of the Indian Ocean rim.
"We'll be working with Arrowad for Building Values to ensure that the outstanding and complementary skills, facilities and resources offered by both of our organisations can be applied to better understand and promote the impact of values in corporate life in the Middle East," Professor Lee said.
Image: Professor Julie Lee
The UWA Centre for Human and Cultural Values was launched in 2018 as part of an Australian Research Council linkage grant in recognition of the need to better understand how values relate to challenging and significant research problems in society.
It brings together some of the world's leading academics to understand and apply personal and cultural values theory to address social issues and links academics, businesses and governments to help develop timely solutions to these.
"The Arrowad group's vision is to build capacities of institutions and humans through creative research and entrepreneurship in the Middle East and our internationally recognised research expertise and leadership is closely aligned with this," Professor Lee said.
Dean of the UWA Business School Professor Peter Robertson said one of UWA's research priorities was to drive research excellence through world-leading collaboration.
"Our particular focus is on the challenges facing countries on the Indian Ocean rim and this new partnership is a perfect example of how that can be of benefit to WA, Australia and our neighbours," Professor Robertson said.
Vice President of Arrowad Group Dr Saad Alkhalaf said he was very pleased to connect "with great people and institutions like UWA".
"It is one of the success stories that Arrowad has made on this day; I am sure we will do a great job together and create a great impact for the organisations, countries, and the world," Dr Alkhalaf said.
