Finding common ground: use of a geographically-framed landscape template as an integrating platform for an international education initiative

Abstract

This situated case study outlines how a place-based landscape template provided an integrative platform for the environmental arm of a cross-disciplinary international education initiative, the Three Brothers Project, wherein geographers at the University of Auckland worked alongside engineers at Tsinghua University in Beijing to support collaborative research with grassland and agricultural scientists at Qinghai University in western China. These collaborative efforts built upon strategic leadership at government and university level, an appropriate resource base and engaged practitioners who developed and embedded research opportunities that built upon a shared commitment to research on environmental values in the source zone of the Yellow River. We highlight how a landscape framing brought together divergent mindsets, methodologies and practices in this collaborative research, providing an effective platform to share experiences, discuss perspectives and develop research outcomes.

Keywords:

• International cooperation in higher education
• environmental science
• environmental management
• landscape
• collaboration
• partnership

Acknowledgements

We extend enormous thanks to Chris Tremewan and Weidong Fu for their visionary and inspirational roles in the development and facilitation of our Three Brothers work, and to Carola Cullum, Marc Tadaki and numerous research collaborators for substantive conversations that helped translate this work into academic outputs. International offices at all partner universities provided enormous logistical support for these endeavours. Two grants from Education New Zealand, and considerable in-house support from each partner institution, facilitated our shared research endeavours. We thanks the editors and four reviewers for their encouraging, constructive and supportive comments on our paper.