Professor Christine Ennew, CEO and Provost of The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of The University of Nottingham, has been appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for her contribution to international higher education.
Professor Ennew’s long and successful career has seen a significant contribution to Nottingham’s pioneering internationalisation programme which has also helped to drive the UK’s recognition as an international leader in HE. She played a key role in the development of the University’s international campuses in Malaysia and China and during her time at the helm in Malaysia she has overseen continued growth in the number of students studying at UNMC, innovations in course delivery and major step changes in research activity and community engagement.
Professor Ennew said: “I am deeply honoured to receive this award. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to have been engaged in the increasing internationalization of both The University of Nottingham and UK higher education more generally. I am particularly proud of what has been achieved through our innovative campus development in Malaysia and the impact that this has had in both countries.”
After studying at the Universities of Cambridge and Nottingham, Professor Ennew developed an international academic reputation in financial services and tourism. She became a professor at the age of 35 while at Nottingham and has since held a number of senior posts including Dean of Social Sciences, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (PVC) Internationalisation, and took up her current role as Provost of UNMC four years ago.
Professor Ennew’s vision of opportunity for higher education has placed Nottingham firmly on the international stage. Insights from the Nottingham experience are sought after by governments both in the UK and internationally and by other institutions, wishing to establish an international presence. UK international HE is now a huge multi-billion pound export business.
Nottingham’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir David Greenaway, said: “Christine is an accomplished academic, a superb leader, and a perfect role model. She has given great service to our University and made contributions which will endure. This public honour is welcome recognition for the value of those contributions.”
Under her tenure as PVC for Internationalisation, major HE partnerships were developed in Indonesia, India, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Brazil, and Professor Ennew led long term plans for expansion of Nottingham in both China and Malaysia.
She was part of the first management team that established a Nottingham campus in Malaysia in 2000; the first ever branch campus of a British University established outside the UK. This earned the University the distinction of the Queens’ Award for Enterprise 2001 and the Queen’s Award for Industry (International Trade) 2006. As the current Provost of UNMC she now presides over a University with 5,000 students (a third of whom are international) and 600 staff.
Under her leadership at UNMC, the University developed off-shore programmes in Singapore and Sri Lanka and Professor Ennew has been leading a major initiative to upgrade human capital in universities in Bangladesh. UNMC secured major funding from the Ministry of Higher Education to support the development of post-doctoral research in Malaysia in 2014 and in the following year the University was awarded a 5-Star rating in the Malaysian research assessment exercise. In 2014 UNMC became the first international holder of an Athena SWAN award and leads the first working group amongst Malaysia’s higher education institutions which promotes gender equality. The campus also hosts the first Crops for the Future Research Centre in partnership with the Government of Malaysia.
Professor Ennew’s expertise and experience is sought by many; she is currently on advisory boards for the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, Penang Medical College, AIESEC Malaysia, Common Purpose Student Experiences, the International Advisory Boards of GlobalNxt and Binus Universities, and is a member of the Merdeka Awards Committee (Education and Community), Malaysia and Malaysia-British Society Executive Committee. She also led Nottingham’s engagement in Universitas 21 for close to 10 years.
Her wealth of expertise has secured Professor Ennew a post at Warwick University. This summer she will be leaving Nottingham after 30 years to take up her new appointment as Warwick’s next Provost where she will support the new Vice-Chancellor in academic leadership of the university.
Colleagues both past and present attended a farewell party for Professor Ennew on Monday June 6 hosted by Professor Sir David Greenaway. Among the guests was Professor Graham Kendall who will replace Professor Ennew as Provost and CEO of UNMC.
More information is available from Josephine Dionisappu, PR & Communications Manager at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus on josephine.dionisappu@nottingham.edu.my or Lindsay Brooke, Media Relations Manager at The University of Nottingham, UK on lindsay.brooke@nottingham.edu.my
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Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with a “distinct” approach to internationalisation, which rests on those full-scale campuses in China and Malaysia, as well as a large presence in its home city.’ (Times Good University Guide 2016). It is also one of the most popular universities in the UK among graduate employers and the winner of ‘Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers’ at the Times Higher Education Awards 2015. More than 97% of research at The University of Nottingham is recognised internationally and it is 8th in the UK by research power according to the Research Excellence Framework 2014. It has been voted the world’s greenest campus for four years running, according to Greenmetrics Ranking of World Universities.
Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest-ever fundraising campaign, is delivering the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future.
Posted on 13th June 2016