Second visiting professorship for Head of Strategy and Marketing
Wed, 20 Nov 2013 15:01:00 GMT
Czech Republic Technical University of Liberec extends relationship with offer of professorial appointment for Huddersfield’s Dr John Anchor
SINCE the mid-1990s, the University of Huddersfield’s Dr John Anchor has been fascinated by the Czech Republic and its political and economic transformation since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Now he has two Visiting Professorships in the country.
In 2011, Dr Anchor (pictured below right) – who is Head of the Department of Strategy and Marketing in the University of Huddersfield’s Business School – was appointed as a Visiting Professor by the Faculty of Economics of the Technical University of Ostrava.
Now he has been offered the same role within Faculty of Economics at the Technical University of Liberec. It means that he will deliver lectures and work with PhD students at the Czech university, some of whom might come to Huddersfield to carry out research.
Dr Anchor’s Visiting Professorship is the latest development in a long-standing relationship between the business schools of the universities of Huddersfield and Liberec.
Before the collapse of communism and the “Velvet Revolution” in the former Czechoslovakia, there was no scope for business education.
“In a planned economy you don’t need marketing, so the move to a market economy required reskilling,” said Dr Anchor. It was the University of Huddersfield’s Business School which provided expertise and training, resulting in the development of a new Faculty of Economics at Liberec.
“During the last 21 years, our two universities have co-operated in a variety of ways,” added Dr Anchor. “This has included research, curriculum development and teacher mobility. In addition, the Business School has received approximately one hundred students in its Bachelor and Masters’ programmes from Liberec.”
In June 2013, a doctoral education conference was held in the Business School under the auspices of its Emerging Markets Research Group, which Dr Anchor leads.
“The idea for the conference came from discussions between Liberec and ourselves and it was attended by researchers from Liberec and the Technical University of Ostrava, as well as Huddersfield,” said Dr Anchor, who has received two medals from the Faculty of Economics at Liberec for his work in institutional development.
His appointment as Visiting Professor is further recognition of the special relationship which exists between Huddersfield and Liberec – universities based in towns of a similar size which share a textile heritage.
“Liberec want me to contribute in particular to the development of their PhD programme,” said Dr Anchor. “I am delighted by this since I will be able to build upon the experience which I have gained during the last six years as the Business School’s Director of Graduate Education. Since PhD student exchange is possible within the EU’s Erasmus programme, I can see further possibilities for developing out links at this level as well as in the post-doctoral arena.”
