James Cook University and Papua New Guinea University of Technology (PNG UoT) have signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), paving the way for academic and research collaboration with enormous potential for both nations.

The agreement will lead to significant opportunities for staff and student exchanges as well as joint research in critical areas such as tropical and marine science, agriculture, and public health.
PNG UoT Vice-Chancellor Professor Ora Renagi lead a delegation for a two-day visit to JCU's Bebegu Yumba campus in Townsville, which included meetings with the engineering and HR departments, as well as talks with academic heads and representatives from TropWATER.
JCU Vice Chancellor Professor Simon Biggs and Professor Ora Renagi OL signed the historic MOU during this visit, with both parties excited to establish a cooperative working relationship.
"It's a fantastic opportunity to collaborate across sciences, health and other areas to broaden both parties' knowledge and understanding," Prof Biggs said.
"We want to focus on staff exchanges around key topics – marine science, agriculture, biosecurity, and resilience. With the support of both universities, and the Australian government's interest in stronger ties with PNG, this partnership has a lot of potential.
"JCU already has quite a lot of activity in PNG, with around 60 researchers from our Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine currently based there studying malarial mosquito borne vector diseases.
"We are very keen to partner with PNG UoT to build capacity and capability in both our universities, in doing this we hope to play a part in strengthening the relationship between our two nations."
PNG UoT was founded in 1965 and is PNG's leading technology institution, playing a key role in training people in technical and applied fields, contributing substantially to their country's key industries.
It currently has around 3800 undergraduate and 250 postgraduate students and Prof Renagi said PNG UoT are excited to explore this collaboration with JCU and shift some academic focus to underserved areas.
"The nature of our growth is that we have focused heavily on city development, the mining industry, and we are more into engineering, architecture and areas like that," he said.
"But in our country, we have huge natural resources, like our oceans, our mountains and our rivers, and nobody is really studying them".
"There are huge opportunities for study in these tropical environments, and we have to be thinking outside of the standard curriculum that we always deliver.
"We have a chance to identify where some of these issues are and then organise our research to build a knowledge hub in these natural resources, which JCU has proven to be very good at."