# Asia-Oceania Top University League on Engineering

The Asia-Oceania Top University League on Engineering (abbreviated AOTULE, pronounced "our tool") is a league consisting of 13 engineering faculties within Asia and Oceania universities. AOTULE's mission is to improve the quality of its member's educational programs and promote research activity among members primarily through exchange of information between deans, faculty members and administration staff at its annual meeting. It also organizes graduate student research exchange programs and conferences where graduate students present their latest research results in an interdisciplinary format.

## History

The seeds for forming AOTULE began in 2006 with discussions between senior engineering faculty at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Monash University. to promote graduate engineering student mobility within Asia and Oceania universities similar to the ERASMUS+ program offered by EU universities that is funded by the European commission. AOTULE was subsequently founded in 2007 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, by holding its inaugural meeting where participating Engineering Deans signed a memorandum of understanding. Each Fall since 2007, an AOTULE member has organized and hosted the annual AOTULE student conference, administration staff and Dean's meeting as noted below.

## Deans' meeting, administrative staff meeting and student conference

The annual deans', administrative staff meeting and student conference is held annually in October or November. Attendance at the annual conference is usually over 100 participants. The deans' meeting brings together Deans for discussions on topical educational programs related to the annual deans meeting theme as well as joint educational programs, degree programs, accreditation, collaborations with industry and study-abroad programming. At the administration staff meeting, staff discuss issues related to administering student exchanges and share best practices. The student conference provides students an international forum to discuss their research with a multidisciplinary student audience. Below is a summary of the AOTULE student conferences held from 2013 to the present.
List of AOTULE student conferences and deans meetings :
| Host institution, country | Date held | Student conference theme |
| University of Auckland, New Zealand | Nov. 2008 | -- |
| National Taiwan Univ., Taiwan | Dec. 2009 | -- |
| ITB, Bandung, Indonesia | Nov. 1-3 2010 | -- |
| Tsinghua University, Beijing, China | Oct, 2011 | -- |
| Univ. Malaya, KL, Malaysia | Nov. 24–25, 2012 | -- |
| Chulalongkorn Univ., Thailand | Oct. 2013 | -- |
| Univ. Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia | Nov. 26-28 2014 | -- |
| Nanyang Technological University, Singapore | Nov. 8 2015 | -- |
| HKUST, Hong Kong | Nov. 23–25, 2016 | -- |
| HUST, Vietnam | Nov. 23–24. 2017 | -- |
| IIT Madras, India | Nov. 23–24, 2018 | -- |
| Tokyo Tech, Japan | Nov. 25–27, 2019 | Actions towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Asia and Oceania. |
| not held due to COVID | 2020 | none |
| KAIST, Korea | Nov. 10, 2021 | Untact Society |
| National Taiwan Univ., Taiwan | Nov. 10–11, 2022 | Engineering and Energy for Sustainability |
| Univ. Moratuwa, Sri Lanka | Nov. 7–8, 2023 | Quality Engineering Education and Practices for Sustainable Development |
| ITB, Indonesia | Nov. 6–8, 2024 | Engineering for Sustainability |
| Tsinghua Univ. | Fall 2025 | to be decided |

## Student research exchanges and overseas visits

To promote student mobility, AOTULE members organize intra-AOTULE student short stays and research exchanges varying in length from one week at Chulalongkorn University to three months at Tokyo Institute of Technology. These exchanges facilitate global engineering, cross-cultural competencies, foreign language learning, and research experiences by students since the majority of AOTULE members' students live in countries where English is not the native language. AOTULE members such as Tokyo Tech's School of Engineering have used AOTULE as a test bed for creating new research exchange programs that are later broaden to university-wide programs with research university partners in the US and EU. Recently, there has been growing numbers of double degree graduate programs signed between AOTULE member institutions to allow participating graduate students to obtain two degrees by completing graduation requirements at two institutions. This allows double degree participants an opportunity to learn more about the host country where they are studying, undertake a research project in greater depth and establish a greater network of peers than that provided by a short term exchanges.

## Members

| Location | University or institute | Participating organization |
| Australia | The University of Melbourne | Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology |
| China | Tsinghua University | School of Aerospace Engineering |
| Hong Kong | Hong Kong University of Science and Technology | School of Engineering |
| India | Indian Institute of Technology Madras | School of Engineering |
| Indonesia | Bandung Institute of Technology | Faculty of Engineering* |
| Japan | Institute of Science Tokyo (formerly Tokyo Institute of Technology) | School of Engineering, School of Environment and Society, School of Materials and Chemical Technology |
| Malaysia | University of Malaya | Faculty of Engineering |
| Sri Lanka | University of Moratuwa | Faculty of Engineering |
| Singapore | Nanyang Technological University | College of Engineering |
| South Korea | KAIST | College of Engineering |
| Taiwan | National Taiwan University | College of Engineering, College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| Thailand | Chulalongkorn University | Faculty of Engineering |
| Vietnam | Hanoi University of Science and Technology | Engineering Faculties** |