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What would you do if you were offered a job you couldn’t refuse, but had to leave your partner, children and grandchildren on the other side of the world?

It’s a typical story for a foreign academic moving to Perth. But for Professor Geoff Laurent, being approached by UWA’s Vice Chancellor at the time, Alan Robson was an opportunity for a bittersweet homecoming to his native Perth. Geoff had been Director of the Centre for Respiratory Research at University College London and had built a life in the global city over the 33 years since 1979 when he moved there as a young researcher. Two of his three children were born in London, and now his daughter Gabrielle lives and works in the city as a photographer, with his son Guy living in Berlin with his own children, Konrad, 6 and Phillippa, 4. Moving away from them was difficult. “One of my sons questioned my decision to move, and wondered if I was being selfish,” remembers Geoff. ‘That was tough, but we talked it through and I think he now accepts it.”

Geoff’s role at UWA was to assume the Directorship of the new Centre for Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine (CCTRM) in 2012, and more recently the Institute for Respiratory Health (formally the Lung Institute of WA) and he represents the interests of the two centres and the university overseas. He keeps UWA alumni in touch with the university as a trustee of the Friends of UWA in the UK and Europe London and helps organise (and MCs) the annual London dinner hosted by our VC Prof Paul Johnson. The event has been the catalyst for generous donations to the university from the alumni since its inception in 2008.

He also travels regularly to Munich to promote the ‘UHU’ Research Network, a collaboration between UWA, Helmholtz Zentrum München and University College London. Last year the network offered research seed funding to members of the three groups for the first time. This will continue in 2015 and 2016.

“I’ve been lucky that my work for UWA has meant I can see my children regularly,” says Geoff. “I’m about to fly again to London, Geneva and Munich to promote more collaboration between UWA, UCL, University Hospitals of Geneva and Helmholtz Zentrum München, but it also happens to be my daughter Gabrielle’s 30th birthday so I’m glad to be able to see her on such a special occasion.

“Perth is home again, but I still have a strong connection to Europe and that’s important for both my centres and wider research at UWA. In the research world we can’t be held back by international boundaries – it’s important that we collaborate with the best people, wherever they are in the world”.