Richard Linning, FIPRA FCIPR, Immediate Past President of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), has accepted an invitation to become a 2012/2013 Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for Global Public Relations (CGPR).

Directed by Dr. Dean Kruckeberg, APR, Fellow PRSA, the CGPR is part of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in Charlotte, N.C.

Accepting the post, Richard Linning said that CGPR shares the vision he promoted as President of IPRA - to help public relations practitioners, scholars, educators and students coalesce into a global professional community sharing universal professional standards of practice and ethical values.

Like Dean Kruckeberg and the Center, I believe there is a need in our modern global society to recognize and develop specialists in public relations with particular knowledge and skills to practice in a range of environments, while adhering to universal professional values and best practices.

This is not, however, an argument for one-size-fits-all. The best public relations practice respects the diversity of ethnicity, language, culture, religion, political and economic circumstances. Think globally in professional values, but act locally in socially responsible application.

As a practitioner who has undertaken projects on all continents and through my active involvement in the global IPRA community, I believe I can make a positive contribution to the CGPR and to the realisation of our shared goal of a professional community united in promoting best practice while sharing universal professional ethical and moral values