The Large Grants Research Program is particularly seeking research projects put forward by First Nations researchers that will help solve Indigenous equity issues in universities, although it will consider projects that research other disadvantaged groups, including low SES students, students with disabilities or students from regional or remote Australia.

The newly rebranded centre, boosted after the Accord final report release, will collect and research data through randomised control trials to present to universities so they have access to best practice models when it comes to involving and supporting disadvantaged students.

Projects should aim to produce research that universities can apply to their future equity programs in a 12-month period, to support disadvantaged student cohorts in getting to and excelling in university.

Considered research areas would investigate alternative pathways to uni, improving student wellbeing or the effects of intra-sectoral (within higher education) or inter-sectoral (higher, vocational, and secondary education) relationships on student equity.

Expressions of interest close March 27.

Visiting scholarships program

The centre's Visiting Scholarships are also now open, where existing equity researchers can spend time at the ACSES office at Curtin University in Perth to undertake university equity studies with other researchers.

ACSES Research and Policy Program Director Professor Ian Li said scholarships will be awarded to those with potential to develop a track record of higher education policy and equity research.

“We are keen to partner with experts nationally or internationally to work on initiatives that will widen participation and improve outcomes in higher education equity” he said.

“Efforts to progress on higher education student equity will require diverse input from researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners, and we would like to draw on the range of expertise available from like-minded individuals.”

Applications for the scholarship close May 24 .

Chief executive of a United States leadership organisation, the Council on Competitiveness, Deborah Wince-Smith sits down with HEDx's Martin Betts in today's episode to discuss technological innovation.

She was a senior U.S. government official, as the first Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for technology policy in the U.S. Department of Commerce, and assistant director for International Affairs in the Reagan White House.

She is spearheading global efforts towards technological transformation in the Universities Research Leadership Forum of the Global Forum for Competitiveness Councils.

The Council on Competitiveness is a coalition of CEOs, university presidents, labor leaders and national laboratory directors, committed to driving U.S. competitiveness.

The advisory council is chaired by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the deputy chair is the Minister for Industry and Science, Ed Husic.

The council is comprised of six scientists, along with Australia's Chief Scientist and the chief executive of CSIRO, and informs and advises the prime minister and government on current science and technology issues.

Professor Bolt is a proud Yuin/Wandandian and Ngarigo man who has studied health science, micro-sociology, business administration, media arts and identity studies; and is passionate about improving education outcomes for Indigenous peoples.

"It is important we look to how western knowledge and Indigenous knowledge can come together to make change, particularly with the challenges Australia and the world are currently facing,” Professor Bolt said.

“There is a lot of wisdom and traditional knowledge in our communities and our scholars.

"However, the key is to find the ways that this knowledge and wisdom can be heard by the right people, at the right time, particularly those that have the power to influence change for the betterment of our communities."

The professor was also the first Indigenous person to graduate with a PhD at the University of Sydney’s faculty of Health Sciences.

He joins the council alongside other new members including Professor Mahananda Dasgupt, a nuclear physics academic from the Australian National University, and Professor Mark Hutchinson, an Australian Research Council Future fellow from the University of Adelaide's School of Biomedicine.

Professor Bolt and Professor Hutchinson will fill immediate vacancies, joining Professor Genevieve Bell, Professor Brian Schmidt, associate Professor Jeremy Brownlie and emeritus Professor Cheryl Praeger.

Professor Dasgupt will replace Professor Schmidt when his membership expires on February 18.

The university has partnered with NSW government agency Landcom and the NSW Reconstruction Authority to deliver much-needed low and medium-density housing on an East Lismore site.

The 72 hectare site will include 20 per cent affordable housing, while lots will be suitable for the relocation of existing homes from flood-prone areas as the she site is above the probable maximum flood level.

Southern Cross University vice-chancellor Tyrone Carlin said the university was a key part of the community, and the plans would help the regional hub to be more resilient down the line.

“East Lismore is close to the university, close to the CBD, and close to shops, sporting facilities, schools and other community infrastructure – so it’s the ideal location for a development such as this,” Professor Carlin said.

Landcom will invest $60 million on infrastructure such as new roads, power, water, and sewage connections.

A $15 million NSW Reconstruction Authority contribution will help enable participants to be given priority to buy the new land and housing before it is offered to the broader market.

Landcom is set to commence initial work later this year, subject to approvals, and it is expected housing will be available for sale from 2026.

Lismore Labor MP and Parliamentary Secretary for Disaster Recovery Janelle Saffin said work to address housing shortfalls “gives heart and hope and homes” to our communities.

It was hoped it would ultimately allow “locals to stay in Lismore” and Ms Saffin flagged similar plans and “more to come across the Northern Rivers”.

As part of its response to the flood disaster, Southern Cross University is running research on the effects of the disaster on marginal groups.

It is looking to participate in its study investigating flood response and recovery efforts as part of their Flood Recovery Project Scheme.

The scheme committed to funding seven flood aid and recovery-based research projects at $25,000 each.

People who identify as a migrant or refugee, are experiencing homelessness or are sexually and/or gender diverse and were affected by the 2022 Northern Rivers floods, are invited to share their stories.

Research leader associate Professor Matthew Leach said the study will help better inform flood recovery providers of the individual needs of minority groups.

"We know from overseas studies that marginalised groups are disproportionately impacted by floods, but what we do not fully understand is whether this is also the case in Australia," he said.

"The findings from this study will determine the extent to which the health and wellbeing needs of marginalised groups have or have not been met to date, and how future flood response and recovery efforts might better serve those needs.

"Ultimately, it is about recognising the diversity of regional communities, and ensuring appropriate and timely services, resources and infrastructure are put in place to mitigate the impacts of flooding events on these communities."

Those who participate in the study will participate in a 30 minute interview and receive a $50 gift voucher.

Executive Dean of Macquarie Business School Professor Eric Knight shares why the school worked with data consulting firm Mandala partners to measure how their university performs in helping equity groups gain employment from business education.

Applying research expertise and new data, the partnership demonstrates an appropriate alternative to university rankings through informing student choice, benchmarking performance and learning how to improve measures at the heart of forthcoming policy change.

Professor Eric Knight is executive dean of Macquarie Business School and a scholar in the field of organisational theory and strategic management.

The historically American award was trialled in Australia in 2019, which led to the development of an official Australia-specific award under the auspices of Engagement Australia, and accepted applicants in June 2023 to be evaluated by an international review committee.

President of the Carnegie Foundation Timothy FC Knowles said UTS and the ACU represent the very reason the awards came to Australia.

"The institutions that we are recognising today are doing tremendous work in addressing their societal responsibilities through community engagement and service," he said.

"In doing so, they have demonstrated extraordinary commitment to, investment in, and accomplishment at community engagement to address real challenges in our communal lives."

UTS told Campus Review they included two examples of programs they run at their university to tend to community needs in their application for the award.

The 27-year-old UTS Shopfront allows community organisations to apply for help with resourcing projects, that students then deliver as part of their coursework.

The students must create useful material for the organisation depending on the subject they are enrolled in, which could be business, design, law, engineering or IT services.

Social media action plans, literature reviews, publication designs and branding projects have come from the Shopfront, which has engaged 183 projects and 1900 students just this year.

For example, students from two UTS subjects assisted youth organisation Yung Prodigy this year, when management consulting students developed a three-year business plan, corporate partnerships, marketing and funding opportunities and stakeholder engagement plans.

Simultaneously, professional pathways students researched the educational gaps that youth with incarcerated parents are faced with, in line with the services Yung Prodigy provides.

Their Jumbunna Research Institute, which investigates systemic issues with child protection laws for Indigenous Australians, was also considered in the application as a body that works directly with First Nations people to improve research strategies and outcomes.

UTS vice-chancellor Professor Andrew Parfitt said he is delighted the university's efforts have been accredited with a "gold-standard" of community engagement.

"As a public institution, working with and for community across our research, education and practice is fundamental to our purpose," he said.

"We can only realise our mission for public good through robust, collaborative two-way partnerships.

"This recognition of the diverse and long-running efforts across the university to embed co-creation and partnerships as part of our curriculum, scholarship, and practice is a testament to our extended community’s dedication to positive social impact."

Executive director of the Carnegie Elective Classifications Dr Marisol Morales said self-reflection was a key driver in choosing the successful applicants.

"The process of applying for [the classification] requires disparate parts of the university to come together to learn, reflect, and assess," Dr Morales said.

"This important component of institutional self-reflection allows institutions to put up a mirror and think about how their community engagement efforts are achieving the standards that meet higher education's public purpose to society.

"Institutions who achieve this do so not just as a part of their outreach efforts, but as a part of their core academic work in ways that are asset based, reciprocal and mutually beneficial with communities. This first round sets that standard for Australian higher education."

Verity Firth, the chair of the National Advisory Committee for the classification, said the award is part of a response to the actions called for by the Universities Accord Interim Report to improve the educational lives of students.

The Report suggested there be a process to better recognise and formalise the role universities play in their communities, particularly in the context of mission-based compacts.

"[The Report] declares community engagement to be a central part of university missions, calling for a way for the sector and government to recognise and formalise the crucial role institutions play in their communities," she said.

"The Carnegie Community Engagement Accreditation is a rigorous and independent way for Australian universities do to this, and we look forward to many more Australian universities attaining this accreditation in the future."

The classification will choose its winners annually, whilst a successful pilot in Canada will likely result in the implementation of its first classification cycle in 2024. Active interest from South Africa, Thailand and Vietnam suggests that others are to follow in the not-too-distant future.

Students watch Mia grow from a young child to an adolescent in a single-parent home through animations and scenarios that show her engaging in negative behaviour.

Leader of the Mia project Dr Fatin Shabbar told Campus Review the child and family social work practice has a high turnover of staff, so she wants to prepare students for what it's really like to work with clients.

"[Mia] tells the story of a client, rather than just revising a half-page case study. Social work is a relationship-based profession, it requires soft skills and emotional competencies," she said.

"As an educator, it's important that I don't only teach my students skills in terms of how to practice, but also how to survive and navigate the challenges of the profession."

Students meet with Mia on a regular basis, and use her facial expressions and voice to detect her emotions and work towards a productive session.

"Child protection services is a sensitive area, and we want students to be ready before they step into this practice," she said.

"This is a space where they gain skills of emotional engagement, self-reflection, self-awareness and empathy."

Dr Shabbar said engaging tools like this could be used in any profession that relies on positive relationships between workers and clients, such as nursing or other areas of health work.

Another study by UniSA found 70 per cent of observed SA and Victorian classrooms aren't engaging students in 'complex learning', which limits their ability to learn how to think critically and problem solve.

Researcher Dr Helen Stephenson says traditional teaching methods, such as note-taking, don't allow students to organise their knowledge into conceptual structures, which has been shown to improve retention of information.

"Take for example, watching a video. Students can silently watch a video (which is ‘passive’); watch a video and take notes using the presenter’s words (which is considered ‘active’); write questions that arise for them while watching the video (which is ‘constructive’); or watch a video and discuss it with another student to generate different ideas (which is ‘interactive’)," Dr Stephenson explained.

As the 'levels' rise from passive to interactive, the more room for complex learning, which includes "making judgements, proposing and critiquing arguments and opinions, and working out solutions to problems."

The Master of Applied Psychology (Community Psychology) course has clinical psychology and professional psychology counterparts that will be kept, along with a range of undergraduate bachelor degrees.

The Australian Association of Psychologists support a petition in the hope the university would preserve the practice, warning that long-term existing community psychologists could lose their endorsement by accreditation authorities.

Community psychologist Heather Gridley said the loss of this practice will "narrow" the services psychologists are able to provide.

Ms Gridley explained how community-specific psychology training offers an important contextual distinction from clinical training that focuses on the community that clients come from and live in.

"Community psychology is ... focused on prevention and tries to take in social determinants of health, whether that's race, culture, experiences of violence, etc.," she said.

"A lot of the time psychology teaches us to respond to symptoms, and we do that in an evidence-based way very well, but we don't always take in the context that has led to the problem in the first place."

She added that many of her community psychology graduates work in places like Indigenous health centres, prisons and disability health centres because they are trained to understand the context of those client's lives.

Ms Gridley said it would be valuable for the university to keep the course, because many of its students are from the regional communities that need mental health services most and don't see private practices set up in their area.

"Most universities have cut out other [psychology] courses except clinical psychology so I really respect they've kept this course going for so long, because it's unusual," she said.

"It's in VU's DNA, because it's always wanted to serve [western regional Victoria] which has been underserved.

"The further out you go to places like Melton or other regional areas, let alone Aboriginal communities, the less likely you are to find a psychologist."

A spokesperson from the university told Campus Review the course doesn't have the numbers to support its high resource and overhead costs.

"VU must address the issue of creating a sustainable operating model. Part of this work requires the university to reevaluate the courses we teach and scrutinise costs and viability," they said.

"We recognise the valuable knowledge and expertise contained within community psychology and are looking at ways it might be integrated with other course offerings. 

"We do not make these decisions lightly; however, they must be made to ensure the future success of our institution and most importantly, our students."

Executive Director of the psychologist's association Tegan Carrison said community psychology is known as the 'missing middle' of the industry, that focuses on groups largely unable to access traditional mental health support services.

"The potential closure of this program would be a significant blow to the important field of community psychology," she said.

"In today's complex world, where issues such as mental health impacts related to racism, climate change, and social isolation are increasingly prevalent, the expertise developed in this program is indispensable."

VU will still offer a masters in clinical psychology, and various under- and post-graduate courses in the psychology field.

The prevailing stereotype of a student starting university is that of a young school leaver heading to a highly regarded institution of higher education, with a profession in mind at the end of it. In the past, parents have invested heavily in creating this opportunity by supporting their children in many ways including financially.

If we examine this ideal more closely, can we still say that it’s true? And is this pathway relevant for the full range of lifelong learners of 2023 and the future?

For some, it is. School leavers who are part of the upper quartile of socio-economic status families are, as they have always been, almost guaranteed entry to a highly exclusive and reputable place of study, with little risk from debt. Meanwhile, participation rates for school leavers from lower quartiles is much lower and has barely changed in much of the US, UK and Australia.

After years of focus on widening participation we have barely moved the dial. In fact, recent data suggests participation rates for this group is more at risk of declining than growing.

Some private providers are adopting lifelong-learning-based strategies to address this. But for many universities, particularly those driven by their reputation and rankings, exclusion prevails as a strategy and culture. They are obliged to operate with regulators who can appear to protect the exclusive culture and present barriers to greater innovation and inclusion.

How has the sector responded to this challenge? Have we done enough to improve equity of opportunity for all learners, and are we meeting the needs of a future workforce for employers?

Bold leaders of real change in the system – whether in universities, private providers or other participants – have to be resilient and resolute in leading change for genuine societal and national benefit.

One group that is increasingly part of driving this change is employers. Shortages in the supply of future workers (arising from birth gaps and declining future population) is becoming critical. Increasingly, the war for talent means employers are having to look beyond traditional degrees – and therefore universities – to source the skills and capabilities they rely on for their workforce.

But this change is going further than a challenge to the traditional degree and to universities. Places of learning and places of work are becoming indistinguishable. Conceiving of them as one place is key to creating talent to meet the capacity and capability of the future of work.

What this requires is that we re-examine the longstanding dichotomy between skills and education. It calls on us to open up learning content and opportunities for multiple purposes, diverse audiences, and real work-integrated learning. For instance, the scenario of 4+1 days in a working/learning week is a revolutionary idea that gets us closer to an idea of lifelong learning.

With this scenario, new sources of learning will have to emerge. They might come from previously unimagined partnerships between universities and employers, which will need a new breed of facilitators to imagine, broker, and create the new ways in which these relationships could work

There is already a history of university and employer relationships around specific professions and disciplines. For instance, nursing, engineering, accountancy and teaching are built on this model. The quality of these relationships between institutions and workplaces depends on traditional practices such as placement and accreditation, the use of industry advisory boards, and employment of visiting industry teaching staff.

Now, with technology and practices changing so rapidly, placement and accreditation are being challenged. In addition, the widespread evidence of placement poverty, and of declining domestic enrolments at times of high employment, show us a system that is  no longer meeting the learning needs of either students or employers.

The culture of our learning providers has to value what it is that learners value, which includes a greater focus on innovation in learning, which could help to overcome declining confidence in the higher education system.

Recent data in the US suggests that net public confidence in higher education as a system has become negative. This appears to be substantially driven by the outdated cultures within institutions. It now needs us to overcome a resistance to seeing students as customers for whom we need to measure their experience. With accelerating technology changes this is becoming more important. It is making the need to prepare graduates for lifelong working and learning more challenging.

One could argue that higher education has gone from being a rite of passage for the privileged few, to being more directly connected to closing skills gaps. The over-riding sense is that education needs to meet people, both learners and employers, where they are at.

This means both in the multiple and continuous life stages where they are turning to learning, and in gaining the skills they need to be productive in a changing world of work. We can meet learners where they are at through technology, at work, at times that suit them, and through the facilitation of others. There is no longer an absolute requirement for learning to be on campus, face to face, and at times that suit the institutions and their systems.

The $280m Translational Science Hub (TNS) is a partnership between vaccine supplier Sanofi, the Queensland Government, Griffith University and the University of Queensland, and its technology and resources can be accessed by researchers based on the Gold Coast.

Students will focus first on creating mRNA vaccines, that teach our immune systems which proteins it needs to produce to defend against certain diseases.

Managing director of the hub and Sanofi Australian medical lead Dr Iris Depaz said the international healthcare company is interested in Queensland's scientific talent.

"[The hub] provides a space for our scientists to be physically located close to our collaborators at Griffith University to facilitate engagement and exchange," she said.

"We want to play a major role in growing the scientific ecosystem in Queensland because there is a strong talent pool of some of the brightest medical minds right here in the Sunshine State."

Sanofi also has TNS sites in France and the US, which researchers in Queensland will collaborate with to innovate mRNA technology.

Vice Chancellor of Griffith Carolyn Evans said this investment will put the Gold Coast on the map of biotech science.

"This partnership sees Griffith University as a burgeoning biotech hub on the Gold Coast, paving the way for research and discoveries that can change people’s lives for the better," she said.

"Griffith is already producing innovative research, and a partnership of this ilk is a sign the Gold Coast is at the epicentre of groundbreaking science."