Dear staff,
It’s been great to see students return to our campuses over the past couple of weeks – especially with O-Week and Connect Week activities, highlighted by a very busy Market Day in the Great Court at St Lucia, last Wednesday.
As part of the Connect Week activities, I was particularly pleased to attend the final event — the opening of the Art Museum’s latest exhibition, Mare Amoris l Sea of Love. If you haven’t had the chance yet, I encourage you to visit the Art Museum to see this brilliant new exhibition.
I also enjoyed meeting some of UQ’s new staff at our ‘Welcome to UQ’ event last week. We are now aiming to hold these sessions more frequently, giving me and members of the senior executive team the chance to share some insights about life at UQ and take time for a chat with our new starters.
On Wednesday afternoon this week, ANU is hosting a ‘Dialogue for Students’ on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. This panel discussion is being staged on Ngambri and Ngunnawal land in Canberra, but will be livestreamed to a range of satellite sites across a number of universities, including our St Lucia and Gatton campuses. You can register here to attend.
As noted in my recent email, due to speaker availability, we are rescheduling our Voice to Parliament staff events. We are currently working with panellists to find new dates. We will advise staff once these arrangements are confirmed and reopen the event registrations.
New grants, fellowships and awards
I’m delighted to report that UQ recently won the ‘Industry and Business Solution’ Award at the 2023 Queensland iAwards, which celebrate Australian innovation.
The award was jointly presented to UQ and Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology for the development and implementation of a new system that automates microscope scanning and analysis to improve the speed and accuracy of diagnosis. Congratulations to Professor Brian Lovell from EAIT and the team at UniQuest for collaborating to translate this UQ-developed AI technology into real improvements in patient diagnoses.
The Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowships scheme has awarded UQ researchers more than $10 million. The 11 UQ recipients are among 100 mid-career researchers from across the country sharing in more than $97 million to progress innovative research.
In exciting news on Friday, the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) received funding from the ARC’s Industrial Transformation Research Program. The ARC Training Centre in Predictive Breeding for Agricultural Futures receives $5m and will be led by Professor Lee Hickey, and the ARC Research Hub for Engineering Plants to Replace Fossil Carbon, to be led by Professor Robert Henry, receives $4.93m. These centres will support our partnerships with industry and offer opportunities for Australia’s next generation of researchers.
In other great news, 10 of our early career researchers have been named as finalists in the 2023 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Science Awards. They are recognised for research excellence and enthusiasm as science communicators. The Queensland winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on 18 October.
Project 2025 update
Project 2025 is our 3-year plan to improve our financial position by $100m and return to normalised earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of 10% by 2025. This is critical to ensure that we can make the necessary investments in teaching, research and infrastructure and to maintain our reputation as one of the world’s top universities.
We have made progress on several of the key Project 2025 initiatives. Growing and diversifying our revenue remains a priority and the recent release of the interim Universities Accord guaranteeing Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP) funding until 2025 has provided certainty for all universities. Equally the return of international students to UQ this semester to above pre-pandemic levels is pleasing. As part of mid-year budget reviews, staffing targets for the remainder of the year were agreed and it is important we remain within them. Reviews are also under way looking at areas where UniForum benchmarking data shows we are spending above our Go8 colleagues.
There is still much work to be done to help us ensure our financial sustainability, so I appreciate your continued efforts to contribute to identifying long-term value and efficiencies. You can find out more details on the Project 2025 webpage, which will be updated over the life of the project.
The future of UQ’s health-related faculties
Engagement with staff, students and stakeholders on how we can support tighter integration across our health-related teaching and research programs is wrapping up. I hear from my discussions with the Provost and others that there have been some valuable and candid discussions at the staff information sessions, and I thank everyone who has contributed and given constructive input.
The steering committee will start analysing the feedback and prepare a report for consideration by the University Senior Executive Team (USET). We aim to make some decisions on any next steps in September.
Launch of the Research Roadmap
We have made significant progress in relation to a key commitment under the UQ Strategic Plan 2022–2025, with the recent release of the UQ Research Roadmap.
The roadmap sets out our ambitions for the future and envisions what research support, collaboration, infrastructure and culture will look like at UQ in the years ahead.
I would like to thank the DVCR&I team for their work on developing the roadmap and Professor Mark Blows for his leadership. I also want to acknowledge the extensive consultation with our community and thank them, too, for their insights and knowledge. I would encourage staff, especially those working in research, to read and be familiar with this important document.
Looking ahead to our Open Days
Finally, thank you to everyone who is actively involved in our planning for Open Day at St Lucia this Sunday 6 August, as well as our Gatton campus Open Day on Sunday 20 August. As always, these Open Day events will be a wonderful opportunity to show off our campuses, and our teaching and research facilities to prospective UQ students and their families.
All the best for the week ahead.
With best wishes
Debbie
