campusreview. com. au
VC’ S CORNER
building a culture in our workplaces and in society more broadly that values science and technology, and that enables bridges to be built between innovative workplaces and sources of expertise and ideas such as universities. At a fundamental level, we need scientific skills and thinking to permeate the workforce to drive innovation and to overcome our tendency in business to be risk averse or insular.
Developing a national plan to advance these agendas will need some hard choices about priorities as well as some clear commitments in resources and action. For their part, universities need to show similar commitment, and QUT is proud to be among the leaders of this change. We have staked our future on a major commitment to STEM across both education and research, and invested heavily to back it up. The most tangible and visible expression of this commitment is our $ 230 million Science and Engineering Centre. This facility combines cutting edge research with state-of-the-art spaces for student learning, from media-equipped lecture and tutorial spaces to informal community areas where students can interact and contemplate. Along with these collaborative and innovative learning and research environments, the Centre hosts The Cube, one of the world’ s largest digital labs and interactive learning and display spaces. The themes of collaboration and engagement run throughout our approaches to STEM, and The Cube has been a hugely popular tool for attracting external interest from industry partners through to school visits, helping to spark interest in science and technology in an entirely new and fascinating way.
For many years we have sought to reach out to schools across Queensland to stimulate interest in STEM. We have, at various times, run science trains throughout the State, brought school groups to campus and reached out to schools ourselves to promote STEM, run science camps for high achievers, promoted science and technology in the media and held events that showcase science and technology. The most recent of these events has been Robotronica, a day celebrating robots and robotics, which drew some 20,000 people to our Gardens Point campus for a day of workshops, events and exhibitions. We have also run two hugely popular online courses, or MOOCs, on robotics which attracted interest from around the globe.
Engaging with industry, the professions and other parts of the community has been part of QUT’ s DNA since our inception as a university a quarter of a century ago. With our renewed focus on STEM, that engagement has become increasingly important, and it is matched by a determination to break down traditional internal academic barriers in order to bring the most effective range of expertise to bear on important problems. We have reorganised much of our STEM research into an institute model, which facilitates this spanning of different disciplines, and we have fostered a thriving ecosystem of connected research within and across our two major institutes: the Institute for Future Environments and the Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation. Within these Institutes we have carefully thought through a set of priorities and thematic areas for research, addressing major challenges for Australia and the world, ranging from growing the global bioeconomy; infrastructure for sustainable communities; and harnessing digital productivity and services. These themes are backed-up by technologies and systems that range from big data analysis to advanced materials manufacturing.
Setting priorities can be challenging. One of the concerns about STEM is that it might omit other important areas of education and research, and some have suggested extending the acronym to STEAM in order to include the arts. QUT has been part of this drive, hosting an event at The Cube earlier this year to explore STEAM and integrating creative performances with robotics as part of Robotronica. However, we should not apologise for highlighting the importance of STEM, or lose coherence and focus on our priorities or our main purpose. That main purpose must be about pursuing STEM education and research in ways that have the optimal impact on people’ s lives, and that is an inherently inclusive and broad idea.
This point relates to the other main criticism of the STEM agenda, one that concerns immediate job prospects and skills shortages. While we can point to projections of future shortages, and existing areas of industry demand, we should be open about addressing the reality that, in many areas of science, the full-time job prospects of new graduates are not very strong, particularly in the life sciences but also in some of the basic sciences such as physics and chemistry. It is of scant comfort to new graduates to know that prospects are generally poor at the moment in almost all fields outside areas such as medicine, and at their poorest for many years, and that they are even harder for those without a university degree. While the longer-term picture is more encouraging, with surveys a few years after graduation showing much higher rates of employment, the situation underlines the pressing need for universities to do more to help students to gain relevant experience and knowledge, and to work with employers to maximise their students’ chances. However, there is only so far that education can go in creating job prospects: the economy as a whole needs to revive and grow to create more employment, and that in turn relies on greater innovation and use of STEM-related skills and technology.
Universities need to be careful about what they promise regarding STEM, but at heart we are enthusiasts and optimists about science and technology. At QUT, we want to provide the best possible experience for students that will ignite their enthusiasm and passion for learning about the natural world and the possibilities of technology, and link that scientificallyenriched passion to the real world and its many challenges. We can’ t predict the future, but we can prepare, to the best of our ability, those who will make it happen. ■
Professor Peter Coaldrake is vice-chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology.
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