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INDUSTRY & RESEARCH
They are the people who take stuff out into the market, so to be able to work with them and to have our researchers, who are leaders in their field of research and spectrum, be able to contribute ideas and capability to their technology adds to that research being translated into impact.
Is this something that’ s becoming more and more important? It is. There’ s generally quite a bit of pressure from a number of different directions, and expectations that the investment the government makes in universities gets translated – that work doesn’ t just sit on the shelf and so on. Sometimes there is a bit of a misconception that universities are beavering away and not interested in [ translating work into viable products ]. In fact, an enormous number of people work closely with industry, particularly at the sort of university [ at which I’ m based ]. We want to do more. Often, researchers want to think of their own agenda, their own topics, which is great. They have the freedom to do that. Some of the interesting problems can also be motivated by industry.
You think you have this idea and you’ re going to apply it a particular way, then you have to check with someone who’ s got a product or service and wants to do something in the market. They give you their insights and suddenly that problem you’ re working on becomes far more interesting because it just got some different context around it. There’ s a requirement to do that sort of discovery research, but also to work closely with organisations to get their [ perspective ] as to what’ s going on and what needs to be done.
Is there any fear that as industry takes more and more of the financial load from government – at least the government would like to see that – the independence of research might be affected? You have to manage that and there have been some examples where people have been validly concerned with it, whether it’ s the food industry or in pharmaceuticals. It’ s important that universities are able to maintain their independence and integrity so that when they do work, it can be peer reviewed.
If you’ re working on technology with Huawei, [ for example ] you’ re probably going to work in an area where you’ re going to be delivering something to them and if they can turn it into their product, there will be issues of intellectual property that need to be managed. If you’ re dealing with pharmaceuticals, and understanding their impact, it’ s important that work is done at sufficient arm’ s length from an organisation so the integrity of the research can be well maintained.
What’ s UTS doing to set itself apart from the other universities in Australia, all competing for the same government and corporate dollar? It’ s a good question, because the business model universities operate in – the parameters – are well understood and set. There are a couple things we do particularly well at UTS. We’ re in a fantastic location, right in the middle of that innovation, start-up ecosystem in Sydney; that gives us enormous opportunity. Our students walk out the door and they’ re in start-up heaven for Australia. That physical location is fantastic.
We’ ve also put much time and effort into redeveloping the entire campus and university, and changing the model of learning. Instead of turning up for a lecture with 300 other people, you’ re working with your teams on projects.
The other thing we pride ourselves on is the ability to work closely with industry and form long-term partnerships. If we can do it faster, better and more nimbly, we view that as giving ourselves an advantage as well.
We’ ve seen Brexit in the UK and Trump’ s emergence in the US. And in Australia, at the last election, Wyatt Roy, who was the assistant minister for innovation, lost his seat. The innovation bandwagon seems to be leaving a lot of people behind. As one of the nation’ s leading technology universities, do you feel UTS has an obligation to take everyone along on the drive toward greater promotion and delivery of innovation, not just students? It’ s an important point. I was on an international mission that Wyatt Roy was on. He’ s a very impressive character. He’ s an incredibly knowledgeable young guy, so it wasn’ t good for Australia for him not to be able to make that contribution. It did indicate quite starkly that if you don’ t engage and make sure that everybody is on board and participating in what’ s going on, and getting value out of it and seeing opportunities, then you have a danger of what we’ ve seen in the UK and in the US. Universities have a critical role there: in addition to being a leading university in technology, we’ re also focused on social justice.
A social justice agenda applies to the work we do. Every time we do a graduation, there’ s a high percentage of students who are the first in their family to come to university. Giving them the opportunity to participate and get engaged and share that information and inspiration is important. It’ s important for all universities to be embarking on that path.
It isn’ t just for a subset of people to get those opportunities. Otherwise, as you point out, it could present some challenges for us in the future.
Thinking about the actual university experience of sitting in lecture theatres and learning, how do you see technology changing that over the next 10 years? Just like in every other field of human endeavour, technology is having an enormous impact. There are all sorts of predictions made around the impact of online content. You can now get some of the best, most articulate academics in the world teaching online. We want to take advantage of that. What we recognise, and what the students and employees are telling us, is that having the set of skills necessary to digest and integrate all of that knowledge and apply it is important.
You don’ t learn that when you’ re being lectured at in a theatre. You learn that when you’ re in a project with four or five colleagues, you’ re given some interesting problem and you’ re working with the start-up community nearby and you bring together all of your technical knowledge from the areas you’ re studying around a particular project or opportunity.
We’ ve got a whole range of new degrees: a bachelor of creative industry, bachelor of creative intelligence and innovation. We’ re introducing a new bachelor of technology next year, and a master’ s of data science and innovation. They’ re quite different degrees.
If you look at the curriculum around them, you look at what the outcomes are, how you would apply it, how you would work in a team, how you manage a project. If you want to take some idea and create a new start-up and become an entrepreneur, what are the skills and expertise you need to make that happen? That’ s the direction we’ re heading as a university. ■
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