Issue 20 – December 2015
From the Associate Dean Research As the 2015 academic year draws to a close, there is inevitably pause for reflection on the year past and the year ahead. The upcoming End of Year Staff Celebration provides the opportunity to stocktake the highlights of 2015, most especially through announcing five winners for the annual Research Excellence Awards. But in this final Research News for the year, when looking ahead to 2016 we begin to identify some of the opportunities and challenges which likely lie ahead. Implementation of the new UNSW 2025 Strategy will provide a crucial framework for organising our efforts to help attain the aspiration to be one of the top 50 research-intensive universities globally. The appointment of a new Dean to succeed Professor Tzannes will inject a new dimension and perhaps new priorities in that process. The identification of urbanisation as one of the prospective ‘grand challenges’ to help focus UNSW’s ambitions in social engagement and thought leadership represents a significant opportunity for the faculty. At the national level, the imminent release of the results for ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia) 2015 will also inform research priorities not only in 2016 but in the lead-up to the next ERA likely in 2018. At the same time, with increasing discussion in the tertiary sector about knowledge exchange, innovation, industry relations, and commercialisation, both ‘social impact’ and industry fundedresearch are destined to become a significant issue. The allocated research budget for 2016 has had to be trimmed to meet fiscal constraints at the faculty and university level, but at this stage it is still intended to fund the same spectrum of research support programs in place this year. Next year will also be important as the faculty beds down its investment in Urban Informatics, led by Professor Chris Pettit, and High Performance Architecture, with strategic new appointments already in train. The new postgraduate node of excellence funded by the CRC for Low Carbon Living will be an important element of this turn towards architectural science. At the same time we will be investigating further strategic opportunities for investing in enhanced research capacity in other subject areas, existing and new. All in all, 2016 fast approaches as a year for both consolidation and continued innovation for our research agenda, which ultimately rests on the valued contributions of individuals, clusters, partnerships, programs and centres. The welcome Christmas-New Year break will hopefully give everyone the chance to recharge their batteries and launch full steam ahead into 2016. BE Research News will resume in February 2016. Rob Freestone Associate Dean Research