UTS Social Justice Report

2025 report highlights

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• Removing barriers to education

  • Launched the UTS Pathways Plan – a whole of institution commitment to removing longstanding barriers to higher education, broadening access and supporting student success.
  • Launched the UniReady Enabling Program – a supported pathway into undergraduate study for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and students who have experienced financial disadvantage.
  • The Humanitarian Scholarship Program supported 56 students – the largest cohort of students from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds of any Australian university.

• Students as agents for social justice

  • Programs like the UTS SOUL Award, BUILD, Brennan Justice, and the Big Lift are cultivating the next generation of social impact leaders, embodied by students like Amelia Grace Wilson Williams and Mahir Munot.
  • UTS SOUL Award students logged 24,322 social impact volunteer hours.
  • Law students launch Fair Play magazine – highlighting the role students play in questioning, challenging and reimagining the law.

• Staff leading change

  • Staff learning through Jawun – UTS staff member Zain Warsi took part in a six-week secondment with the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council in Central Australia, describing the experience as both professionally challenging and personally transformative.
  • Speech pathology practise with a purpose – Speech pathologist Dr Cath Gregory recognised a significant gap in access to gender affirming voice training, a service that can be critical to the wellbeing of trans and non-binary people but is often inaccessible or unaffordable. In response, she helped establish this offering within the student-led Speech Pathology Reaching Out at UTS clinic.
  • Reclaiming the narrative of the First Nations workforce – Spearheaded by Professor Nareen Young, the UTS Business School’s launched its Centre for Indigenous People and Work to improve employment outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

• Engaging with community

  • The Community-led Sustainable Cities project saw UTS partner with residents and community organisations in Glebe, Ultimo, Haymarket and Pyrmont to explore what sustainability looks like when it is led by communities. One idea from the project saw a social housing estate rooftop in Glebe into a shared garden through working bees, workshops and tenant-led activities.

• Advancing equity, diversity and inclusion

  • UTS celebrated the LGBTQIA+ community through a series of events and initiatives including by marching in the 2025 Mardi Gras Parade on Oxford Street in Sydney wearing our iconic UTS Tower hats.
  • UTS released our Cultural Diversity and Anti-Racism (CDAR) Action Plan – marking an important step in strengthening the university’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and systemic change.