Deep connections with industry and community have always been part of our unique history and identity. We understand that mutually beneficial collaborations with the end-users of our education and research – businesses, governments, NGOs, and target communities both locally and globally – are the best way to magnify and accelerate impact, today and into the future.

We will continue to build on our reputation as a preferred partner for research collaboration across a diverse range of fields by investing in our world-class researchers, facilities and infrastructure, enabling our HDRs to work in industry, and ensuring we refine our way of working to gain the deep sector understanding, agility, professionalism, creative intelligence, and commercial acumen needed to drive real-world outcomes.

Our students are highly regarded by industry, and our alumni are successful and in demand. We will focus on ensuring we maintain and evolve a contemporary suite of short courses, undergraduate and postgraduate courses which are informed by technology, creativity and innovation alongside the changing needs of industry and the professions. Our courses will be delivered flexibly, and our digital-first approach will continue to provide a lifetime of relevant learning opportunities for students both locally and internationally.

Initiatives supporting this strategic priority include
  • Increasing industry engagement with our teaching and research by aligning our research and teaching focus areas with industry needs, leveraging our major facilities and other assets to attract collaboration and investment, offering more support for partnership delivery, and strengthening our university-wide business development capability. 
  • Realising a deeper and more extensive knowledge base which aligns our research activities and expertise with specific sectors to create lasting, mutual value for all involved. We will aim to go beyond traditional university partnerships by forging relationships that span the entire value chain of our chosen sectors and co-create solutions and drive impactful change.
  • Serving our students’ learning needs by developing tailored digital environments with high-quality partnerships to expand our global digital education offerings and reach new demographics and markets.
  • Exploring global education partnerships that can provide different, long term models for providing a UTS education opportunity to students either partly or entirely offshore, including pathways to degree level courses and further study at UTS. 
  • Using our Global Strategic Partnerships strategy to seek out and cement partnerships with leading industry and academic institutions overseas which have strong reputations and complementary expertise to increase our research impact. 
  • Ensuring our alumni maintain strong lifelong links with UTS by offering them continuing value and community within a revitalised UTS Alumni network  , inspiring our alumni to impact what matters to them by sharing insights, connections, and stories, and giving back through UTS in ways that align with our shared values.
  • Enhancing our philanthropic mindset, and deepening our relationships with our philanthropic supporters, through amplifying our shared values, impact and aspirations for the future.