As a research-intensive university creativity and innovation are an essential part of what we do, but we must ensure we are in the best position to elevate and use these intrinsic attributes. We have an opportunity to further differentiate ourselves as a leader in this space. To achieve this we must succeed in harnessing, using and embedding creativity and innovation in everything we do.

As a leading university of technology, we can leverage technology, and human insight and creative capacity, to advance and amplify knowledge which positively impacts our community, economy, health and societal cohesion.

This means thinking differently about how we educate students, both in Australia and overseas, to best prepare them for careers in a changing world - a world that requires critical and creative skills as well as technical ones.

It means harnessing our enormous capacity for generating new ideas, inventing new technologies and turning them into feasible solutions for industry and community. And it means finding new ways to collaborate across disciplines and professions, building on the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches we have developed to ensure we create maximum value for the university, our partners, and our communities.

It is an approach that touches everything, from teaching to research, student experience to industry and community engagement, university operations to our entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Initiatives supporting this strategic priority include:
  • Empowering our well-respected creative disciplines through our Creative Industries Strategy, and leveraging their unique ways of thinking and working to create new value and opportunities for staff, students, and partners across and beyond UTS.
  • Engaging our students in a variety of opportunities to apply creative and critical thinking within a contemporary curriculum framing, that equips them with boundary crossing skills and prepares them to make meaningful contributions to society.
  • Continuing to create an environment that builds on the achievements of our First Nations researchers who are leaders in storytelling, analysis, and creative practice. Our Indigenous-led, community driven research focus will continue to support respectful engagement with Indigenous peoples, their Knowledge Systems, the ongoing restoration of Country, social justice and research translation, and providing sector-leading guidance to industry, government, and the community sector.
  • Building the innovation capacity of our people by expanding our support for research translation, encouraging entrepreneurial behaviour, welcoming new ideas and approaches t support academic endeavours, and continuing to develop our ecosystem for supporting startups and emerging sectors within UTS and across our precincts.
  • Creating new ways to develop and sustain research and education partnerships through our Knowledge Exchange Framework, cementing our position as a university of choice for engagement and partnerships, continuing to translate our research outcomes into practice, and working to co-develop future facilities with industry.