UTS Health offers innovative, practice-based education and high impact research that focuses on improving health outcomes in both local and global communities.

 

A long-standing partner of health professions, UTS Health delivers research with impact that informs policy and improves practice both in Australia and overseas.

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Transcript

[Visual: UTS campus buildings, students walking.] Elizabeth Sullivan, Professor of Public Health (ES): UTS is a really dynamic, interesting place to be at the moment. We’ve got our new buildings, we’ve got the new Vice-Chancellor, the new Deputy Vice-Chancellor in Research, we’ve got initiatives about recruiting new staff and expanding – expansion into public health and also within a social justice framework, where we want to do good for the community and engage with both our collaborators, industry and the local community. It’s an exciting place to be and I think there are lots of opportunities to do cross-disciplinary research that makes a difference.

Jeffrey Vongmany, PhD candidate (JV): Research is increasingly becoming an interdisciplinary practice, and the UTS administration really does help me by giving me opportunities for identifying what classes could really help me bridge these interdisciplinary skills that I need.

Dr Phillip Newton, Director of Research Students (PN): We offer dual and joint PhDs with some of our key technology partners. These partners are international universities and this makes our students more attractive on the international market once they’ve completed their degree.

ES: We’ve been rated ERA 5 in Nursing, Midwifery and Sports and Exercise Science in the last two ERA rounds, reflecting the international standard of our research.

JV: I chose UTS Health because another PhD student over here had told me how supportive UTS was in helping out their PhD students, and also for the calibre of the supervisors here in making me the best researcher possible. I can really tell how passionate and sincere they are when they are training me.

Dr Caleb Ferguson, PhD graduate (CF): I was really fortunate to have quite a collaborative and supportive supervisory panel. I had two postdoc fellows, a professor and a cardiologist on my panel and they really complemented each other’s skills. We would go to see the postdoc fellows for day-to-day support to do with my trial, and in the hospital setting I had access to the cardiologist. Then the professor would provide more strategic support in terms of writing and conceptually pulling everything together, which was really important.

ES: We are traditionally very strong in the Nursing and Midwifery space, and Sports and Exercise Science has joined Health in the last five years. That area focuses on elite athletes to some extent in training and is a highly specialised area. In Nursing, we’ve done a lot of work around workforce, around primary health care and, of course, education. In Midwifery, we have an internationally leading centre, the Centre for Midwifery, Child and Family Health, which has been instrumental in both advances in research around design of birthing suites, as well as doing a lot of work internationally in the development of midwifery in developing countries.

PN: Our academics have key relationships with health care organisations and internationally recognised sporting clubs and institutions. This gives our students the opportunity to be embedded with these partners during their PhDs, but also gives them the opportunities to take up positions with them after completing their PhDs.

Dessi Wanda, PhD candidate (DW): I’ve built an international network with my supervisors and also other research students here at UTS, so definitely I will have a future collaboration with them.

CF: The UTS Careers Service is amazing and they offer a lot of support in terms of, say, applying for different fellowships and appointments with industry in terms of research, consultancy, employment, and other different research positions as well.

ES: There are two exciting initiatives in 2016. The first is the Faculty of Health is introducing a Master of Public Health and with that we’ll be having a Doctorate in Public Health. This is allowing us to formally expand into public health and to bring the UTS way to research and to teaching and learning in that space, and this is a very exciting initiative. Secondly, UTS is part of the Athena SWAN National Pilot looking at women in science, and UTS is playing a pivotal part looking at how we can enhance the careers of women in science and in health.

Research strength

UTS have been top rated in NSW  for Nursing, Midwifery, Human Movement and Sports Science research in the Federal Government's ERA review (rated as "5/5" - well above world standard) and Public Health and Health Services (rated as "4/5" above world standard). The Faculty of Health has interdisciplinary research expertise in nursing, midwifery, complementary medicine, public health, child and family health, and health services management.

Research centres

learning.futures

Our teaching and learning is centered on our unique learning futures framework, which encourages an active learning approach and results in Graduate Attributes that are highly sought after by employers.

The learning futures focus of the 2016 VC’s Learning and Teaching Grant scheme builds on the work undertaken by the 2015 grant recipients and the learning.futures fellows to promote innovation in learning.

Learning and Teaching awards success

The Faculty recently celebrated the success of a number of academics who received an award and citations in the 2016 Vice-Chancellors Learning and Teaching Awards.