From the President and Vice-Chancellor

Welcome to the Spring Issue  of UNSW magazine – Uniken. On the cover are six of our rising stars in the School of Psychology. These early career researchers, who include Young Tall Poppy winners, DECRA recipients and ARC Future Fellows, are making waves internationally with their work to unlock the secrets  of the mind – one of the last frontiers of medicine.

Emerging leaders like these are central to UNSW's future success. For this reason, they are also central to the UNSW White Paper that sets out an ambitious agenda for the next decade.

The White Paper outlines an innovative, aspirational and altruistic agenda, reflecting a conviction across our University community that UNSW has the potential to achieve great things. Our goal is to establish UNSW as Australia’s global university – among the top 50 in the world. We aspire to this in the belief that a great university, which is a global leader in discovery, innovation, impact, education and thought leadership, can make an enormous difference to the lives of people in Australia and around the world.

Getting to this point follows an extensive consultation process, which defined three strategic priorities. First, a drive for academic excellence in research and education. Universities are often classified as ‘research intensive’ or ‘teaching intensive’. UNSW is proud to be an exemplar of both, capable of delivering research excellence alongside the highest quality education on a large scale.

Second, a passion for social engagement that improves lives through advancing equality, diversity, open debate and economic progress.

Third, a commitment to achieving global impact through sharing our capability in research and education in the highest quality partnerships with institutions in both developed and emerging societies. We regard the interplay of academic excellence, social engagement and global impact as the hallmarks of a great forward-looking 21st century university.

In the next months we will develop the White Paper into a full Strategic Plan, which by the start of the next academic year will be supported by the development of a detailed implementation plan.

My thanks to everyone involved in developing the White Paper – it has been a great team effort. I look forward to working with you on completing and implementing our Strategic Plan.