Vice-Chancellor’s Overview

We shall recall 2001 as the year in which we positioned The University of Western Australia as a twenty-first century university in its form and structure, and set some bold strategic targets for the decade ahead to our centenary in 2011.

It was a year of strenuous and positive endeavour on campus, marked by the culmination of academic review and planning which has produced a new academic structure comprising nine faculties and 33 schools, reflecting the need for greater scale and fewer academic and organisational boundaries.

The restructure facilitates the achievement of the objectives of the academic profile to improve the positioning and academic standing of the University internationally. The new structure also addresses the challenges of growth in new research and scholarship areas, mostly occurring across our traditional departmental boundaries.

The wide-ranging process of review, discussion and implementation that yielded this significant result was due in no small part to the creative and committed role played by so many of our campus community. The implementation process will continue throughout 2002.

Throughout 2001, we continued to pursue a set of carefully designed strategies, embedded in the Operational Priorities Plan, to ‘grow’ our budget through income diversification. And the strategy is working. Where many Australian universities are seeing income remain static or in decline, at UWA the budget is growing significantly. From 1999 to 2002, preliminary figures indicate UWA’s total operating budget has increased more than 25 per cent—or approximately $70 million dollars—from some $278 million to $348 million.

At the same time, a revised budget distribution model has been developed which is more attuned to the University’s external funding and reporting requirements, including more accurately reflecting how the University receives and distributes its funding, and taking account of the academic restructure.

The quality of the University’s teaching and learning is very well reflected in a range of indicators reported publicly which show very strong performance in progress rates and completions, employment destinations, progression to higher study, graduate satisfaction rates, and student evaluations of teaching.

Teaching and learning activities in 2001 continued to focus on meeting the challenges of providing a world-class education incorporating rapidly-changing technology and the wide-ranging learning needs of a diverse student body.

The importance of research as a defining characteristic of our University was reflected in the academic profile, in a new research and research training management plan, in the re-structuring of the University and in the development of a new budget model in which a greater quantum of internal resources is allocated through research performance indicators.

In addition, the University’s strategic initiative aimed at enhancing partnerships with industry and the commercialisation of University-generated intellectual property continued to gain pace throughout 2001 with the establishment of the Office of Industry and Innovation and the appointment of a new Director.

The $50 million Motorola Software Research and Development Centre is a prime example of increasing co-operative links with industry and government, particularly with those areas of the private and public sectors whose research interests coincide with the University’s areas of international distinction. Also in 2001, the completion of the Oral Health Centre of Western Australia at the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre was the culmination of another major partnership between our University, the Health Department of Western Australia and Metropolitan Health Services Board. Curtin University of Technology and the Central Metropolitan College of TAFE are also participating as providers of training to dental auxiliaries.

During the year, Campus Plan 2000 was endorsed by Senate and work has begun on a complementary structure plan. The structure plan will provide the University with the means of achieving more planning certainty in its expansion aspirations, whether for teaching, research, administrative facilities for the University, or for partnered, collaborative, community ventures with industry, government and other institutions.