ACU National's Collaborations and Partnerships

ACU National is committed to establishing and maintaining research links with industry and community organisations. The University has established a number of funding schemes to promote collaborative research by academic staff. These schemes include the University's Industry Research Incentive Scheme (IRIS) grants and ACU Collaborative grants.

The IRIS grants encourage staff to establish collaborative links with commercial and civic organisations with the expectation that these links will result in mutual benefit to the University and the respective parties.

The IRIS grants and an ACU Large Grant Scheme were introduced in 1999 to encourage staff to initiate such research links and to support high-quality research projects.

IRIS supports staff in undertaking a pilot or exploratory study, with the intention that they develop the collaborative links and apply for ARC funding.

The ACU Large Grant Scheme supports projects which have the potential to result in applications for funding from one of the ARC Programs.

ACU National staff are also encouraged to apply with researchers from other institutions for ARC Discovery and other large grant schemes.

ACU National has focused much effort in developing links with external organisations and attracting external funding in recent years. Successful partnerships which have been developed include:

Project title: Lifelong Learning, Adult Community Education in Rural Victoria: Reaching the Unreached Learner

Industry partners: Adult Community and Further Education, Victorian Office of Employment, Training and Tertiary Education, Victorian Dept of Education, Employment and Training
Amount: $163,756

Project title: Success in Numeracy Education Strategy

Industry partners: Catholic Education Commission, Melbourne
Amount: $208,644

Project title: Quality Secondary Teacher Program Supporting the Future of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Industry

Industry partners: Commonwealth Dept of Industry, Tourism Resources
Amount: $190,950

Project title: Socially responsible indicators of policy, practice and benchmarking in service

Industry partners: Catholic Education Office (Wollongong)
Catholic Education Office (Parramatta)
Centacare
Amount: $254,000

Project title: Lifelong Learning, Teachers and Teacher Educators

Industry partners: Evaluations and Investigations Programme (EIP), Dept of Education, Training and Youth Affairs
Amount: $98,212

The University has industry-funded Chairs in Aged Care Nursing, Exercise Science, Educational Leadership and Philosophy. The funding of further Chairs in Nursing and Education is being discussed with industry and the community.

John Plunkett Centre for Ethics in Health Care is in collaboration with St Vincent's and Mater Health, they contribute $100,000 per annum.