More effective cancer treatments, heart disease research and evidence-based health care are the focus of some of the major successful programs announced today by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Thirty University of Sydney applications were successful, sharing a total of $26 million in funding from the latest round of NHMRC program grants, development grants and postgraduate scholarships.

Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence said: "The NHMRC grants have supported numerous key research breakthroughs at the university over the years in the areas of Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's disease and cancer treatments, just to name a few.

"Much of our work is made possible with the support of the NHMRC grants. I congratulate our successful researchers and look forward to following their research with interest."

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The first recipients of the University's Sydney Research Networks Scheme (SyReNS) have been announced.

The scheme aims to develop large and productive collaborations that enable high quality multi-disciplinary research with funding and support over a two-year period.

In some instances, SyReNS financing will advance to seed funding from a substantial, sustainable, externally-funded program, and develop a major application for a Centre of Excellence or a similar activity.

Jill Trewhella, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), congratulated the recipients and expressed her high hopes for this scheme:

"We had an extraordinary response to this scheme, the number of quality applications illustrating how our researchers can work creatively and collaboratively across discipline boundaries. We are pleased to be in a position to support this work, which will bring us new ideas and new ways of looking at problems.

"Although we could not fund as many areas as we would have liked, valuable conversations have begun as a result of this scheme. I have no doubt they will lead to larger things."

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Five Sydney-based universities are set to work together to increase the numbers of students from low socio-economic backgrounds in higher education, with the announcement of $21.2 million in federal government funding over four years.

The Bridges to Higher Education project is a unique collaboration bringing together the collective resources and experience of the University of Sydney, University of Western Sydney, University of Technology, Sydney, Macquarie University, and Australian Catholic University. It will draw on the five universities' existing partnerships with significant education, government and non-government organisations, including the NSW Department of Education and Communities, TAFE NSW, Universities Admissions Centre (UAC), AFL NSW/ACT, The Smith Family, and Tutoring Australasia.

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Expressions of interest for the ‘Project Prioritisation Process’ are due with Campus Infrastructure and Services by close of business on Monday 23 January.

The process delivers a comprehensive list of prioritised projects – through a consistent and transparent set of criteria – that are aligned to the University's strategic goals and infrastructure requirements. Submissions for each department must come through the ‘Project Champion’ who will fill out the ‘Capital Priorities Request Form’ with summary information about requested projects.

Find out how to make a submission to the Project Prioritisation Process.

Read about how our projects improved your campus in 2011.

The Australian government’s new Office for Learning and Teaching, which replaces the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, will be calling for applications for national teaching awards, citations, fellowships and grants for teaching excellence in 2012.

Funding will be available to support teaching innovation, development and leadership projects. The first round of applications for grants and fellowships closes at the end of February. 

The Institute for Teaching and Learning (ITL) will provide workshops and support for applicants in January and February. You are invited to visit the ITL website to find out more about the grants and to contact the ITL to discuss your ideas for projects.  

For more information visit the ITL website, or contact the ITL on 9351 3725.

Sydney eLearning is running workshops to support academic and general staff to become familiar with the role of the University e-learning enterprise systems and their relationship to integrated curriculum planning.

As part of the University’s strategy to improve the learning experience of students across the physical and virtual learning spaces, the University is continually upgrading its e-learning systems. These systems provide an aggregated educational function to support the student experience of learning.

The ‘Fundamentals workshops’ comprise a two-hour introduction and two-hour refresher. The introductory workshop investigates strategies for enhancing the student learning experience by exploring the functionality of the University learning management system (LMS). Alternatively, for those who have some familiarity with the LMS, there are two-hour refresher workshops available.

‘Focus workshops’ are two-hour workshops that cover, in detail, the assessment, grading, communication and collaborative functionality of the LMS and how these support the integration of teaching with other e-learning systems to enhance the student experience of learning.

‘Extension workshops’ have a strong focus on best practice in teaching in an integrated environment. These workshops investigate how the University e-learning systems, including the University LMS, ‘ePortfolios’, ‘eCommunities’, Adobe Connect and Lectopia, allow for advanced levels of communication, collaboration, assessment, presentation and administration across the University's virtual and physical learning spaces.

To register and view dates, visit the Sydney eLearning website. These workshops are provided as part of a suite of academic development programs in collaboration with the Institute of Teaching and Learning.

For more information, contact Rick Connor on 9036 6035.

Art comes face-to-face with architecture in Vision in Motion, a project by the renowned artist Narelle Jubelin, that celebrates the University of Sydney’s significant – though often overlooked – modernist architecture.

Visitors are invited to take a ‘modernist walk’ across the campus, visiting key sites that Jubelin animates with temporary installations and videos, including a survey of her exquisite petit point renditions, produced over the past three decades, inspired by architecture and the built environment.

Presented by the University Art Gallery in conjunction with the Sydney Festival 2012.

Event details
When: 10am to 4.30pm, Mondays to Fridays, January 7 to 30 March
1 to 5pm, Saturdays (in January only)
Where: Camperdown and Darlington Campus
Cost: Free

For more information, visit the Vision in Motion website.