The Group of Eight

This week in Parliament, all pretense that the international student cap debate was not a migration debate was spectacularly dropped after the Coalition revealed it would not support the Government legislation that would have allowed for the capping of international student numbers. In the brutal rhetoric we saw this week, it's easy to forget that international students are in fact individuals. So, we invited three of our international students - Ayesha Shaikh from the University of Sydney, Bolong Du from The University of Queensland and Cyrus Cheng from UNSW - into the pod booth to chat with The Group of Eight CE @Vicki Thomson and Debate@Go8 host Ron Kandelaars about their motivations, hopes and experiences as international students in Australia. Catch the full Debate@Go8 podcast episode with our panel of international students here: https://lnkd.in/g3sd3Kfa or wherever you get your podcasts.

Prof Rebecca Guy and her team from Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, one of our Community Champion finalists, have developed the First Nations Molecular Point-of-Care (POC) Testing Program in partnership with Flinders University to make testing for infectious diseases more accessible for remote First Nations communities. UNSW Launched in 2013, the program operates in over 75 remote communities, helping prevent serious complications like pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. With over 60,000 tests conducted and 9,000 infections treated, this initiative has dramatically improved health outcomes. This highly accurate testing, which provides same-day results, has led to a 40 per cent reduction in pelvic inflammatory disease and 30 per cent reduction in preterm births among young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The successful approval of the Medicare rebate for these tests marks a historic policy achievement. 👏 #ShapingAustraliaAwards24 Learn more about this amazing initiative and vote for your favourite nation shaper! 👇 https://ow.ly/A2tq50TV3gV Australian Government Department of Education Jason Clare MP Australian Research Council UNSW Science UNSW Rural Allied Health & Medicine Society UNSW Medicine & Health Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care Attila Brungs Vlado Perkovic Verity Firth Bronwyn Fox Leanne Holt Brett B. Scott Parlett Freya Campbell #research #communityfirst #universities

Summer is on its way back to Perth and with it, more soaring temps ☀🔥 After last year's record-breaking heat and drought conditions, it was clear on satellite images that there has been widespread decline across Perth's vegetation. The Canopy Resilience Project was born from the need to understand the impacts of this damage, and how we could prevent it in the future. It’s hard to translate a change in greenness on a satellite image to actual conditions on the ground (i.e. are trees bare, dying, or dead?). So, the project asked people to record the condition of tree canopies near them. Now Associate Professor Sally Thompson and many others are digging through data to ensure we can keep our cities green and shady. 🍃🌳 Read more about the ongoing work out of UWA’s Centre for Water and Spatial Science https://uwa.au/dkxkfv 🔗

Congratulations to the twelve researchers from The Australian National University who have been recognised on the Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers 2024 list in the top one per cent in the world in their fields of research! 👏 🔸 Professor Albert van Dijk 🔸 Professor Paul Fitzgerald 🔸 Professor Yuri Kivshar 🔸 Dr Kirill Koshelev 🔸 Professor Si Ming Man 🔸 Associate Professor Bui Quang Minh, PhD 🔸 Professor Dragomir Neshev 🔸 Professor Danielle Way 🔸 Professor Zongyou Yin 🔸 Professor Michael Johnston 🔸 Professor Yong-Ling Ruan The 2024 Highly Cited Researchers list also acknowledges the accomplishments and contributions of the late Emeritus Professor Will Steffen. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gcgW8kav View the full Highly Cited Researchers 2024 list here: https://lnkd.in/grnCUJsX #HighlyCited2024 #researchexcellence #ANU #researchimpact #ANUresearch #gloablleadership #research Clarivate for Academia & Government ANU College of Science Fenner School of Environment and Society School of Medicine and Psychology Research School of Physics, Australian National University ANU Health and Medicine ANU College of Engineering, Computing & Cybernetics ANU School of Computing

💬 “Maddison has offered hope and tangible support to countless young people…” UNSW PhD candidate Maddison O'Gradey-Lee has been named 2025 NSW Young Australian of the Year. 👏 In 2020, Ms O’Gradey-Lee co-founded the Orygen Global Youth Mental Health Fellowship, a program designed to provide youth advocates with support, mentorship and education to increase the impact of their advocacy project around the world. Since then, the fellowship has trained youth advocates across 42 countries from Belize to Afghanistan with over 21,000 young people being reached through the direct and indirect impact of the program. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gqpzguxY

It’s been a pretty bruising time in Parliament this week in relation to international students. Both sides of politics have heightened the migration debate rhetoric around international education off the back off the Coalition declaring it will oppose the Government’s legislation which would allow for international student caps. In this sort of debate, it's easy to forget that international students are in fact individuals, so we invited three of our international students - Ayesha Shaikh from the University of Sydney, Bolong Du from The University of Queensland and Cyrus Cheng from UNSW - into the pod booth to chat with Go8 CE Vicki Thomson and Debate@Go8 host Ron Kandelaars about their motivations, hopes and experiences as international students in Australia. Catch the full Debate@Go8 podcast episode, where we put a human face to the international student debate, here: https://lnkd.in/g3sd3Kfa or wherever you get your podcasts. The Group of Eight Freya Campbell Kenneth Sauer Louise Schwartzkoff #HigherEducation #internationalstudents #internationaleducation

Fantastic to welcome the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, AO, RAN, to Go8 HQ for an important discussion with the The Group of Eight Defence and Security committee. Defence and Security are front and centre for The Group of Eight - Australia’s research powerhouses – which account for 60 per cent of the total university sector’s defence R&D investment in Australia. Vicki Thomson Royal Australian Navy Rick Burr Paul Bonnington Benjamin Eggleton Stephan Fruehling Sally Bulkeley Emma Sparks Paul Maddison Ian Langford, PhD Gia Parish Len Sciacca FTSE

A new report from Clarivate - the 2024 list of Highly Cited Researchers –ranks Australia 5th in the world, with The Group of Eight universities recognised as the nation’s top performers. Australia’s top three institutions, The University of Queensland, University of Melbourne and UNSW are ranked in the world’s top 50 organisations. All Go8 unis are in the top 12 organisations in Australia. The HCR list identifies influential researchers at universities, research institutes and commercial organisations around the world who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research. Of the 313 Australian researchers on the list, 295 (94%) are from universities. Read the Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers List report here: https://lnkd.in/gDnN8_c7 Vicki Thomson University of Adelaide The Australian National University Monash University University of Sydney The University of Western Australia

The Group of Eight CE Vicki Thomson said on Sky News Australia's NewsDay, that the Go8 was always supportive of the integrity elements of the Government’s ESOS legislation, designed to get rid of the shonks and dodgy providers, but the goalposts shifted and the international student caps elements of the legislation became "a race to the bottom" migration debate, by both the Government and the Opposition, to blame international students for the housing crisis and costs of living pressures . She told Keiran Gilbert that the blocking of the Bill gives the universities some certainty around what 2025 will look like, but a discussion around what the $51 billion international education sector should look like in Australia going forward, still needs to be had - "outside the heat of the migration debate". "We’re up for the discussion with Government and the Opposition for next steps," Ms Thomson said. #HigherEducation #internationalstudents #internationaleducation

Julie Hare reports in the The Australian Financial Review on the reactions on social media of potential students to Monday’s Opposition-Greens deal, which scuppered the Government's proposed international students - some of which The Group of Eight have been tracking. “Mostly, Chinese commentators, mostly students and agents, have expressed a slight sense of relief, with many describing it as ‘dramatic’, ‘confusing’, ‘shooting itself in the foot’, ‘chaotic’, and ‘conflating international education with immigration’,” Go8 CE Vicki Thomson said. Other messages included “watch out for a caps’ comeback”, “wake up and change your study destination”, and “Australia, please do fewer things like stop ‘torturing’ international students”. The Group of Eight were and remain implacably opposed to the introduction of international student caps for the damage they would do to our universities, economy and international reputation and influence. https://lnkd.in/gE-8JDSd #HigherEducation #internationalstudents #internationaleducation