INTRODUCTION

This is a plan to enable UC to break into the ranks of world class universities, ready to shape a future where the world at large may be a virtual class-room, laboratory, studio or office.

The strategies in the plan will position the University as one of Australia's most innovative tertiary institutions; world-ranked, with regional, national and international reach.

We have called the plan “Breakthrough”, in line with the University’s new brand and in keeping with our tradition of creating change. In 1968, as the Canberra College of Advanced Education, we were the first CAE in the country and a pioneer of professional polytechnic education. In 1990 we were the only CAE to be re-created as a university without mergers or restructures, as part of national reforms. And in the current decade, as the enormity of digital technologies, globalisation and the world-wide explosion of tertiary education become apparent, UC needs to break through the ranks of younger universities and establish itself as a leader in professional education and applied research.

During the previous five-year plan we built the foundations necessary for credible, greater ambition. We can remain true to our original purposes but now change in ways which equip us to shape and compete in a world that is coming.

Those universities that do not make the right changes in their operations, use of technology, approach to education, focus on research and international strategy will founder in a competitive domestic and global environment which has uneven age and demographic structures and differential rates of economic growth.

Those universities that do make themselves ready for a different future will attract the students, staff, partners and investment to enable them to thrive in a world where tertiary education and advanced research will continue to expand for decades.

This plan contains ambitious strategies for improvement and growth. Our Canberra campus can be the engine room from which we provide tertiary education directly to our local communities and in partnership with other institutions to students around Australia and internationally (Objective 1). When combined with a commitment to deeper internationalisation (Objective 2) and improvements which will see us break into world rankings in research and teaching performance (Objective 3), we can become a major new model university of which everyone who has been associated with us since our foundation could be proud.

Professor Stephen Parker
Vice-Chancellor and President