On Thursday 29 October, ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ (ANU) Interim Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Rebekah Brown spoke at the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee 2026-27 Supplementary Budget Estimates.
Thank you, Chair, and Senators, for the opportunity to appear here this evening. I am delighted to be joined by our new Chancellor Dr Gordon de Brouwer and members of the ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵExecutive Leadership team.
Our global and diverse capability underpins our excellence in research and teaching.
This year alone, we have welcomed students from over 80 countries to our University, and our community is enriched by our students, leading academics and educators from all over the world.
In September, 20 ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵresearchers were awarded Australian Research Council Future Fellowships, in research areas spanning quantum technologies, climate and environmental resilience, food security, health, mathematics, and the humanities and social sciences.
Last week the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences awarded ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵProfessor Lisa Whop the Outstanding First Nations Researcher Medal, for her work advancing equitable cancer screening.
This month, we announced that researchers from ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵhave received funding to build a sustainable materials workforce, answer fundamental questions in Earth science, further advance computational modelling, and solve real-world problems, adding to critical national capability.
The quality of our teaching has been recognised in the international Times Higher Education Rankings with our strongest teaching performance in six years. We also rose three places in the International QS Rankings to 29th in the world, our best position in the last five years.
The Department of Education’s recently released QILT , showed that ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵgraduates are in high demand by employers, with our domestic graduates recording a full-time employment rate of 96%, ranking first among the Group of Eight Universities and second amongst all Australian universities.
Of course, we have work to do. We are well placed to address the governance-related conditions applied to the University's registration by TEQSA last month.
Our Chancellor and Council will oversee the program of work to address these conditions and we would welcome the release of TEQSA’s more detailed statement of reasons for the conditions.
We are committed to providing a safe, inclusive and respectful environment for our students, staff and wider community.
We have been consulting deeply with our community on the new anti-racism definition requirements and we are well placed to meet the obligations that apply to Australian higher education providers from 1 January next year.
In August, we kicked off our 80th anniversary celebrations with the reopening of University House, the launch of our new University Strategy, ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵby 2030, and a Community Day with over six thousand registered attendees. A few weeks ago we welcomed thousands of concertgoers to ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵfor a student-led celebration of Australian music, a fitting way to celebrate 80 years.
So Senators, in summary, while we have significant governance reform work in front of us, we are very proud of what our people have achieved in teaching and research.
We look forward to continuing to deliver on our mission of building capability in areas of priority to the people of Australia.
Thank you, Chair.
Professor Rebekah Brown
Interim Vice-Chancellor and President
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