ACDS Newsletter – August 2026

Welcome

Welcome to the second newsletter of the ACDS for 2026. We hope that the first half of your year has gone well. We continue to live in interesting times and there are many challenges for all of us in leading teaching and research in university science in our institutions. Please share this newsletter with your leadership teams, including your heads of schools or equivalent.

Important ACDS Dates for 2026

Please mark the following dates in your calendar:

October 26-28, ACDS Annual Conference + satellite workshop, ANU, Canberra

August 31, ACDS Yarning Circle, University of Sydney

September 1-3, Australian Conference on Science and Maths Education, UNSW

September 29-October 1, National Research Forum + tentative satellite workshop, Curtin University

October 6, ACDS Light Meeting #2 (drop in zoom meeting)

October 14 TBC, Research Translation Workshop (by zoom)

National Scene

Recent ACDS submissions
The ACDS recently put in submissions to the following consultation opportunities. Thank you to everyone who contributed.

• ATEC consultation on ‘A more joined up tertiary system’ – the ACDS submission is here.
• Senate consultation on the Accord legislation ‘Opening the doors of opportunity’ – the ACDS submission will be available on our website shortly.

New ARC grant schemes
As all of you know, the ARC released details of its new grant schemes very recently. Perhaps the biggest change is the discontinuation of the Laureate Fellowship scheme, although the ACDS is pleased to see that the Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Georgina Sweet awards will continue. There is strengthened support for early career and Indigenous researchers and a more balanced approach to large projects and collaborative research. The new schemes will come online over the next three years and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

New Federal Government AI framework
There is so much going on in the AI space. The ACDS welcomes the announcement by the Prime Minister in July of a new national AI framework, featuring the establishment of an Office of AI, mandatory data center standards and copyright protections for creators. We intend to focus the next issue of the ACDS magazine on the interaction of AI with teaching and research in university science.

ACDS Annual Conference 2026

Planning for the ACDS 2026 Annual Conference is well underway. Join us at The Australian National University, Canberra, from 27–28 October for an exciting program. Confirmed speakers include Barney Glover (Australian Tertiary Education Commission), Ute Roessner (Australian Research Council), Jane O’Dwyer (Cooperative Research Australia), Simon Collier (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority), Craig Ritchie (Ngarra Group), Janin Bredehoeft (SAGE), Brett Hall (Australian Industry Group Centre for Education and Training), and Conference Dinner Speaker Bill Shorten, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Canberra. Additional speakers and panel sessions will be announced in coming weeks.

On Monday 26 October, members are invited to a satellite workshop beginning at 11:00am (Engagement of university science with business), followed by a visit to the ACT Education Directorate’s Academy of Future Skills—an innovative school education initiative showcasing future-focused teaching, specialist facilities, and industry partnerships.

Save 26–28 October in your diaries. We strongly encourage Deans and their leadership teams to attend. We look forward to welcoming you to Canberra!

Update from the ACDS Executive Director (Tony Willis)

General update
The past month has been one of ACDS’s busiest for the year, with significant activity across governance, policy, continued implementation of the 2026–2030 Strategic Plan, and preparations for several major events. A particular highlight was the highly successful Teaching & Learning Leaders Forum, hosted by the University of Queensland (see below). My thanks to Michelle Harvey, the University of Queensland, and all presenters and participants for delivering such an engaging and valuable program. Planning also continues for the National Research Forum in Perth (29 September–1 October; see below) and the 2026 Annual Conference at the Australian National University (26–28 October).

Across the 2026-2030 Strategic Plan, ACDS has continued to progress several initiatives spanning teaching and learning, research and research translation, strategic engagement, and First Nations partnerships. We’ve also had encouraging conversations with several potential strategic partners and, in due course, hope to provide further information about how we will work with these organisations to support and advance university science.

Executive Committee Meeting in April
The Executive Committee held its second meeting of 2026 in Sydney in April to review progress on implementation of the 2026–2030 Strategic Plan and consider ACDS’s strategic priorities for the remainder of the year. Discussions focused on strengthening the Council’s governance arrangements, progressing development of the proposed ACDS Research and Research Translation Centre, advancing initiatives under Goal 4 (First Nations Partnerships), and responding to emerging policy issues affecting Australia’s university science sector. The meeting shaped ACDS’s direction, advocacy and work program for the months ahead.

News from the ACDS Teaching and Learning Centre (Michelle Harvey)

A highly successful ACDS Teaching & Learning Leaders Forum was hosted by the University of Queensland in Brisbane on 14-15 July. Much networking and discussion occurred across the two days, with keynote addresses from Prue Laidlaw, Doune Macdonald and Liz Johnson. Participants at the forum raised several areas for further consideration, including sharing of best practice in the use of AI in STEM education, consideration of ways to raise engagement in T&L activities in STEM courses, and supporting staff to engage in discipline-based education research (DBER) and the scholarship of teaching & learning (SoTL).

ACSME 2026 (the Australian Conference on Science and Maths Education) will take place in less than four weeks in Sydney, hosted by UNSW. We are all looking forward to it! Meanwhile planning is already underway for next year’s ACSME.

News from the ACDS National Research Network (John Bartlett)

Work has continued on developing the program for the 2026 National Research Forum (29 September to 1 October at Curtin University’s City Campus, Perth; the satellite workshop on 29 September is still being finalised). Confirmed speakers include Professor Steven Weller (Executive Director, Engineering, Information and Computing Sciences, ARC) and Dr Julie Glover (Executive Director, Research Foundations, NHMRC), alongside other presenters. The program will feature panel discussions and Communities of Practice addressing issues relevant to university science leadership. Eventbrite registrations are now open and we encourage you to attend.

A draft paper setting out a vision for a Virtual Centre for the ACDS Research Network has been presented to the ACDS Executive. This proposes a number of people-centred activities to be hosted within the Centre to shape and focus the activities of the Research Network over the next 2-5 years. The vision for the Virtual Centre will be presented at the 2026 NRF.

An outline for an online Research Translation Workshop has been developed. Titled Bridging Academia and Industry: Pitfalls, Persistence and Rewards of Translating Fundamental Research into Real-World Applications, the workshop is proposed for October, between the NRF and the ACDS Annual Conference. Four practitioners from different research environments will share their translation journeys, highlighting opportunities, challenges and mitigation strategies. The workshop will conclude with a panel discussion on funding, intellectual property, scale-up, commercialisation and R&D career pathways.

Strategic communications and engagement (Brian Yates)

The ACDS magazine Australian University Science
Issue 15 was published in May as a themed collection of stories about university science and the future workforce. Thank you to everyone for your contributions, especially to Anna-Maria Arabia for her thoughtful article about future science capabilities, and to Professor Robyn Murphy (Dean of Science at La Trobe University) for her article about the importance of universities for the economy.

As mentioned above, Issue 16 of the magazine is focused on the interaction of artificial intelligence in teaching and research with university science, and will try to capture the positives and negatives of the use of AI. We have some exciting articles being written at the moment and plan to publish in early October.

Topics of current interest
I have produced two short briefing papers in 2026 on ‘Topics of current interest’ for the ACDS Executive and the broader ACDS community. These briefing papers are available on the ACDS Engagement website at https://www.acds.edu.au/engagement/.

Light Meetings

Light meeting #1 – One of the ACDS initiatives this year is to hold some informal meetings of the Executive which we have termed ‘Light Meetings’. The idea is to allow a less formal discussion of a single issue for an hour over lunchtime, without formal minutes or motions. We decided to open these up to any Dean (or Associate Dean) to foster further communication within the broader university science leadership community. The first Light Meeting was held on 15 June 2026 where we had an open discussion about regulatory burden and ATEC. The meeting was chaired by Professor Troy Farrell (Executive Dean of Science at QUT) and a summary is available on our website. There was a great deal of energetic discussion and ideas, and the ACDS consolidated these views into a letter which we have now sent to Professor Barney Glover as the Chief Commissioner of ATEC. We are looking forward to the response.

Light meeting #2 – Following the success of the first Light Meeting, the second one is planned for Tuesday 6 October via zoom. The topic is yet to be decided – if you have something you think the ACDS should discuss, please let us know.