Industry and business partnerships

We've partnered with Telstra to develop the skills and capabilities of students in preparation for the future of work.

The partnership will build on the University’s focus on transforming the undergraduate curriculum and will give students real-world experience in network and software engineering, cyber security and data analytics.

Telstra will work with the University of Sydney to enhance student learning through industry placements and integrated work experiences, research and innovation opportunities, and early access to career opportunities.

Our multi-year partnership with Microsoft establishes ongoing investment at the Sydney Nanoscience Hub as Microsoft moves from research to real-world engineering of quantum machines.

This investment is bringing state-of-the-art equipment, allowing the recruitment of new staff and helping to build the nation’s scientific and engineering talent. It also focuses significant research project funding into the University, assuring the nation a key role in the emerging 'quantum economy'.

Professor David Reilly is leading the team at Station Q Sydney (the Australian arm of Microsoft’s global Station Q) and believes that this partnership will bring quantum computing out of the laboratory and into the real world where it can have genuine impact.

We have an ongoing partnership with international mining group Rio Tinto, seeking to increase mining automation. Established in 2007 in the Faculty of Engineering, the Rio Tinto Centre for Mine Automation (RTCMA) works on the development and deployment of technologies that hope to deliver fully remote autonomous mining processes. 

The research partnership's next phase will focus on providing an improvement in safety, predictability, precision and efficiency of typical surface mining operations through automation.

In addition to working closely with Rio Tinto, the RTCMA has also contributed to training the next generation of mining automation engineers and technicians, providing our undergraduate and postgraduate students with vital exposure to commercially relevant real-world problems.

Nanoparticles technology has many potential applications. The collaboration between our Key Centre for Polymers and Colloids (KCPC) and Sirtex Medical Ltd is investigating possible application of nanoparticles for chemotherapy treatments in solid tumours.

This ongoing collaboration started in 2003 with the simultaneous launch of two projects with KCPC, headed by Associate Professor Brian Hawkett.

In collaboration with us, Sirtex has a track record in innovation through its world-leading technology that delivers radiation therapy for terminally ill liver cancer patients.

The collaboration has taken advantage of different schemes from the federal and state governments to leverage industry contribution for research funding, through the Research Connections element of the government’s $484 million Entrepreneurs’ Infrastructure Program, as well as Linkage Project funding from the Australian Research Council.

Our ongoing partnership with Qantas is developing flight-planning systems that will help the airline fly optimised routes, reduce fuel consumption and improve operational effectiveness. This is helping to pave the way for greater operational efficiency and supporting greener commercial aviation.

Managed by Professor Salah Sukkarieh from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR), the research has focused on how aerodynamics, flight mechanics, large-scale optimisation and machine learning algorithms can be used to design better flight-planning routines and fuel prediction models.

The partnership is now looking at building on the outcomes of the research as well as focussing on new areas of research, such as weather avoidance.

Additionally, the collaboration has allowed our students to work closely with an industrial partner to provide them with valuable commercial experience so that they can hit the ground running when they enter the workforce.

An agreement between the University of Sydney and GE Healthcare is exploring opportunities to support the research continuum, from research at the laboratory bench through to biotechnology manufacture, clinical trials, clinical imaging research, adoption by the healthcare system and wealth creation through life science and health care innovation.

This partnership builds on our review of our medical research and our multidisciplinary research initiatives, such as the Charles Perkins Centre, and represents a shared vision for improving access to affordable, quality healthcare.

Together we’ll seek to add value to our expertise in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, cancer, mental health and neuroscience, infectious diseases, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and population health services.

Besides research programs, researchers and students will also benefit from proposed industry placements, equipment training and the co-development of industry-relevant courses.

We're part of the Defence Science Partnerships program, led by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO). This enables our researchers to work in a coordinated way with the Department of Defence and national security agencies on collaborative research projects.

This program ensures a consistent approach to intellectual property and cost sharing, and through pre-agreed template agreements, our researchers have been able to proceed with this project without delay.

Involvement in the program enables researchers to leverage funding from DSTO and other sources, share research infrastructure and work on strategically identified technology areas. These key areas include material science, electronic warfare, human sciences such as nutrition and psychology, as well as autonomous systems.

The program will play an important role in fostering a more robust innovation system.