The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) will lead a $1.5 million research partnership with the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of South Australia (UniSA) to explore the future in the digital age, with a particular focus on social and policy challenges, technology's influence on participation in higher education and the nature of technology-rich learning environments.

 

The project is one of twelve that are being funded under the Federal Government’s Collaborative Research Networks (CRN) scheme which is designed to bring networks of universities together to develop research capabilities around topics of interests to all partners in the network.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Scholarship) at USQ, Professor Graham Baker,  said USQ will bring together strengths in ethics and privacy, access and equity, digital and on-line learning, high performance computing and information management from across the network members.

'USQ has strong relationships with its local communities and the regional economy of these catchment areas. This network will enable us to expand our role in relation to digital environments in regional economies and will also allow us to explore those areas where government policy will be required,’ Professor Baker said.

‘For instance, we are interested in the interaction between digital environments and various forms of policy and social issues.

‘This funding will allow us to bring researchers from our network partners to form teams with our local researchers. Regional universities sometimes struggle with having sufficient 'critical mass' to engage in large research projects and we are very excited by the opportunities that will now be available to us. We look forward to working with ANU and UniSA in this venture.’