Senate received a detailed update on Digital Sydney, a major University strategic priority that aims to simplify everyday tasks, enhance our teaching, learning and research, and create a more connected experience for our students, staff, alumni and partners. 

Academic and professional staff presented two Digital Sydney initiatives to Senate Fellows. The first was a new automated process to handle simple extensions to assignment deadlines that has enabled unit of study coordinators to increase their focus on teaching rather than administration. The second was myResearch Sydney (mRS) – a new integrated system to simplify research administration. Several mRS elements have already launched, including Sydney Profiles (a platform that improves the visibility and discoverability of our academics and their research), and a new research ethics management system, which has seen most users report time savings of more than 45 minutes per ethics application. Senate were also informed about the launch of an enhanced responsible AI framework ahead of a planned University-wide rollout of enterprise AI tools later this year. Senate noted details of the planned timetable for implementation of future developments across the full program of Digital Sydney initiatives.

Senate Fellows held an in-depth discussion with the Chair of the Academic Board and the chairs of its supporting committees to review the University’s approach to assuring academic quality. The discussion covered a number of themes, including the need to complement robust quality assurance with more flexible, responsive processes (for example, when launching postgraduate courses to support people wanting to upskill while in the workforce). Fellows also discussed capacity and capability to fulfil quality assurance processes across faculties and central portfolios and noted ongoing improvements and support flowing from the recent establishment of the Division of the Academic Registrar. Senate thanked the Academic Board Chair and committee chairs for the comprehensive detailed briefing, and for their work in providing assurance on academic quality.

In addition, Senate received a report from Academic Board’s third meeting for 2026, which focused on student experience, academic quality and institutional performance. Fellows welcomed a drop in the average resolution times for academic integrity cases, amid growing complexity driven, in part, by technologies such as artificial intelligence and wearable devices. Discussion also covered assessment redesign to address progression in high-fail-rate units (while maintaining academic standards) and the relationship between tutorial class size and student experience. Senate endorsed Academic Board recommendations, including a refresh of the Bachelor of Commerce and three new postgraduate courses.

Senate discussed continued progress on improving the student experience, a key focus across the University’s top strategic initiatives, which include Digital Sydney (see above) and programs to deliver sustained excellence through our academic activity and professional services.

Senate Fellows welcomed initiatives to support students in the lead-up to recent end-of-semester exams through a range of on-campus activities and encouraged further enhancements planned for Semester 2. Senate was also briefed on the upcoming introduction of additional measures to support students experiencing cost-of-living pressures, including a new on-campus ‘canteen’ that will offer $5 meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  

Senate thanked the team for its work, including a strengthened approach to data and insights to support student experience improvements.

Senate received an extensive update from the leadership of the Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH), one of the University’s largest and most complex faculties. The faculty is pursuing a coordinated program of work to maximise its potential across education, research, service and impact, with early impact evident. This includes deeper partnerships (particularly with local health districts and the NSW Ministry of Health), a stronger focus on health workforce needs through new vocational and executive education programs and the establishment of a Teaching Academy. Other initiatives target near-miss competitive research proposals and schemes funded through gift funds, including grants to support female staff and support for Indigenous staff and students.

Fellows praised recent rises in FMH student experience scores, achieved alongside an ambitious research agenda, and discussed the implications of technological change for the medical and health disciplines. Opportunities for FMH include expanding partnerships with the health sector in providing continuous education. Fellows also underscored the need for continued focus on improving and streamlining University policies and processes to better support staff and students’ teaching, learning and research.

Senate endorsed revisions to the University’s institution-wide gender-based violence prevention and response plan, a requirement under the new sector-wide National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence, which came into force 1 January 2026. These revisions were supported by a whole-of-organisation assessment and strengthen the University’s plan, which includes changes to our systems and processes, updating agreements and ways of working with our key partners (including the residential colleges associated with the University), and developing new policies and procedures. Senate also noted the University’s fourth annual report on sexual misconduct, which is expected to be communicated to students and staff in July. The report includes data on disclosures and complaints, response outcomes, and institutional initiatives focused on the prevention of and response to sexual misconduct. The report also sets out priority actions for 2026 to support continuous improvement in prevention, response and transparency.

Senate received an initial briefing on high-level results from the 2026 Sydney Listens staff engagement survey. The University’s overall engagement score rose to 71 percent – up two points from 2025, and four points above the benchmark for the Australia/New Zealand higher education sector. Senate will discuss more detailed analysis at its August meeting.

Senate received an update on work to enhance the University’s management of complaints which is shifting from fragmented, compliance-led processes towards a unified user-centred approach. These changes are a critical element of the University’s response to increasing regulatory expectations. The next phase of the project will focus on harmonisation of complaints policy and procedure, redesign of complaints processing, phased implementation of technological support, and continued improvements in dispute resolution pathways and enterprise reporting.

Senate discussed the regular consolidated view it receives of operational performance across cyber security, health, safety and wellbeing, central operations, risk, finance, and human resources. The June reports indicated broadly stable core performance alongside sustained pressures that warrant continued oversight. 

Areas of focus included the recent cyber incident affecting Canvas, the third-party learning management system used by many educational institutions worldwide, and its implications for business continuity in a SaaS-dependent environment. In response, the University has updated its Canvas business continuity plan to provide stronger integration between operational and ICT responses and to provide mitigation plans for longer outages should they occur. This is complemented by a broader uplift of business continuity for critical SaaS applications through the Cyber Transformation Program. While the incident did not compromise University infrastructure, it reinforced the importance of business continuity plans, including arrangements for key third-party platforms.

Other areas of focus in the June operational reports included elevated psychosocial, infrastructure and digital safety risks; demand pressures in the Shared Service Centre; costs and inflationary volatility; and a number of enterprise-level risks under active mitigation.

In addition to the above, Senate received and discussed reports from meetings of Senate’s Finance Committee, Audit Risk and Compliance Committee, Building and Estates Committee, People Culture and Safety Committee, Honorary Awards Committee, and Nominations and Governance Committee.

Senate approved the appointments to the Law Extension Committee and the re-appointment of Professor Tom Calma AO to the Senate Nominations and Governance Committee following his welcome return to Senate after a period of leave to serve as a part-time Commissioner of the interim Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC).  The Chancellor also briefed Senate on his recent engagements, or engagements by other Fellows of Senate deputising on his behalf.

Present: David Thodey AO (Chancellor) (part only), Professor Mark Scott AO (Vice-Chancellor and President), Shirley Chowdhary, Ethan Floyd (part only), Edwina Grose, Professor Jane Hanrahan, Weihong Liang, Karen Moses OAM, Professor Joel Negin, Emeritus Professor Alan Pettigrew (Deputy Chancellor, chaired meeting following departure of Chancellor), Professor Ben Saul, Jason Yat-sen Li (part only)

Apologies: Tom Calma AO (leave of absence), Susan Lloyd Hurwitz AM, Lisa McIntyre