Industry partnerships

Unleash the creative and intellectual potential of arts and social sciences students through placements. Our students enhance your day‑to‑day operations and gain valuable exposure to industry processes and networks. In turn, you can tap into a pool of talented future employees. Find out more about student placements.

• Accenture
• ACON
• Allianz
• Australian Network on Disability
• BT Investment Management
• Challenger
• City of Sydney
• Commonwealth Bank
• EY
• KPMG
• Macquarie Bank
• NBCUniversal
• Pfizer
• PwC
• Telstra
• Westpac

Our students work on a case study or research project as part of their degree and deliver their recommended solution or findings. As an industry partner, you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with an academic lead and a group of students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds who will research, analyse and present solutions to challenges identified by your organisation. This is an innovative approach to problem solving that combines the skillsets of students from across disciplinary backgrounds. Discover our student talents as they generate new ideas and approaches to topics directly applicable to your industry and further develop solutions.   

The University has partnered with over 60 leading business, government and community organisations in Australia and globally. Learn about some of our industry projects:

Sydney Policy Reform Project

The Sydney Policy Reform Project facilitates groups of high-achieving Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences students to perform volunteer research for policy organisations, to assist them with their policy and law reform work under supervision of University academics with relevant expertise.

The project provides unique benefits to policy organisations including extensive pro bono research assistance tailored to their needs. Since 2019, over 230 students and 39 academics have contributed for the project and together they have produced approximately 45 papers for highly respected government and non-profit organisations. Many of our partner organisations have acknowledged the work of the Project in their official publications.

ABC: Innovation Research Project

In collaboration with Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), this project introduces our students in Media and Communications to researching innovation practices in the Australian media industry with application to the ABC. Students will research a policy program or product strategy in response to problems identified by the ABC, prepare a management report detailing proposed problem-solving outcomes and present these proposals to media executives.

Randstad Australia: Can AI compute a match between a resume and a job?

In collaboration with Randstad Australia, our students worked on the question ‘‘can AI compute a match between a resume and a job?’ This project saw students from across disciplines such as  arts, cognitive science, design, pharmacy and more work together on this complex problem and propose their final solutions in front of the Randstad CEO.

Draw on the multidisciplinary power of humanities research and collaborate with us on local or global projects. Some of our current initiatives include:

Open Adoption studies with Barnardos Australia

We’re actively researching the factors influencing adoptions in Australia to bring about a positive change in the culture, policy, and practice of permanency planning in NSW.

Supporting the next generation of research talent with the ABC

A greater appreciation and understanding of Australian research will result from our media residency program, supporting academics with a flair for communicating their vital work.

Working with NSW Government to strengthen community languages education

Responding to the global demand for language skills, we're designing programs to support 54 languages and offering advanced professional learning courses for volunteer community language teachers.

Raising awareness of South Sea Islander lives and communities with Queensland Museum

We’re integrating archaeology, museology, and cultural landscape research to look at histories of Australian South Sea Islanders’ lives and communities.

Learn more about our research areas conducted in over 50 departments, centres and programs in our faculty.

Together we can create transformative education programs that tackle real-world challenges.

Interdisciplinary Impact with Westmead Precinct

Students from a variety of disciplines combine and respond to the challenges of the Westmead Precinct, including improving the accessibility of dental services and enhancing the hospital experience for children and their families.

Investigating and advising on tech policy at NSW Parliament

Students work together to present briefs to state leaders, offering recommendations on the use of drones by law enforcement; the relationship of social media and youth mental health; and whether existing laws adequately cover abuse in domestic violence contexts.

Take part in workshop, masterclass, panel discussion or networking event to engage with current Arts and Social Sciences students. Promote thought leadership in your area of expertise or share emerging trends from your sector to inspire our students.  

These sessions will raise the profile of your organisation and support our students in their career development learning.   

To discuss collaboration and international opportunities specifically with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, please contact:

• Liz Kenna; Head, Strategic Partnerships and Engagement; and,
  
• Darren Svanfelds, International Programs Coordinator at fass.international@sydney.edu.au
  

For university-wide global partnerships and research collaboration, please see Global engagement and contact our Office of Global Engagement.