Commerce unveils $2.85 million research centre

Nov 05, 2004

The Faculty of Commerce Research Student Centre was the ideal environment to foster the University’s growing research reputation, according to Vice-Chancellor Professor Gerard Sutton.

Opening the $2.85 million three-storey research centre on 4 November, Professor Sutton said the University this year had for the first time achieved the highest ranking for research intensity, a five-star ranking from the Australian Good Universities Guide achieved by only a handful of universities.

“One of the strategic drivers for this University for the past 10 to 15 years has been to lift our research profile,” Professor Sutton said. “While I believe a university’s most important function is teaching and learning, at the end of the day its status nationally and internationally is determined by its research profile.

“This is the first year that the Good Universities Guide has increased our research rating from four to five stars, which is important in positioning the University of Wollongong for the future.”

The new research centre at the Faculty of Commerce has around 70 workstations organised in discipline clusters, networked computers and printers, seminar and presentation rooms and a fully equipped kitchen.

Professor Sutton praised the design for the research centre for the way it promoted interaction between postgraduate research students.

“The way of research is to concentrate bright minds from Australia and overseas and to have these people talking and bouncing ideas off each other,” he said. “This centre has been designed with that in mind. I’m very, very pleased with it.”

Dean of the Faculty of Commerce Professor John Glynn said the new centre brought the Faculty’s researchers into one area, which would build a stronger research environment.

“This is a major investment for the Faculty of Commerce, and we feel we’ve created a centre that the students can be proud of and their supervisors feel is the right environment to operate in,” Professor Glynn said. “It has been a real group effort … a great example of Commerce coming together as a team.”