University of Technology Sydney to partner with developer Celestino
EXCLUSIVE: A leading Australian university is moving to Western Sydney in a major partnership with a developer for Sydney science Park at the Western Sydney Aerotropolis.
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The University of Technology Sydney will establish a base in the Western Suburbs as part of a new partnership to “embed education into the workplace”.
Sydney Science Park developers, Celestino, announced the partnership with UTS, which will specialise in the development of urban planning and autonomous technology for the $5 billion business, education and residential precinct in Luddenham.
Celestino chief executive John Vassallo said the collaboration was a key element of the vision for the science park — earmarked to generate more than 12,000 knowledge-based jobs, provide educational space for 10,000 students and be home to over 10,000 residents.
“Education is a core pillar of our ambition to create an innovation ecosystem; clustering together industry, researchers and education providers with the community from the start,” Mr Vassallo told the Penrith Press.
“UTS will continue to help shape the direction of Sydney Science Park, this direction goes beyond … design and is better described as helping us to shape its attitude and personality as a living place.”
The agreement will result in the university using the soon-to-be-developed science park as a testing ground for research, and would result in a future ‘Centre of Innovation’.
UTS Vice Chancellor and President, Professor Attila Brungs, said embedding the university inside the science park was a “world-first” in education.
“Nowhere in the world, is there a model where a university, a property owner and developer like Celestino, and industry are designing an ecosystem from the ground up, that allows people to learn at school through the workforce and all the way through their career,” he said.
“We will deliver a cluster of UTS programs together with industries and businesses, such as collaborative research, education, internships, laboratories, testing centres and pop-up accelerator and short courses.”
Prof Brungs said the UTS Centre of Innovation for Autonomous Mobility Services will create an autonomous mobility service for Sydney Science Park and — in a world first — test fully autonomous drones in an urban environment.
“When people think about university partnerships they usually think bricks and mortar and new campus buildings,” he said.
“We will invest in supporting opportunities in Western Sydney through soft infrastructure, programs and partnerships but without needing to build whole new campuses.
“This will be a future full-time campus of a different kind — built for the jobs of the 21st century.”
The vision to take UTS to Western Sydney was part of the university’s 2027 Strategy, which aims to establish major investments in new programs and partnerships.
But university students won’t be the only ones to benefit from the new plan to integrate education into the science park, with groundbreaking plans for a Sydney science Park International STEM Centre of Excellence to advance capabilities of teachers in STEM teaching methods.
Catholic Education have submitted plans to NSW Major Projects for the development of a STEM secondary school for 1140 students at the science park.
According to the development application, designs for the school will focus on a series of purpose designed hubs including an Inquiry Hub with flexible and shared teaching spaces, large gathering spaces and lecture theatres, a multipurpose hall and amphitheatre, a science and fitness hub and a creative hub with art and applied science facilities.
The Major announcement by UTS and Celestino comes following a think tank yesterday to tackle issues around sustainable suburbs, water security during drought, decreasing urban heat and digital health technology.
UTS PARTNERSHIP
