Congratulations to FEDUA's HEPPP grant awardees

Thursday, 20 October 2016

FEDUA researchers from the School of Education and the nascent School of Creative Industries who have been awarded competitive Federal Government funding in the 2016 Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Programme (HEPPP) National Priorities Pool round announced this week. The two FEDUA-led projects are responsible for more than 50% of the total funding awarded to UON.

The success of these collaborative projects highlights our position as a national leader of high impact research to inform public policy design and implementation, and institutional practice, in order to improve higher education participation.

Professor Jenny Gore, Professor Geoff Whitty, Professor Max Smith, Dr Adam Lloyd, Dr Jess Harris and Dr Leanne Fray.
Locating aspirations: Evidence to support participation in higher education of low SES students from regional and remote Australia. $277,079

Despite major reports on the needs of this student population there has been no study that focuses on the aspirations of school students in non-metropolitan areas across the full Year 3 to 12 range. Recognising that aspirations begin to form much earlier than when senior subject selection and careers education typically occurs (in the later secondary school years), this project led by the Teachers & Teaching Research Centre aims to bring new insight to ameliorating the under-representation of this equity group in higher education. The team will analyse existing data from more than 6000 school students from regional NSW and collecting additional survey, interview and focus group data from outer regional, remote and very remote areas in NSW to help shape equity policy and practice to build student aspiration in regional and remote areas.

Dr Kath Grushka, Dr Miranda Lawry, Dr Susan Kerrigan, Ms Jane Shadbolt and Associate Professor Maree Gruppetta (The Wollotuka Institute).
Creative Industries Careers: Re-imagining Regional and Remote Students’ opportunities. $119,192

This exciting project features a truly interdisciplinary team from Education, Fine Art, Communication and Design who will ask regional and remote high school students to re-imagine their futures in the face of declining opportunities in mining, farming and manufacturing and aspire to work in the Creative Industries. It will provide students, their families, teachers and careers advisors with information about the skills needed to be successful, what Creative Industry jobs look like, and provide hands-on learning experiences to students.  A creative ‘roadshow’ to regional and remote schools in NSW will deliver workshops in video, animation and Virtual Reality. Information to Careers Advisors and interested teachers will include social media interviews with recent graduates and emerging creative workers sharing their experience of the jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities in the field.