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4000 level Industry and Community Project Units (ICPUs) are available for students enrolled in a Bachelor of Advanced Studies. These are 12 credit point projects that students will need to access through two co-requisite 6 credit point faculty-based shell units (Projects A and B).
The projects will run across two consecutive teaching sessions - the February intensive period (Project A) followed by semester 1 (Project B), or the July intensive period (Project A) followed by semester 2 (Project B) students must commit to and be able to attend the two consecutive teaching session.
These projects will be designed around broad themes and students will interact with multiple industry and community partners who will set the project scope, as well as provide students with advice and resources. Within the context of the project, students will develop a range of personal and professional skills and strategies for effective collaboration and complex problem solving.
From semester 1 2024, The University of Sydney is proud to be launching Startup Year for students going into 4th year (Advanced Studies). For students who are completing Startup Year, you can choose a 4000 level ICPU to fulfill your advanced coursework project unit requirement.
The Startup Year program has been designed to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities for its students, while supporting Australia’s start-up community, including for profit ventures as well as those focused on social innovation and community-based entrepreneurship. It will prepare future intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs for the task of creating their own startup, followed by the experience of the university’s INCUBATE accelerator.
Find out more about Startup Year from the Handbook. If you have any questions about Startup Year, please book a one-to-one session with the INCUBATE team.
2024 projects will be delivered face-to-face on campus. If you have any questions please email pvceducation.enquiries@sydney.edu.au.
Project teams, comprised of around five 4000 level students from multiple disciplines, will develop and submit a full research proposal at the end of Project A identifying the problem or opportunity they wish to explore, aims, objectives, approach and expected outcomes.
The teams will then complete their research projects in Project B and the outcome will be presented in a final report to a panel of external partners.
These outputs will be assessed and contribute to a total group-based mark of 60%. The remaining 40% of the mark will be based on individual performance, participation in project teams and communities of practice and two individual statements. This collaborative framework is designed to allow students to graduate from the University with a personal and professional network.
The intensive portion of these projects will run for four weeks over the intensive period with classes scheduled Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 9:30am - 1 pm with optional consultation sessions from 2pm - 4pm on each of the days as required. The semester portion of these projects will run for 3 hours a week as timetabled. Students will be expected to complete additional work outside of scheduled class times.
Project registration opens |
Project registration closes |
Project dates |
Attendance |
Delivery mode | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Project part A: February intensive | 4 December 2023 |
14 January 2024 |
22 January - 18 February 2024 |
Monday – Wednesday |
Face-to-face |
Project part B: Semester one | 8 January 2024 |
18 February 2024 |
19 February – 26 May 2024 |
3 hours of class a week |
Face-to-face |
Project part A: July intensive | 6 May 2024 |
16 June 2024 |
24 June – 21 July 2024 | Monday - Wednesday |
Face-to-face |
Project part B: Semester Two | 19 June 2024 |
30 July 2024 |
29 July – 3 November 2024 |
3 hours of class a week |
Face-to-face |
There will only be one class per project. Please consider the project timetable before registering for a project in Sydney Student and make sure that you are available for the allocated class times.
Projects will be delivered face-to-face on campus.
It will take 7-9 days for your personal timetable to reflect your project registration.
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 1 | 9:30 am - 1 pm | 9:30 am - 1 pm | 9:30 am - 1 pm | ||
Week 2 | 9:30 am - 1 pm | 9:30 am - 1 pm | 9:30 am - 1 pm | ||
Week 3 | 9:30 am - 1 pm | 9:30 am - 1 pm | 9:30 am - 1 pm | ||
Week 4 | 9:30 am - 1 pm | 9:30 am - 1 pm | 9:30 am - 1 pm |
Students are expected to contribute a total of 120 – 150 hours of effort towards the intensive unit which includes 42 hours of scheduled classes plus an additional 78 – 108 hours (19.5 – 27 hours/week) outside of class times. This may include group meetings scheduled outside class hours and independent research.
Industry partner | Industry project | Timetable | Delivery mode |
---|---|---|---|
Grains Research and Development Corporation | Empowering Australian Grain Growers through Innovation and Technology | Thursday 9 am – 12 pm | Face-to-face |
Ventia | Safeguarding Tomorrow Through Innovation in Safety and Climate Change | Wednesday 9 am – 12 pm | Face-to-face |
Please note that for this project our industry partners are not based in Sydney, so partners will engage with students virtually.
Australian grain growers are innovative, resourceful and resilient. These qualities, combined with world class, cutting-edge research, development and engineering equates to results, such as a national $31.1 billion in grain production (gross value). Objective of Grain Research and Development Corporation is to drive the discovery, development and delivery of world-class innovation to enhance the productivity, profitability and sustainability of Australian grain growers.
Australian grain growers face challenges to do more with less, as input costs increase, and demographics in regional Australia change. Technological advancement has revolutionised planning, operations and decision making for a wide range of industries. GRDC is facing some exciting challenges and is inviting interdisciplinary student groups to explore how can we utilise technology to improve decision making and increase precision to put only what inputs are needed, where they are needed, as well as accelerate the adoption and deployment of automation and robotics to reduce labour and/or efficiency of repetitive tasks? What can be done to help growers to better understand and manage workforce challenges, improve farm safety and support growers to manage complex businesses.
Ventia oversees a workforce of over 35,000 professionals operating in over 400 sites across Australia and New Zealand. The most important element of successful operation therefore resides in ensuring the utmost safety for its employees, clients, supply chain, and the communities. With an expansive portfolio encompassing diverse industries such as drilling rig maintenance, defence base operations, and incident response on motorways, Ventia is actively seeking cutting-edge solutions to elevate safety standards for its workforce. The company also acknowledges the imperative for strengthening community resilience in the face of escalating climate change impacts. The past few years have witnessed an intensification of stressors, with communities and infrastructure grappling with heightened occurrences and severity of bushfires, floods, storms, and increasing temperatures. In this exciting project, interdisciplinary student groups are invited to conceive and provide integrated innovations that revolutionise safety protocols within Ventia's operations. Alternatively, students can focus on innovative practices to build resilient communities in face of climate change. Students can explore technological innovations, use of artificial intelligence, new product or application development or other core innovations. This initiative embodies Ventia's unwavering commitment to high safety standards and community well-being, providing a platform for students to explore these key domains and deliver futuristic solutions for the organisation.
There will only be one class per project. Please consider the project timetable before registering for a project in Sydney Student and make sure that you are available for the allocated class times.
Projects will be delivered face-to-face on campus.
It will take 7 - 9 days for your personal timetable to reflect your project registration.
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | |
---|---|---|---|
Week 1 | 9.30 am - 1 pm | 9.30 am - 1 pm | 9.30 am - 1 pm |
Week 2 | 9.30 am - 1 pm | 9.30 am - 1 pm | 9.30 am - 1 pm |
Week 3 | 9.30 am - 1 pm | 9.30 am - 1 pm | 9.30 am - 1 pm |
Week 4 | 9.30 am - 1 pm | 9.30 am - 1 pm | 9.30 am - 1 pm |
Students are expected to contribute a total of 120 – 150 hours of effort towards the intensive unit which includes 42 hours of scheduled classes plus an additional 78 – 108 hours (19.5 – 27 hours/week) outside of class times. This may include group meetings scheduled outside class hours and independent research.
Industry partner | Industry project | Timetable | Delivery mode |
---|---|---|---|
Grains Research and Development Corporation | Empowering Australian Grain Growers through Innovation and Technology |
Tuesday 9 am – 12 pm |
Face-to-face |
Ventia | Innovations to Support a Circular Economy | Wednesday 9 am – 12 pm |
Face-to-face |
Universities Admissions Centre |
Designing a National Skills Passport for the Next Generation Workforce |
Wednesday 12 – 3pm |
Face-to-face |
Please note that for this project our industry partners are not based in Sydney, so partners will engage with students virtually.
Australian grain growers are innovative, resourceful and resilient. These qualities, combined with world class, cutting-edge research, development and engineering equates to results, such as a national $31.1 billion in grain production (gross value). The core objective of the Grain Research and Development Corporation is to drive the discovery, development and delivery of world-class innovation to enhance the productivity, profitability and sustainability of Australian grain growers. Australian grain growers face challenges to do more with less, as input costs increase, and demographics in regional Australia change. Technological advancement has revolutionised planning, operations and decision making for a wide range of industries. GRDC is facing some exciting challenges and is inviting interdisciplinary student groups to explore step changes in soil and water productivity, opportunities to transform the efficiency of input use, ways to ensure we continue to be a leader in sustainable, responsible production, and how to attract, train and sustain workforces and communities essential to the future of the industry.
Linear pathways to employment are a thing of the past. We are in an age of disruption where the ‘job-ready’ goalposts continuously shift. It’s as important to demonstrate both technical skills and the ‘softer’ skills such as leadership and emotional intelligence, which we now term ‘employability’ skills. These changing needs require agility from individuals, employers, government, and higher education institutions to keep pace with the changing future of work. Can we imagine and build more agile and purposeful ways to understand and pivot to the changing needs of employers? Can we leverage fast-growing digital platforms and channels to connect stakeholders? With a lifelong learning mindset, how might people acquire new skills or transfer their skills into new sectors? This is what the Australian Government has put forward with its far-reaching proposal and consultation for a ‘National Skills Passport’. Interdisciplinary student groups are set the challenge to imagine what a National Skills Passport could look like. Solutions developed in this project could have potential to be a startup via INCUBATE at University of Sydney.
Ventia is one of the largest essential infrastructure services providers in Australia and New Zealand. It has a combined workforce of more than 35,000 people, working in over 400 sites across Australia and New Zealand, with over 40% of its employees operating in regional locations. Ventia operates across a broad range of industry segments, including defence, social infrastructure, water, electricity and gas, environmental services, resources telecommunications and transport. The transition to a circular economy is key to reducing embodied emissions and ensuring the ongoing sustainability of the communities in which we live. This transition requires solutions, both in terms of how we achieve better avoidance, reuse, repurposing, and recycling, but also how we support people through the change process. In interdisciplinary groups, students are invited to explore a wide range of innovative solutions that might contribute to achieving circular economy. Solutions focusing on the transport infrastructure sector are particularly encouraged due to the high materiality of the sector. Fundamental focus should be rethinking how we design, build, operate, and decommission transportation systems to minimize waste, maximize resource efficiency, and reduce environmental impacts throughout their lifecycle.
This project is accessed through two co-requisite 6 credit point faculty-based shell units. You will need to select the two shell units for the project through Sydney Student. If you've already enrolled you can do this by changing your units of study (go to ‘My studies’, ‘Units of study’, then ‘Change your units of study’)
Shell units for BUSI, SCIE, FASS and ADP are available in Table A and/or Table S. Units as follows:
Once you've successfully enrolled in both shell units, you will receive an email with instructions on how to register for a project in Sydney Student.
Before registering for a semester-long project, check the timetable and make sure you're available for the allocated class times. It will take 7 - 9 days for your personal timetable to reflect your project registration.
You will finalise your enrolment in the unit and select your project in Sydney Student (go to 'My studies', 'Enrolment', then 'Project registration'. Places in each project are limited so we encourage you to register early to avoid missing out. You will only see projects that are available for your enrolled shell unit and still have places available. If you cannot see a project when you register, you will need to select a different project. Project availability is subject to change.
Once you enrolled into the two shell units, you will need to upload a signed and witnessed Deed Poll to Canvas. This is a compulsory requirement of your enrolment in this unit. Make sure you consider the acknowledgments in the deed carefully before submission. You will be granted access to Canvas the week before teaching starts for your enrolled session and you will need to submit your Deed Poll before the first day of class for Part A of your chosen project.
If you have any questions, please email pvceducation.enquiries@sydney.edu.au.
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