Attila Brungs has a second-term as vice chancellor of UTS, which will take him to 2024. He joined the university as DVC R in 2009 – on his watch UTS secured its largest haul of ARC Discovery Grants, until then, in November 2013. He succeeded Ross Milbourne as VC six months later. The renewal empowers him to oversight the university’s new strategic plan, set to start next year.

While Professor Milbourne had an Augustan vision of UTS, much of the complex and continuing construction on the Sydney-central campus has occurred on Professor Brungs’ watch. And he has overseen a near $300m expansion in revenues, to $953m last year.  The focus of his first term was certainly on the immediate needs of the university. While he has done the occasional event, speaking at CEDA functions, being an ambassador for Sydney programme and so forth he in no celebrity VC.

But he does engage with the policy system. He was a member of the ARC working group on performances and incentives for the new impact and engagement research programme.

And he has been a balanced contributor to the funding debates of the last five years. Back in 2015 he called for a review of the Pyne plan to deregulate undergraduate fees, “focussed on meeting the principles of access, equity, quality and sustainability.” However ,he was measured in his response to the 2017 budget, criticising the cuts but telling ABC radio that he thought then minister Simon Birmingham understood higher education and pointing to positives, professional masters scholarships, legislating the HEPPP equity programme, plus support for work integration in undergraduate programmes and sub degree places (CMM May 12 2017).