Craig Emerson is appointed director of RMIT’s Australian APEC Study Centre. Dr Emerson (economics PhD, ANU)  knows of what he will direct, being trade minister in the Gillard Government – which will undoubtedly go down well with his new colleagues. He was also higher education minister in 2013, when Labor cut the rate of growth in university funding over the forward estimates.

 Jacq Romero and Meru Sheel will split $1m  over three years from the Westpac Scholars Trust. Dr Romero (Uni Queensland) will use the money for her work on quantum computing security, to create an encoding system using shapes of light.  Dr Sheel (ANU) works on evidence bases for responses to disease outbreaks.

Hannah Wooller moves to the comms team at Universities Australia. She is now a senior adviser on government relations at UA.