Western Sydney U joins the NUW teaching, research and innovation partnership

In 2017 Uni Newcastle, UNSW and Uni Wollongong set up NUW, to collaborate on teaching, research and innovation. CMM thought it was a big idea, with, “the policy mass to attract resources to the conurbation it serves,” (CMM May 31 2017). And now it adds more mass, with Western Sydney U joining as a joint venture partner.

It would be unfair to accuse the original NUW of acting with immoderate haste (CMM August 3 2018). But Western Sydney U now sees its potential, to serve “the interests of our shared communities, as VC Barney Glover put it yesterday.

It’s not as if WSU was in need of friends. With UTS and Uni Sydney it has a research institute created to, “transform the relationship between the university and government sectors, policymakers, industry and community,” (CMM December 6 2019).

But with WSU the new NUW has the mass to attract community attention for its works and make it hard for Canberra and Macquarie Street to ignore its ideas.