This is the transcript for the video Graduate research degrees at UTS for international applicants
Hello there, thank you for viewing this presentation about applying for research degrees at the University of Technology Sydney.
My name is Lori locker and I’m the Dean of the Graduate Research School.
You may already know a little bit about UTS. We’re a young university, just over 30 years old, and we’re considered world class increasingly rising in the ranks of international universities, considered number one in Australia young universities and number 13 around the world.
UTS is located in the heart of Sydney, where right in the CBD, within just a few minutes walk from central railway station, located on major bus lines so it’s very easy to get to. And within walking distance of many of the city’s attractions such as the Domain, the Botanic Gardens, Darling Harbour, Chinatown and all of the shops and Restaurants, and sites of Sydney.
We have put a lot of effort over the last 10 years of building a vibrant evolving campus.
You may be aware of some of the world-renowned buildings such as the UTS Business School, known as the paperback building, which was designed by eminent architect Frank Gehry.
We’re particularly proud last year of opening our UTS central building. That’s that shiny glass structure that is in this slide. UTS central will houses some of our faculties such as Engineering and IT, as well as law. Our library has located in this building as well as the fantastic reading room. It is our student services hub.
If you’re interested in doing a research degree at UTS, you’ll want to know more about the type of research that we do. What’s really important for us is to do transformational research. Research that is really going to make an impact on our society our communities, our world.
We have a range of flagship areas but what’s really important for us is to consider the role technology plays in society, and how we can integrate perspectives from has humanities arts and social sciences with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) across it our research activities.
Although a young university we have increasingly been recognized for the research that we do. So all of the research that university put forward in Australia’s assessment of research the Excellence in Research Australia consideration was deemed to be world standard or above. And we’re ranked number 70 in the world in terms of the proportion of our research in which is in leading science journals.
In addition to having fantastic buildings on our campus, what’s inside those buildings means that we have state-of-the-art research facilities for you to do your research in.
What you’re seeing on this slide includes the proto space where 3D printing allows us to make different types of materials, and prototypes.
Now you’re also seeing our data arena, where we can interact with data, as well as our state-of-the-art sports science facilities.
Our graduate research students are located across our faculties in institutes. We have a number of faculties: Arts and Social Science, Business, Design, Architecture and Building, Engineering and Information Technology, Health including our Graduate School of Health, Law, Science, and Transdisciplinary innovation. We also have institutes: Connected Intelligence Center, the Institute for Public Policy, and the Institute for Sustainable Futures, in which you can locate your research degree.
We have two main types of research degrees: a Masters by Research and a Doctor of Philosophy.
A Masters by Research is typically an equivalent of two full-time years a maximum of two time years.
A Doctor of Philosophy is equivalent of for a maximum of four full-time years.
You can do a single degree, a Doctor of Philosophy, which means you would receive your degree from UTS alone.
You may also be interested in our collaborative or dual or joint degrees with other universities.
If you’re not interested in a research degree located at UTS, you may be interested in a visiting research student opportunity.
UTS has what we refer to as our Graduate Education Research Framework.
This is how we structure our research degrees. Every research student at UTS will be supervised by a panel of at least two supervisors. You’ll work with your supervisors to develop a graduate research study plan, and you’ll revisit that study plan over the course of your degree.
On an annual basis, your progress will be reviewed with you, your supervisor, and the responsible academic in your faculty who oversees graduate research.
You’ll have access to training and development activities. Some of these will be mandatory and some of these will be your choice, depending on the skills and knowledge that you and your supervisors feel that you need to develop.
You’ll engage in a significant research project, and you will have three stages of assessment, and you’ll finally submit your thesis for examination. So over the course of a four year PhD, you will have a confirmation of candidature in a year, about year one in stage one, this means you’ll submit a written proposal full proposal about what your research is and you’ll present that.
Before the end of year two you will do another presentation, and have written work where you will show advanced project progress on your research.
Before the end of year three you will present your thesis and give an oral presentation that demonstrates that you will soon be ready to submit your thesis for examination.
And finally you will submit your thesis.
As I mentioned, we also have Collaborative Doctoral Degree Programs. This is an opportunity for students to gain international experience by undertaking a jointly supervised research project at two universities: UTS and one of our international partners.
This means you’ll have supervisors at each university throughout your program.
You’ll spend at least one year at the host university, and the rest of your degree at your home university.
Your tuition fee and living stipend scholarships will be available for high calibre candidates.
At the completion of the program, both institutions will formally recognise your research with a degree.
This is just some of the global partners that we have for our collaborative degrees.
You can speak to your potential supervisor about the opportunities of a collaborative degree and a full list of our partners is available on our website.
It’s important to know what the support is available for research students.
As a research student at UTS, you have very many layers of support.
In your faculty you’ll get academic guidance from your supervisors, as well as a responsible academic officer, and a number of researchers within your faculty who will contribute as a community.
There will be training and development opportunities and it’s through your faculty that you’ll have access to study space and research infrastructure.
The graduate research school is the central unit across the university who works with you your supervisors and your faculty, to support your candidature from the point at which you’re interested in a degree, right through to application, candidature, and finally submitting your thesis for examination. We also run a range of training and development opportunities including induction programs, a positive start for international students, research methods and research writing support.
The research office includes a range of people who support the ethics process, contracts, and also intellectual property and the library has a variety of resources within the library and online to help with your research.
Across the university we also have a range of support. We have language and presentation skills support, peer tutoring program, special needs and financial assistance, health and counseling service, a multi-faith room, a peer network and a range of clubs and social activities.
You’ll be interested to know about the scholarships that are available through UTS. The majority of our scholarships are available for three years in duration.
We have an International Research Training Program Scholarship, and this supports tuition fees, living stipend and family health insurance.
We have the UTS President Scholarship, which is a stipend for three years, and we also have the International Research Scholarship, which provides support for tuition fees.
Depending on where you’re located around the world you may have access to additional scholarships from your home country, as well as through UTS.
UTS research degrees are conducted in English. So it’s important to ensure that you meet English language requirements before applying for a research degree.
Generally in the HASS disciplines, humanities arts social sciences, our English language requirements if I use IELTS as an example is 7.0 overall and 7.0 in writing.
In our predominantly stem-based degrees, science, technology, engineering, math, so for those for our faculties that means Design Architecture and Building, Engineering and Information Technology, Science and Transdisciplinary innovation, if I use IELTS as an example our minimum requirement is 6.5 overall and 6.5 in writing. And you can see there’s a range of English language tests and examples of different types of English courses that we use for entry requirements. A full list of this is available on our website.
So once you’re interested in applying for a research degree, here’s some important steps to think about.
The first is to check your eligibility. Generally to be eligible for a PhD, a doctoral degree, we’re looking at someone who has an honours degree from a university in Australia or countries around the world that have four years honours degrees which hold research component to them or Masters by Research.
So it’s important to check your eligibility and that information is also available on our website. It’s a good idea to identify scholarships and the timelines for those Scholarships. Those are both scholarships that are available through UTS as well as those scholarships that might be available in your home country.
And narrow down your research topic. This is important because that will help you find a supervisor at UTS. At UTS, on our website we have a range of tools that help you search for a possible supervisor as well as search for the types of projects that are currently available to be supervised. It’s important to know that if you are interested in doing your research in business or law, you’ll need to contact those faculties quite early in order to submit an expression of interest.
For our institute of sustainable futures, our graduate school of health, once you find a supervisor they will also have an expression of interest process.
Once you have an identified a supervisor, you will need to prepare the necessary documents.
That means a research proposal, your cv, your current course enrollment if you’re currently studying, your academic transcripts, your English language evidence, and if you’re doing a collaborative degree permission from your home university to engage in the collaboration.
What’s most important is that you submit your application on time.
On this screen I’ve given you the sense of when the upcoming application deadlines are. So if you want to start your research degree, in January 2021 you’ll need to have your application in by the 30th of June 2020. If you want to start your research degree in July 2021 you’ll need to have your application in by the 15th of January 2021.
So we have an online process for your degrees application and in that online process you’ll put all those documents that I have just identified.
You will also need to provide certified copies of your academic records to the Graduate Research School. So please consult our Applications Essentials page on the website and that will step you through all the requirements for an application.
What happens after you apply?
So your application will be assessed by UTS, and if successful you’ll receive an offer letter for your UTS graduate research program, and if applicable an offer for scholarships.
Once that happens, you’ll return your signed acceptance to the UTS Graduate Research School, and then you’ll receive a Confirmation of Enrolment.
Once you have that Confirmation of Enrolment you’ll apply for your student visa.
What’s really important when it comes time to apply for your student visa is you make sure your application for a visa is as complete as possible.
Any applications for visas to the Australian government that are not complete take a very long time to process.
So those are the highlights of Research degrees at UTS, where to go for information, and How to apply.
I look forward to answering any questions you have in our webinar session or through the Graduate Research Schools dedicated address for those students who are interested in research degree international students and that’s on your screen here: international.research@uts.edu.au.
Thank you.