The University of Queensland

The University of Queensland, commonly referred to as UQ, is an Australian public research university primarily located in Queensland's capital city Brisbane. Founded in 1909, UQ is one of Australia's oldest, most selective and comprehensive university. The main campus is located in St Lucia, southwest of the Brisbane City Central Business District, with other major UQ campuses in Gatton, Herston and Ochsner Medical Center's  clinical school at New Orleans, United States of America. The University of Queensland is a member of the Australia's research-intensive Group of Eight, the global network of research universities University 21 and a founding charter member of EdX, an online higher education consortium led by Harvard and MIT.

UQ is a sandstone university, which is well regarded and is consistently ranked within the top 1 percent of all international university rankings, along with other prestigious research universities. In 2015 for example, UQ is ranked next to Brown University, a member of the Ivy League, in Shanghai's Academic Ranking of World Universities and positioned ahead of King's College London and McGill University in the U.S. News & World Report global ranking. UQ Business School's flagship MBA program is also ranked 16th by The Economist Intelligence Unit, bracketed by MIT (15th) and Yale (19th).

The University of Queensland has produced numerous alumni with significant contributions to science, arts, medicine, education, business, politics and law in Australia and throughout the world. Several notable examples include the Nobel Laureate winning scientist Dr Peter Doherty, Oscar-winning artist Geoffrey Rush, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia Sir Gerard Brennan, Chancellor of University of California, San Francisco - Dr Sam Hawgood,[9] Principal and President of King's College London - Dr Edward Byrne, CEO of Dow Chemical the second-largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue - Andrew N. Liveris, first female Governor-General of Australia Dame Quentin Bryce, former Singapore's Minister for Defence, Minister for Manpower, present Chairman of Keppel Corporation and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) - Dr Lee Boon Yang, consecutive Olympics gold medal winner David Theile and global top three most cited academic and world-renowned clinician Dr Graham Colditz.

History:

Proposals for a university in Queensland began in the 1870s. A Royal Commission in 1874, chaired by Sir Charles Lilley, recommended the immediate establishment of a university. Those against a university argued that technical rather than academic education was more important in an economy dominated by primary industry. Those in favor of the university, in the face of this opposition, distanced themselves from Oxford and Cambridge and proposed instead a model derived from the mid-western states of the USA. A second Royal Commission in 1891 recommended the inclusion of five faculties in a new university; Arts, Law, Medicine, Science and Applied Science. Education generally was given a low priority in Queensland's budgets, and in a colony with a literacy rate of 57% in 1861, primary education was the first concern well ahead of secondary and technical education. The government, despite the findings of the Royal Commissions, was unwilling to commit funds to the establishment of a university.

In 1893 the Queensland University Extension Movement was begun by a group of private individuals who organised public lecture courses in adult education, hoping to excite wider community support for a university in Queensland. In 1894, 245 students were enrolled in the extension classes and the lectures were described as practical and useful. In 1906 the University Extension Movement staged the University Congress, a forum for interested delegates to promote the idea of a university. Opinion was mobilized, a fund was started and a draft Bill for a Queensland University was prepared. Stress was laid on the practical aspects of university education and its importance for the commerce of Queensland. The proceedings of the Congress were forwarded to Queensland Premier William Kids ton. In October 1906, sixty acres in Victoria Park were gazetted for university purposes.

The University of Queensland was established by an Act of State Parliament on December 10, 1909 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Queensland's separation from the colony of New South Wales. The Act allowed for the university to be governed by a senate of 20 men and Sir William MacGregor, the incoming Governor, was appointed the first chancellor with Reginald Heber Roe as the vice chancellor. Government House (now Old Government House) in George Street was set aside for the University following the departure of the Governor to the Barron residence Fernberg, sparking the first debates about the best location for the university.

In 1910 the first teaching faculties were created. These included Engineering, Classics, Mathematics and Chemistry. In December of the same year, the Senate appointed the first four professors; Bertram Dillon Steele in chemistry, John Lundie Michie in classics, Henry James Priestley in mathematics and Alexander James Gibson in engineering. In 1911 the first students enrolled. The University's first classes in the Government house were held in 1911 with 83 commencing students and Sir William MacGregor is the first chancellor (with Reginald Heber Roe as vice-chancellor). The development of the University was delayed by World War I, but after the first world war the university enrollments for education and research took flight as demand for higher education increased in Australia. Thus, in the early 1920s the growing University had to look for a more spacious campus as its original site at George Street, Brisbane has limited room for expansion.

Academic faculties

The Transnational Research Institute, The university has six faculties to support both research and teaching activities.

Faculty of Business, Economics and Law

Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology

Faculty of Health and Behavioral Sciences

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Faculty of Medicine and Bio medical Sciences

Faculty of Science

UQ has a semester-based modular system for conducting academic courses. The Australian higher education model features a combination of the British system, such as small group teaching (tutorials) and the American system (course credits).

Research:

Queensland has a strong research focus in science, medicine and technology. The university's research advancement includes pioneering the development of the cervical cancer vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, by UQ Professor Ian Frazer and then subsequent improvements by researchers from the  United States. In 2009, the Australian Cancer Research Foundation reported that UQ have taken the lead in numerous areas of cancer research. In 2010, Thomson Reuters named eight UQ professors to its list of Highly Cited Researchers. In the Commonwealth Government's Excellence in Research for Australia 2012 National Report, UQ's research is rated above world standard in more broad fields than at any other Australian university (in 22 broad fields); and more UQ researchers are working in research fields that ERA has assessed as above world standard than at any other Australian university. UQ research in bio medical and clinical health sciences, technology, engineering, biological sciences,  chemical sciences, environmental sciences, and physical sciences were ranked above world standard (rating 5). In 2015, UQ is ranked by Nature Index as the research institution with the highest volume of research output in both interdisciplinary journals Nature and Science within the southern hemisphere, with approximately two fold more output than the global average.

Besides disciplinary focused research within the academic faculties, the University of Queensland maintains a number of interdisciplinary research institutes and centers at the national, state and university levels. With the support from the Queensland Government, the Australian Government and major donor The Atlantic Philanthropies, the University of Queensland dedicates basic, transnational and applied research via these eight research-focused institutes:

Institute for Molecular Bio science - within the Queensland Bio science Precinct which also houses scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Transnational Research Institute, which houses The University of Queensland's Diamante Institute, 

School of Medicine and the Mater Medical Research Institute

Australian Institute for Bio engineering and Nanotechnology

Institute for Social Science Research

Sustainable Mineral Institute

Global Change Institute

Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation

Queensland Brain Institute

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