The University of Queensland is building on its recent announcement as the 1998 University of the Year with a further investment in its postgraduate students.
Deputy Director of the University's Graduate School and Dean of Postgraduate Students Associate Professor Alan Lawson said the Graduate School would immediately offer three new schemes that it had been developing as part of its new Graduate School initiatives.
They would assist postgraduate students to undertake further study or progress their research to reach graduation day more quickly.
"It's appropriate that the University expands its range of schemes given that its University of the Year accolade from the Good Universities Guides is based on the criterion of outstanding outcomes for graduates," Dr Lawson said.
"The University of Queensland has been nationally recognised as the university with the best track record in the proportion of graduates who seek and find full-time work or go on to further study.
"The new schemes are a fitting way to mark the award by making a tangible difference in the lives of postgraduate students."
Dr Lawson said the Graduate School had earmarked $200,000 for the three new initiatives - University of the Year Early Start Scholarships, early scholarship offers for 1999 and Graduate School Research Travel Awards.
He said the University was also increasing the value of University of Queensland Postgraduate Research Scholarships (UQPRS) to match the value of Australian Postgraduate Awards (APAs) and would continue to fund HECS exemptions for all research higher degree students. The University expects to allocate around $4.5 million for new and continuing UQ scholarships for 1999.
Details of the new scholarship initiatives are:
University of the Year Early Start Scholarships (UYESS). These special UYESS awards will be granted to recent first class honours graduates who have not yet commenced PhD study, and who are ranked very highly by prospective departments on their research potential and the compatibility of their proposed research topic with UQ research strengths. The University will offer 20 awards to outstanding new honours graduates for immediate start on full-time PhD or research masters on $15,888 per year. The awards will allow people to commence studies at UQ immediately, rather than waiting until the 1999 academic year. The application deadline is August 26 with offers to be made shortly afterwards.
Early scholarship offers for 1999. This scheme aims to retain outstanding potential first-class honours students for PhD studies by making early conditional scholarship offers. University departments can nominate students who apply for APA/UQPRS during the normal application period in September-October but who are obviously outstanding and who may well expect offers from several universities. The number of early offers will depend on the number of outstanding applicants nominated by departments.
(c) Graduate School Research Travel Awards. The Graduate School will offer about 20 of these awards to enhance the mobility of PhD students during their degrees. The awards will assist PhD students to speed up progress on their theses through a period of travel to research resources, equipment, libraries, and archives. There are two categories: $5000 for international research travel; $2500 for Australian research travel.
For further information about the awards, contact the Scholarships Office, telephone 07 3365 1974, email: m.hislop@research.uq.edu.au
Media: For further information, contact Dr Lawson, telephone 3365 3477.
