Here, we learn more about the Group Strategic Procurement team and the role of strategic procurement.

Who are you?

We are the Group Strategic Procurement team. The team is led by Natalie Budovsky, the Chief Procurement Officer and Sergey Vznusdaev, the Senior Operations Manager, who look after the ProcureRight Desk, the service arm of the Procurement Team.

What do you do?

Procurement is a complex function that supports the business in selecting and appointing suppliers, from identification of a need to signatures on a contract. We are a team of advisors that is available to you as much or as little as you need on your procurement journey.

Procurement is not to be confused with purchasing, another important group function, that is concerned with the process of ordering, receiving and paying for goods and services.

Why do you do it? 

In support of its teaching and research objectives, Macquarie spends significant amounts of money. Good procurement ensures the University gets better value for this spending and ensures money is spent sensibly, fairly and transparently. Our role in Strategic Procurement is to ensure there is a robust procurement process in place.

We ensure that the process probity is maintained and that ICAC – the Independent Commission Against Corruption – will never knock on our door.

Given the complexity of the operating environment under which we conduct our business, we try to make procurement as simple as possible for you and we try to make it fun.

Are there any frequent misunderstandings or misconceptions about what your team does?

Procurement does not have to be difficult, confusing or daunting. We specialise in smarter procurement that goes beyond good deals to unlock value for the University by being efficient, transparent and compliant.

We will be supporting you to achieve value when addressing your procurement needs… That’s YOU to the power of Us!

What is a recent achievement you are proud of?

We have a few recent achievements that we are proud of. One – being the winner of the Procurement Excellence Award from the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply. We were shortlisted alongside Australia Post and Vodafone New Zealand and won.

We are proud of ProcureRight Desk and the recently developed ContractRight, which is soon to be launched. The framework is designed to be a one-stop shop for all the tricks and tips on good contracts and commercial governance. It supplements the ProcureRight framework that the University has embraced so wholeheartedly.

What is planned for the future? Anything exciting on the horizon?

We are formally launching ProcureRight Desk this month and, to ensure a smooth roll-out, there will be a series of information sessions. Many other fun and educational activities are being planned for early 2024. ProcureRight Desk is a central procurement service providing triage, support, advice and assistance regardless of how large or small your procurement may be. From February 2024, triaging of all new procurement activities via ProcureRight Desk will be written into the policy.

The entire Strategic Procurement Team will also be available to meet and greet every Tuesday and Wednesday between 12pm and 3pm, from 7 – 23 November at 18 Wally’s Walk Level 2 East. Just drop in and say hello.

We have also just soft-launched the new ContractRight framework. It covers a broad range of topics and provides many and varied tools and references that will help you become competent and confident contract and relationship managers.

How can we engage with you? Where can we learn more?

You can find the ProcureRight Framework here on the Strategic Procurement webpage.

If you have an interest in Strategic Procurement, contact the Chief Procurement Officer, Natalie Budovsky at chiefprocurementofficer@mq.edu.au. For general enquiries, email ProcureRightDesk@mq.edu.au.

Who are you?

Mel, Kelly, Jo and Jojo and we are the Outreach and Engagement team for FSE.

What do you do?

We lead and support outreach and engagement activities in our faculty. This means we get to work on lots of different events and initiatives with many partners both within FSE and across the university. The purpose of our role is to promote our faculty to schools and students of any background, to connect our people to external organisations, and to highlight our ideas to the community.

Why do you do it?

There are so many reasons. We are passionate about STEM, and we relish telling science stories. We also want to help break down any barriers to engaging in the various disciplines and build overall engagement in STEM. Importantly, we do what we do to help people achieve their goals.

Are there any misconceptions about what your team does?

Firstly, that we work in Marketing or only do events. The way we see it, we are not really promoting a brand, but promoting opportunities.

Secondly, that you must be a scientist to do what we do. We actually have quite varied backgrounds. Kelly studied contemporary literature and film because she wanted to be a film critic and journalist. She ended up working in education, even teaching in an art school for a while. Jojo has a master’s in marketing from Macquarie with various work experience across hospitality, customer service, marketing, and events. She later discovered her passion for project management in events, leading to her current role.

Mel has had had more than 20 years collective experience in administration, recruitment, events, marketing and customer service. Her experience has been varied, from briefing the likes of Matt Damon, Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake and Will Smith before they climbed the Harbour Bridge to recruiting Pipeline Engineers at Shell in Norway. Jo has worked in the tertiary sector for over 10 years and has been part of the lovely FSE community for over 5 years. She has a passion for communication, stakeholder management and project management. She gets a thrill from problem solving and improving systems.

What’s a recent achievement you’re proud of?

We are super proud to be part of the first dedicated Outreach and Engagement team in FSE. We’re working hard on some new initiatives that we are very proud of. We’re currently developing an Outreach Strategy for our faculty and establishing a dedicated SharePoint with new systems and processes. While this year has been about Business as Usual following our commencement as a new team, we’ve also been particularly excited to support the development of an HSC Science Extension Conference for students. Our pilot, Macquarie [EX]plore, will take place in September this year.

Pictured: A sneak peek of the new Sharepoint for FSE Outreach Strategy

What’s planned for the future – anything exciting on the horizon?

We are so busy and there are so many things happening! We’re working hard to develop more initiatives for the coming year and creating more opportunities for face-to-face engagement, including a focus on Women in STEM, among other things. We’re making lots of new connections and getting to know more people across our faculty and throughout the university, to let them know who we are, what we do, and how we can work together. It’s so nice to be able to link so many partners across the faculty. Then September will be particularly busy for us, as we work on our first international conference, Communicating Astronomy to the Public; our first major school event, the Macquarie Explore Conference; and the big one, we are leading the return of a huge community event, Astronomy Open Night.

How can we contact you or find out more?

We can be reached via our team email: fse.outreach@mq.edu.au and are happy to answer your outreach questions or point you in the right direction. Before the end of the year, we will also have our SharePoint live!

Featured image (Pictured L to R): Mel Pallesen, Kelly Sharpless, Jo Aboud and Jojo Er

The Advancement Office experienced some changes this year and is now known as the Philanthropy Team reporting to the Office of the Vice-Chancellor. We thought it was the perfect time to highlight this very important area of the University.

Who are you?

The Philanthropy team is led by Hedda Paisley, the Executive Director. The engine room, the place in which everything gets done, includes Eresha De Silva – Prospect Research Manager, Candice Man Yan – Campaign Project Officer, Lyndon Davis – Gift Processing Officer, Ruwanthi Gunaratne – Gift Processing Officer and Anne Van Uden – Administration Officer.

The Major Gifts, Community and Individual team covers everything from small gifts from individuals, community events and annual giving to large donations from high-net-worth donors and Private Ancillary Funds. This team includes Lesley Malarkey – Senior Development Manager, Andrew Graves – Development Manager Major Gifts, Samantha Rosenfels – Development Manager Major Gifts, Stephen Gallagher – Development Officer Major Gifts and Jackie Gent – Development Officer Community and Individual Giving.

The Trusts and Foundations team works with Philanthropic Foundations, Trusts and Public Ancillary Funds. They work very closely with the Research Office, Faculties and researchers to secure philanthropic support. This team includes Manasi Kogekar – Senior Development Manager Trusts and Foundations and Courtney Sullivan – Development Manager Trusts and Foundations.

How do you contribute to the University’s mission?

The Philanthropy Team creates, develops and manages relationships with alumni, friends and donors, and other supporters who help advance the University’s mission. Our vision is to create a lasting and impactful legacy for the University, its students, academics, researchers and the community through building deep relationships and raising funds in an ethical, transparent, and sustainable way.

Our role is to build long term, respectful and productive relationships with donors, supporters, alumni and within our team. We work in partnership with the University Executive, Executive Deans and professional staff colleagues in identifying and stewarding donors and supporters, and in turn, promote the good name of the University.

What are some things that motivate people to give to Macquarie?

This may come as a surprise, but one of the top reasons people give for donating is because they were asked! So, it is our job to ask. Our job is also to ask for the right amount at the right time and for the right cause. Gifts are very personal, and it is the job of the fundraiser to match the cause with the donor.

Whether it’s a million-dollar gift, or a smaller one of just $5, we make sure the donor is thanked properly for their generosity. All gifts both large and small make a difference.

How has COVID impacted the team’s activities this year?

Unable to hold many of our physical donor events our team has held virtual events via Zoom, including changing our Archibald Prize dinner usually held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The annual Firies Climb for MND was put on hold and reverted to a peer-to-peer fundraising event #1504forMND, which individuals can complete in their own time.

What have been some the team’s highlights of 2021?

In spite of COVID-19, our team exceeded our target for the year of philanthropic funds by raising $17.3 million (target: $15 million) and is on track to exceed our target for philanthropic funds received. We have also held some fantastic events such as the Archibald Prize online donor event, and one with the Lincoln Legacy Society for donors who have committed to leaving a gift in their will to support a wide range of inspiring student and research projects.

We have been part of successful grant wins such as Dr Andy Barron receiving over $295,000 from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation to develop an early-warning system to enable beekeepers to detect hives at risk of decline and help halt the decline of the honeybee population. Additionally, we have seen $1.38m raised in 2020/2021 to support the Macquarie University Centre for Motor Neuron Disease Research to help fund clinical trials, biobank and the MND Clinic which is run entirely on donations.

Anything exciting on the horizon?

The Trusts and Foundations team has developed a new strategy for 2022 and beyond which focuses on proactively building relationships with both international (US, Asia) and local Trusts and Foundations. We aim to actively pitch our researchers’ work to these Foundations to obtain even more funding to support their ground-breaking research.

The Major Gifts, Community and Individual Giving Teams will be organising a number of cultivation and stewardship events in 2022 for current and prospective donors.

How can staff engage with Philanthropy?

This month, we are launching a Scholarship Appeal to raise money to support deserving students. Students face tougher financial challenges and barriers to education than ever before and we are appealing to alumni, staff and the MQ community to help them. Find out more here.

The Trusts and Foundations team provides support and expert guidance to academics and staff who are applying for philanthropic grants. A list of these funders is available on the MQ Research webpage here. Please reach out to the team if you are applying for a grant from a Trust or Foundation on advancement.grants@mq.edu.au.

The Philanthropy Team now falls under the Office of the Vice Chancellor and our current office location is in the Hearing Hub, Level 2, 16 University Way. If you’d like to contact us, feel free to reach out on 02 9850 1386 or mqadvancement@mq.edu.au.

The Workplace Health and Safety Unit, along with the Risk and Resilience Unit. forms Group Risk led by Chief Risk Officer Kylie McKiernan. This department sits within Robin Payne’s executive portfolio, Vice President, Finance and Resources.

Who are you?

Our team comprises: Lance Islip (1) who manages our team; our trusted WHS advisers  Louise Devine (5), Sonya Hendricks (10), Tina McDonald (7), Brian Meadows (6), and Matthew Stafford (9).

Also, in the team are Injury Management and Recovery at Work Coordinator Felicity Skeates (4) , Hazardous Materials Compliance Coordinator Lisa Moncur (8), Health and Safety Training Consultant Lachlan McPhail (3), and our WHS team administrator Sue Rogers (2).

How do you contribute to the University’s mission?

People who feel safe are more productive. Our team focuses on practical, proactive, health and safety risk management to support the University community to flourish, and to achieve a positive and effective workplace culture and environment. We aim for health and safety to be part of, not separate from, all core business activities.

Each of our Advisers has a portfolio of responsibility which you can find in our WHS Hub.

Our team assists with safety and compliance by providing management and oversight of the University’s safety management systems and related training. This involves working with managers, staff and others to try to ensure ongoing identification, assessment, control, monitoring and evaluation of WHS hazards and associated risks. When you are looking for ways to avoid injuring yourself or others then we are here to help.

We also manage key relationships with stakeholders and external agencies; the WHS reporting system, including investigations and data review; support and monitor those with work related illness or injury through the Recovery at Work Program.

A recent achievement you’re proud of?

We noticed that WHS information was not as easy to find as it should be and unless you know where to look, you didn’t know what you might be missing. The Faculty of Science and Engineering suggested a SharePoint solution to this and together we have created the WHS Hub. We would like to acknowledge the great site foundation work of FSE in this initiative, in particular, Sue Law.

The WHS Hub has been designed with the intention of being a one stop shop for health and safety information and we would encourage you to visit. We strive for continual improvement so if you have a scathingly brilliant suggestion for inclusions or don’t find what you were looking for, please let us know.

Anything exciting on the horizon?

October is National Safe Work Month as well as National Mental Health Month, so expect to hear a lot more from our team in coming weeks. Check out our WHS Hub for a calendar of virtual events, such as Improvised Ergonomics and working from home; How to navigate safety for Managers, or in Office environments.

There will also be a presentation by Professor Nick Titov, Executive Director, of MindSpot: “Creating a psychologically safe workplace: Tips for checking in on your team”

October will also see the release of an online program for understanding and managing your mental health, which will be available for staff via Workday and on the iLearn platform for students.

What would you like staff to know about what you do?

One misconception  is that we are responsible for everyone’s safety. Safety is not “done” by the WHS team – each member of the Macquarie community has their part to play. As the Safety Month motto says, we need to think safe, be safe, work safe.

Anyone can sustain an injury in the workplace.  Despite our best efforts to prevent injuries/ illness from occurring, they can still happen to any of us.  In the event of injury, please let us know. We will be there to support and assist you during your recovery at work and together prevent recurrences.

If you have a safety issue or concern, please let your people leader know and log a ROAR. ROAR reports go through to your portfolio WHS advisor for review and response.

The WHS team can help you decipher the standards and law around safety. As they say, ‘there is no stupid question’. We welcome any general health and safety enquiries which can be sent to whs@mq.edu.au for attention.

The team loves to help and are committed to helping you stay safe. We want to hear from you and hear you ‘ROAR’!

With teaching at the heart of what we do at the University, we meet the people who help ensure our staff are supported to facilitate quality learning for students.

Who are you?

The Learning and Teaching Staff Development team was established in April 2020, within the portfolio of the DVC (Academic), reporting to the PVC (Learning and Teaching).

The team is led by Associate Professor Agnes Bosanquet and includes Fidel Fernando, Dr Karina Luzia, Kylie Coaldrake and Dr Mathew Hillier. We work closely with other members of the PVC (Learning and Teaching) office, including Quality Assurance lead Cathy Rytmeister and the Teaching Evaluation for Development Service (TEDS) team, Michael Marston and Alana Mailey.

What do you do?

In line with the priorities of the Operating Plan, the Learning and Teaching Staff Development team works with staff across the University to ensure they are supported to facilitate quality learning for students. This includes offering professional development, contributing to curriculum and assessment design, recognising and rewarding good practice, supporting peer review of teaching, and leading scholarly reflection.

The TEDS team manages the ordering and processing of student feedback surveys on teaching and units, and provides guidance on the evaluation of teaching.

What’s planned for Session 2?

We will be busy during Session 2 as we are launching a Staff Induction module, and a program for new teachers. The Beginning to Teach program for new teachers will support the work of Faculty Learning Designers to pilot a Teaching Online program, to create resources to support teaching during COVID-19, and launch communities of practice.

We are also offering workshops on demand for 15 or more participants on a range of learning and teaching topics.

Why do you do it?

We are passionate about learning in higher education. This includes continuous learning for teaching staff. We want to showcase the excellent work happening across the University and provide evidence-based support to teachers. Our overarching goal is to build strong relationships between teachers and students.

What’s a recent achievement you’re proud of?

The Professional Learning and Capability Enhancement (PLaCE) framework has recently been approved by the Executive Group, after extensive consultation across the University and endorsement by SLTC, ASQC and Senate.

PLaCE makes explicit the capabilities for developing teachers and teaching support staff. It is structured across five levels of competence (Foundational, Proficient, Accomplished, Highly Accomplished and Expert) and five domains of educational practice and development: Learning and Teaching Scholarship in Higher Education; Student Learning and Support; Curriculum and Assessment; Reflection and Feedback on Practice; and Developing Self and Others.

What’s planned for the future?

The PLaCE framework is just the first step. Behind the scenes, we are developing resources including staff personas that exemplify capability development, a glossary of terms, and scholarly and practical descriptors for each capability. We are also creating and piloting professional development programs and initiatives.

Our vision is an online interactive version of the framework that enables teachers and teaching support staff to self-assess against the capabilities and identify professional learning opportunities. We want staff to be able to evidence this work in an e-portfolio and we are exploring options for micro-credentialing, recognising good practice, and supporting scholarship and leadership of teaching.

Where can we learn more?

Subscribe to the Teche blog for updates about professional learning offerings. Email professional.learning@mq.edu.au with questions or requests.

Who are you?

We are the Pre Award team from Research Services, and there are three main services we provide:

Research Partnerships Managers: Identify, develop and manage relationships with private sector, government and philanthropic organisations and industry groups, and identify and facilitate research funding opportunities. Our Research Partnerships Managers are Mark Berlage, Daniel Johnston, and J-L Heylen.

Proposals Team: Provides advice and support to ensure compliance with funding rules and is responsible for proposal submissions. The Proposals Team consists of three Proposals Officers – Fiona Collison, Rebecca Syler and Donna Burgess – and is led by Team Leader Anita Quinn.

Research Development Managers: Work closely with researchers to develop highly competitive track records and applications. Our Research Development Managers are Courtney Bendall (NHMRC) and Ross Hill (ARC).

The Manager of the Pre Award team is Erin Semon.

What do you do?

In a nutshell, we are a professional services team who facilitate identifying, developing and managing the carriage of high-quality research in the form of corporate partnership or grant applications to funders within Australia and beyond. The teams within Pre Award offer specialist services to support a range of activities from grant applications and collaborative research partnerships, to internal research funding schemes.

Why do you do it?

The Pre Award team is excited by the opportunity to work with our amazing researchers and to help them secure the funding and partnerships that contribute innovative solutions to some of our world’s biggest problems.

Ross Hill, Research Development Manager, aptly notes: “We are lucky enough to work with researchers from all disciplines on their newest ideas and assist them in having the best chance of being awarded funding. And when a grant is successful, we share in the researcher’s excitement.”

Any frequent misunderstandings or misconceptions about what your team does?

Great question! Common misconceptions:

• We write grant applications. In fact, we don’t! We do, however, help researchers with their applications. Researchers are the subject matter experts for their research and need to draft the applications. We are the subject matter experts when it comes to funding schemes, navigating contracts and IP negotiations, and assisting with research contracts. We can help, but we can’t write it for you.
• Eligibility and compliance checking are ‘nice to have’ but not necessary. Nope! These are very important steps in the submission of a funding proposal. The feedback we provide during eligibility and compliance checks ensures that funding applications will make it to the assessment panels.
• We can project manage your research projects. We can help you apply for funding and we can assist you with your research partnerships, but we do not project manage your projects.
• Internal deadlines for grant submissions are an exercise in organisational bureaucracy. We know how much work and time researchers put into funding proposals and we want to see each application submitted by Macquarie having the highest possible chance of success. For every ARC or NHMRC application submitted, the Pre Award team invests more than 15 hours of time strategically reviewing, eligibility and compliance checking, and offering advice for improvements along the way. The internal deadlines ensure there is enough time for us to give researchers meaningful feedback and for the researchers to incorporate our feedback into their proposals prior to submission.

What’s a recent achievement you’re proud of?

Every time a researcher is awarded funding or secures that research partner they were working towards, the Pre Award team celebrates.

The Research Partnerships Managers’ recent ‘big wins’ include:

• Assisting with Macquarie’s successful bid to host a CRC, SmartCrete CRC
• Assisting with Macquarie’s successful bid for an ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology
• Assisting Macquarie’s submission to the NSW COVID-19 grant schemes which will make certain that Macquarie takes a lead in assisting NSW in responding to and managing the impacts of COVID-19.

Across the team, we were incredibly excited about the recent ARC Linkage Projects successes. The whole Pre Award team made contributions: from building partnerships (Research Partnerships Managers) to developing a competitive application (Ross Hill) to ensuring eligibility and compliance with the schemes complex rules (Proposals Team). In this scheme Macquarie had 8 of 13 applications successfully funded (61.5% success rate, total of $3,135,293). Nationally, Macquarie was ranked 7th in the number of approved applications, 4th in success rate, and 8th in approved ARC funding.

We are also proud to work within an award-winning professional team. Ross Hill was awarded the Australasian Research Management Society (ARMS) and CSIRO Award for Excellence in Research Management Practice in 2017. The Proposals Team was awarded the ARMS and CSIRO Award for Excellence in Research Management Practice in 2018. Fiona Collison, Proposals Officer, was awarded the ARMS 2019 Chapter Travel Awards Program to attend the ARMS Adelaide conference in September 2019.

What’s planned for the future?

The recent launch of the University’s new Operating Plan will create exciting new opportunities for the Pre Award team. We look forward to helping Macquarie with the research income goals and are keen to see how our input will help increase research funding opportunities across campus.

How can we engage with you?

To learn more and to contact us, visit the research funding and grants opportunities website.

In ‘Spotlight on…’ we showcase different teams across campus, to give you a better understanding of who does what at Macquarie. This week, we meet the Corporate Engagement team.

Who are you?
Corporate Engagement is a professional services team in the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Engagement portfolio. You can find our Strategic Partnerships team at 58 Waterloo Road and our Faculty Engagement Managers on campus (they might just be sitting next to you).

What do you do?
Our team’s mission is to create impact for Macquarie by fostering mutually beneficial relationships with businesses and industry partners. We promote the University’s research and teaching to current and potential partners and facilitate the exchange/generation of ideas between partners and our university community.

Just recently, we supported Macquarie University Ageing and Aged Care Network to attend and exhibit at the Australian Association of Gerontology. This was also the official launch of the product of a 6-month collaboration with faculties and Group Marketing, the Macquarie University Ageing and Aged Care Capability Statement. When supporting initiatives like this, we consider factors like positioning the University, visibility (exposure) to industry and peers, and strategic direction.

 Why do you do it?
We’re here because we care and want to make impactful change for our community. If we can connect a student, academic or researcher to an organisation and that leads to new opportunities in research, teaching or innovation, then that’s a job well done. We also work on more complex initiatives that aim to position Macquarie as a partner of choice in our immediate surrounding in Macquarie Park and beyond.

Because we know that impactful relationships form with time and no two partnerships are alike, we listen carefully and are creative in our approach. If you don’t already know a member of our team, let us know so we can grab a coffee and get to know you. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do with business or industry, then we’re here to help.

Who do you most frequently work with?
The question is, ‘who don’t we work with?’. In any given week our team is meeting with students, staff, start-ups, small businesses, multi-national companies, industry associations and networks, other national and international universities and many more.  Some household names we’re currently partnering with include Optus, Microsoft, Accenture, Johnson & Johnson and Google.

What are some recent achievements that you’re proud of?

There have been many recent success stories across campus that we’ve contributed to. We’re particularly proud of:

• The signing of a second 5-year Memorandum of Understanding with the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment
• Fledge Innovation Labs, a specialist in medtech commercialisation taking up residence at the University’s School of Engineering on 44 Waterloo Road
• A successful pilot of the Engagement Support Program – we’ve supported 60 academics across campus this year with small grants and training to boost their industry engagement
• Developing sector-based capability statements for defence and the ageing and aged care sectors that show our great multi-disciplinary expertise to industry
• Seeing our work in the Macquarie Park Innovation District (MPID) grow as more start-ups and commercialisation is occurring here and Venture Café builds the community.

What’s planned for the future? Anything exciting on the horizon?
For 2020 we’re looking to roll out an even more comprehensive Engagement Support Program to more academics. MPID is about to enter an exciting new phase where we are working with local stakeholders to develop a new vision for the innovation precinct. There is over $5 billion being invested here, and we want this to be a really exciting place to be. And we will continue to grow our major partnerships like Cochlear, Optus, Fujitsu and Siemens.

Where can we learn more?
We’re always happy to meet with you, the better we get to know you the more we can help. Just send us an email at ce@mq.edu.au.

Strategic Procurement is all about ideation, creation, delivery and continuous improvement of procurement-related policies, frameworks and tools. The team recently launched a new Strategic Procurement Framework, ProcureRight – smarter procurement with (you)^us, which they’ll be explaining at the upcoming Strategic Procurement Town Hall.

We asked the team to tell us a little more about themselves.

 Who are you?
Group Strategic Procurement

What do you do?
Procurement is a complex function that supports the business in selecting and appointing a supplier, from identification of a need to signatures on a contract. We are a small team of advisors that is available to you as much or as little as you need on your procurement journey.

Procurement is not to be confused with purchasing, another important Group function, which is concerned with the process of ordering, receiving and paying for goods and services.

Why do you do it?
In support of its teaching and research objectives, Macquarie spends significant amounts of money. Good procurement ensures the University gets better value for this spending, and ensures money is spent sensibly, fairly and transparently – our role in Strategic Procurement is to ensure there’s a robust procurement process in place.

Given the complexity of the operating environment under which we conduct our business, we try to make procurement as simple as possible for you and we try to make it fun.

Who do you most frequently work with?
While procurement is not the University’s core business, it is core to almost everything that the University does. It is an enabler. To meaningfully develop the procurement function and framework in a way that will be sure to stick (rather than need to be enforced), we conducted consultation and change management before we started the development of the new procurement framework, ProcureRight.

While we don’t directly engage with undergraduate students, we do with just about everyone else at Macquarie. In the course of preparing for the changes that we’re now undertaking, we directly interviewed 209 University stakeholders – teachers, researchers, professional staff, postgraduate students and the Executive. We also work closely with our suppliers and partners to ensure that they understand our operating environment as well as our values and principles.

Since the launch of ProcureRight in September, we have held consultations and information sessions for in excess of 400 staff. It’s fantastic to see how well received it’s been so far, and we’ve collected some great feedback which we’ll use to make it even better.

What’s a recent achievement you’re proud of?
We recently launched the University-wide ProcureRight framework. It’s based on three fundamental principles: trust, empowerment and accountability.

The ProcureRight framework makes it simple and easy for users to align with the University’s operating environment and the probity and governance principles under which we conduct our business. In return, our team assumes full accountability for the governance and tools provided in the ProcureRight framework.

What’s planned for the future? Anything exciting on the horizon?
We’re looking forward to the Procurement Town Hall we’re holding on Tuesday, 3 December (more information to follow in This Week soon) and our ongoing engagement with as many individuals and groups across the University as possible.

We’ll soon be launching the TravelRight framework, including the new University-wide travel policy and all-new travel systems and processes. The Travel Management Services Request for Tender is well underway, and we’ll be announcing the new and improved travel program very soon. Watch this space!

How do you engage with us? Where can we learn more?
You can find the ProcureRight Framework here on the Strategic Procurement webpage.

If you have an interest in Strategic Procurement, contact the Director, Strategic Procurement at Natalie.Budovsky@mq.edu.au. For general enquiries, email procurement@mq.edu.au.

As a society, we have access to more data than ever before. Sometimes it is hard to know what it means and what to do with it all.

Here at Macquarie, the need to analyse and understand the numbers is imperative to our function, informs our operations and ultimately impacts how we attract researchers and students.

But where does that information come from? Meet the team behind this important science and find out how they can help you in your everyday job.

Who are you?

We are the Business Intelligence and Reporting (BIR) team – previously known as Strategic Planning and Information (SPI). Essentially, we are a data-savvy team of 11 with a new director, Sean Preusse, who joined our team in August. You can find us on Level 5 of the Australian Hearing Hub.

What do you do?

The short answer? We work with data, of course! Whether we are collecting it, analysing it, reporting it, defining it, generating actionable insights from it, or strategically planning around it, data is at the core of everything we do.

The not-so-short answer? Our work within Macquarie revolves around five core functions:

Business intelligence and analytics

Our team analyses quantitative and qualitative data and provides this to the University community for accurate information, improved decision-making, and easier collaboration.

Load monitoring, forecasting, and insights

We collect and analyse information, and provide insights on trends and potential issues, to help the University Executive strategically plan for the future.

Statutory reporting

Our team is responsible for data collection on enrolments, student load, courses, unit of study completions, course completions, applications, HECS-HELP, FEE-HELP and OS-HELP.

Not only do we manage mandatory reporting requirements, we also provide calculated advice and assistance to the University community to ensure Macquarie is meeting its reporting requirements.

Surveys

We manage and analyse data from the federal governments’ QILT surveys (Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching)and other institutional surveys to develop reports that support major planning and quality improvement processes of the University. We also provide insights and trend analyses to compare our student experience and graduate outcomes against other universities.

University rankings

We prepare and submit data to relevant institutional rankings organisations such as Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). We are also involved in the University’s rankings strategy development and the provision of related data and analysis.

Above all, the service we provide supports the entire Macquarie community.

Why do you do it?

We believe strongly in making Macquarie University the best it can be – this means providing independent, unbiased information and insights to reflect how Macquarie is performing now, and to facilitate improvement for the future.

Who do you most frequently work with?

Absolutely everyone! We work with (and for) the entire University community so we get to work with a lot of incredible people including University Executive, members from every faculty and office, all divisions, and external stakeholders, including the state and federal government.

What’s a recent achievement you’re proud of?

In January this year, our team created a dashboard about offers and enrolments which has over 5500 views already! This makes us so proud because it means we have presented the data in a way that people can interact with and gain insights from to make Macquarie University the best it can be. When it comes to data visualisation, our ethos is ‘less is always more’. By keeping dashboards clean, more insight can be gained. Want to know more about presenting your data? Then don’t miss our ‘Data Storytelling’ presentation on Monday, 18 November. Email us for more information.

We also moved our load forecasting model to an interactive platform called Calumo which makes it much easier for users to understand and interact with the data in more meaningful ways.

As of this year, we host a Business Intelligence Community of Practice (CoP) for attendees across Macquarie every month. This allows us to better service the University community by asking how data is used and how the data service can be improved. We also use this space to showcase our projects and dashboards, to allow other teams to showcase theirs, and occasionally to invite external experts to present, in order to make data insights accessible to everyone.

What’s planned for the future? Anything exciting on the horizon?

Planning for the future is in our job description! So, we always have many exciting projects on the horizon to make Macquarie even better. Currently, our largest and most ambitious project is creating a Data Warehouse in a cloud-based environment to store and govern all the data that the University captures. This is a first for Macquarie and will facilitate a much more seamless data service. Not only will it make operations more efficient by generating a single source of truth for all information, but it will allow the University to wield greater control over data and how it is used.

How do you engage with us? Where can we learn more?

Visit our webpage or email us anytime.

‘Spotlight on…’ is our way of showcasing different teams across campus to increase engagement, cohesion and an understanding of who does what at Macquarie. This week, we talk to the team from the newly created Academy of Continuing Professional Development in Education (ACPDE).

Who are you?
The Academy of Continuing Professional Development in Education (ACPDE) officially formed at the start of 2018 and is situated in the Department of Educational Studies within the Faculty of Human Sciences. The new team consists of Director, Dr Iain Hay; Deputy Director, Dr Kim Wilson; Manager, Betty Romero; Administration Officer, Nikki de Souza; Learning Designer, Shazia K-Jan; and Endorsed Provider and Quality Assurance Project Officer, Ray Gillies.

What do you do?
The Academy works with academics and researchers across the University, as well as outstanding school-based practitioners to develop and deliver a variety of professional development courses for early childhood educators, school teachers, principals and school leaders. All of the ACPDE courses are designed to meet the rigorous standards of the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). The Academy also engages with industry partners and other international and local organisations interested in co-designing professional development courses tailored to meet their local needs.

Why do you do it?
The changing nature of education and the teaching profession means teachers need to constantly develop alongside these changes. To be a registered teacher in Australia (and in many other countries) requires evidence of engagement with ongoing professional development throughout the career stages of proficient teacher; highly-accomplished teacher and lead teacher. This ensures that teachers are up-to-date with the latest developments in learning and teaching strategies, technology in classroom, child development, and policy and regulations. All of which supports the quality teaching agenda.

We know that quality teaching makes the biggest in-school difference to student outcomes. Macquarie is well positioned to become a preferred provider of high quality, research-informed professional development courses for educators.

The University has many industry network connections, a great wealth of knowledge and evidence-based information on many diverse topics that can be used to make a positive impact in the community. We see the Academy as the vehicle to spread this knowledge that enables school teachers to continue to develop across their teaching career by learning directly from the experts who are leaders in their fields.

Who do you most frequently work with?
We engage with different groups across Macquarie, from researchers and academics, to professional services, such human resources and finance. We also work with external stakeholders such as NSW HUB schools network, early childhood education, Catholic Education, Independent schools, NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), NSW Department of Education, and various international organisations leading professional development programs globally. These stakeholders tend to influence the quality and types of professional development courses we produce so it’s important we work quite closely with them.

What’s a recent achievement you’re proud of?
The Academy has been in the making for the last 12 months, and as is the case with any start-up, we gained many learning experiences during the journey, which have helped the Academy come to life. The team’s persistence has been key in addressing the challenges we’ve faced regarding developing systems and procedures to support the ACPDE operations. We’ve come a long way, so the team is very proud to see the Academy become a reality at the end of May.

Anything exciting on the horizon?
We’re excited about the growing opportunities in the Continuing Professional Development space. We have submitted EOIs to deliver professional development courses for a number of government agencies.

The Academy has been awarded an education innovation grant (discovery phase) from IBM to provide advice on developing customised curriculum and resources for teachers (PD) and students. With the aim being to help understand and use artificial intelligence technology and education as a pathway to jobs in this area. This is a global activity and we will be working with an IBM identified university partner in the UK.

We have also been provided funding from Widening Participation to deliver the LEAP – Digital Literacy (Teacher PD) program to schools situated in low socio-economic communities.

How can we engage with you? Where can we learn more?
We welcome opportunities to collaborate on PD courses for teachers. At this stage, the best way to engage with us is our email address cpd-teachers@mq.edu.au.

People can view our website to browse courses on offer, future offerings and detailed documentation on our processes and policies for developing courses.

Check out the Academy’s diverse professional development units for teachers across the University.