As UQ’s premier event of the year in New York, the dinner features a panel of renowned Australian and international rugby legends, the awarding of the esteemed Dr Mark Loane AM Medal and raises funds for The University of Queensland in America, Inc. (TUQIA) priorities, the UQ Rugby Club and Play Rugby USA.

This year’s stellar line-up includes ex-Wallaby Captain, Stephen Moore AM, former Wallaby and Fox Sports commentator, Drew Mitchell, former Springbok, Pedrie Wannenburg and former British and Irish Lions player, Tom Court.

Event details:

Date: Thursday 7 November

Time: 6:30pm – 10:00pm

Location: Manhattan Manor, 201 W 52^nd St, New York, NY

Cost: Individual ticket US$250; Tables from US$2,300

Details: Ticket includes a three-course dinner, beverages (including premium spirits) and the chance to win fantastic rugby paraphernalia and auction items.

RSVP: By Thursday 31 October 2019

Sponsored Table Offering

Captain’s Table: USD $7,500 (*USD $500 of your overall table cost is tax deductible)

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• Goodie bag with local and Australian offers for each guest
• Verbal acknowledgement of sponsorship at the opening of the UQ Rugby Dinner
• Significant brand exposure (if relevant) on all event collateral and promotional material, printed and digital

Platinum Table: USD $5,000 (*USD $500 of your overall table cost is tax deductible)

• Invitation to the exclusive pre-function event
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• Goodie bag with local and Australian offers for each guest
• Brand exposure (if relevant) on all event collateral and promotional material, printed and digital

Gold Table: USD $3,500 (*USD $500 of your overall table cost is tax deductible)

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Corporate Table: USD $2,300 (*USD $500 of your overall table cost is tax deductible)

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Individual Ticket: USD $250 (*USD $50 of your overall table cost is tax deductible)

2019 Panellists

Drew Mitchell (70 Test Caps for the Wallabies)

Brisbane born and bred, Mitchell was educated at St Patrick’s College in Shorncliffe and played his junior rugby for the Pine Rivers Pumas Rugby Union club before going on to play for the University of Queensland Rugby Club.

Mitchell made his international debut for the Wallabies against South Africa in 2005, after being selected off the back of a season with the Queensland Reds in which he scored 11 tries and was named Australia’s rookie of the year.

Mitchell is Australia’s highest try scorer in World Cup history.

Today, Mitchell is a Rugby Commentator at Fox Sports and enjoys running marathons.

Tom Court (32 Caps for Ireland)

Court was born in Brisbane, Australia and began his sporting career as a shot-putter. He was the Australian University Champion for three years running and attended Olympic trials in 2002.

In 2004, Court started playing rugby at The University of Queensland at 24 years of age.

In his first season at UQ, Court went from playing 6^th grade to starting in the Premier Grade Grand Final. After a short stint in the New Zealand NPC for Manawatu, Tom returned to Australia and was selected to play for the Queensland Reds only 12 months after his first game.

Court went on to represent the Ireland A side at the 2006 Churchill Cup only 16 months after playing his first game of rugby union.

Court achieved his first international cap for Ireland against Italy in the 2009 Six Nations where Ireland went on to win the tournament and claim the Grand Slam for the first time in 61 years.

Court was named as part of Ireland’s Rugby World Cup Squad in 2011, and played in the Irish 15-6 victory over Australia on 17 September 2011.

In 2013, Court was named in the British and Irish Lions team for their tour of Australia.

Since retiring in 2017, Tom Court has since returned to Australia and is working at The University of Queensland at the Graduate School.

Stephen Moore AM

Moore began his rugby career in Queensland, playing schools rugby for the Rockhampton Pioneers and Brisbane Grammar school prior to joining the University of Queensland Rugby Club, where he went on to represent the Australian under 19s.

He made is Super Rugby debut in 2003 for the Queensland Reds against the Bulls.

Moore first made the Australian Wallabies squad in 2005 where he debuted against Samoa.

In early 2009, Moore moved from Brisbane to Canberra to represent the Brumbies where he played until 2016.

In 2014, Moore was first named captain for the Wallabies squad.

Moore is the only Australian hooker to have played 100 Tests and is Australia’s most capped Super Rugby player of all time.

Since his retirement from rugby, Moore has joined North Australian Pastoral Company as General Manager.

Earlier this year, Moore was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in recognition of his “significant service to rugby union, and to charitable organisations”.

More speakers to be announced…

On the night, we will be awarding one of the University’s most prestigious sports medals, the Dr Mark Loane AM Medal, to America’s most outstanding high school rugby player.

Research to unlock the potential of peptides and proteins found in Australian flora and fauna for applications such as the next generation medicines and bio-friendly pesticides will be the focus of a new research centre to be based at The University of Queensland.

The Federal Minister for Education Dan Tehan MP has announced $35 million in funding to establish the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science.

UQ Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Peter Høj AC said he was thrilled that UQ had successfully secured three Centres of Excellence in this round.

“This is a tremendous outcome for the University which will see a $102 million injection of funding into UQ-led research,” Professor Peter Høj said.

“With three of the nine highly sought-after ARC Centres of Excellence awarded to UQ, we have now secured more centres than any other university – not only in this round but since the scheme’s inception in 2003 – which exemplifies UQ’s leadership in innovation and transformational research over the past 15 years.

“Earlier this month the Federal Minister announced the ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture at UQ, as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course.

“This latest Centre will tackle biology’s next big challenge to uncover proteins and peptides that could lead to improvements in the food industry, pharmaceuticals and ecofriendly bio-pesticides.”

Director of the new Centre Professor David Craik, from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, said the centre aimed to unleash the potential of peptides and proteins for the benefit of both the local and global communities.

“Peptides and proteins are the building blocks of life that carry out almost all biological functions, and contain huge amounts of complex information which is compressed into the cells of living organisms,” he said.

“Unpacking this information, understanding its meaning and harnessing it for human benefit is one of the grand challenges of the 21st century.”

Researchers aim to discover new proteins from natural sources and develop technologies to apply solutions to science, agriculture, engineering, animal health and medicine.

Peptides acting as ecofriendly bio-pesticides have already been discovered in the venom of the Australian funnel-web spider, and potential antibiotics isolated from koala and Tasmanian devil milk.

In the global research effort, UQ will collaborate with the Australian National University, Edith Cowan University, Monash University, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Sydney, and 20 academic and industry partner organisations from Australia, Europe, Asia and America.

More information about the ARC Centres of Excellence program is on the ARC website.

Image above: Professor David Craik (left)

Media contact: IMB Communications, communications@imb.uq.edu.au, +61 (0) 405 661 856

A free online University of Queensland course aimed at community development workers has received a United Nations accolade.

The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network award of excellence for UQ’s Critical Development Perspectives edX course was announced in New York.

Professor Mark Moran, Group Leader of Development Effectiveness at UQ’s Institute for Social Science Research, said the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) was developed for UQ’s Leadership in Global Development MicroMasters program.

It was one of three recognised internationally by the SDG Academy and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Professor Moran (pictured) said there was “a vast array” of arguments about the definition of development and how it can be achieved.

“A leader in development must be able to understand, appreciate, evaluate and broker between differing and sometimes conflicting perspectives and ideas,” he said.

“The course develops critical thinking and analysis skills, and introduces some of the contemporary debates and current challenges facing development practice.

“The MOOC’s success is largely due to the teamwork and knowledge-sharing during the course development,” he said.

“It was a tremendous collaboration between UQx, ISSR and an amazing group of global academics and practitioners who are leading current debates in international development.”

Professor Moran thanked the UQx Course Design and Development team, the ISSR’s Erin Lord Lynch, UQx manager John Zornig, media production leader Matt Petersen, learning design leader Linda MacDonald and course project manager Stella Winn.

Mr Zornig attributed the course’s success to the development team putting students and their experience first.

“We sought to bring students face-to-face with complex issues in contemporary debates and current challenges facing international development practice,” he said.

“We built the course to an ambitious design based on three years of MOOC-building experience at UQ to produce Australia’s first MicroMasters program.”

The awards recognise courses that demonstrate expert knowledge and leadership, are artfully presented, highly engaging, show commitment to UN sustainable development goals and build knowledge and capacity around the implementation of those goals.

Professor Moran presents a short video on the course here.

Contact: Jessica Cruff, j.cruff@uq.edu.au, ph +61 7 3365 6211.

Giving Day is officially over! And what a day it has been. It’s been overwhelming to see how generous and passionate the UQ community is. We’ve now completely beaten our goal and have reached over 1300 donors for causes across the university. Some donations are still being processed, so we’ll come back with a final update in the next 48 hours.

Thank you again to everyone who was involved. Your dedication is inspiring, and you’re all ChangeMakers!

 

The University of Queensland has continued a stellar year in global rankings, jumping three places in the highly regarded Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.

In a field of almost 1400 research-intensive institutions, UQ is celebrating its move to 66^th in the world, maintaining fourth position in Australia.

Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Aidan Byrne said the achievement was gratifying in an increasingly competitive sector.

“I am thrilled to see UQ make a leap in these important rankings and sit comfortably among the top universities in the world,” Professor Byrne said.

“To put this achievement another way, UQ is ranked in the top five per cent of institutions globally.

“I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone at the University, because they have all played a role in this fantastic result.

“It is a testament to the continued hard work of our academic and professional staff who strive to keep UQ’s place among the top world universities despite increasing competition from international institutions.”

The five performance indicators for the 2020 THE World University Rankings were teaching, research, citations, international outlook, and industry income.

“In a challenging funding environment for the sector, a strong performance is of critical importance both to UQ and to the local economy,” Professor Byrne said.

UQ climbed to its highest ever position of 54^th globally in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and moved up to 47^th in the 2020 QS World University Rankings.

The University maintained its number one position in Australia in this year’s Nature Index, and was 40^th in the National Taiwan University (NTU) Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities.

Media: UQ Communications, communications@uq.edu.au, +64 7 3365 1120.