The University Strategic Plan 2017 - 2021 (pdf, 2.2 MB) charts an ambitious agenda for ANU. While acknowledging our proud history, and remarkable achievements, the plan does not disguise the imperative for change.

Pre-eminence in health and medicine is essential to delivering against this vision. Relative to other globally leading and Group of Eight Universities, the scale of health and medical sciences at ANU is small. We have many competitive advantages and clear decisions to make for the future regarding how we position the University in the current external environment for health and medicine, and where we focus our effort to achieve maximum impact and effect for the benefit of all Australians and achieve academic excellence commensurate with one of the top Universities in the world.

While there has been good progress in many areas since the 2013 ANU Review of Health and Medical Sciences, the changing external environment, and new funding and policy directions require a cohesive and integrated vision and strategy for health and medicine in the ACT to chart our future direction. The University’s future direction must address the issues of the scale and focus of our research in health and medicine, that an integrated partnership and strategy with the health sector will be essential to deliver. It must also embrace education and training of our future medical workforce.

The purpose of this consultation is to discuss whether a different internal ANU organisational structure that clusters core health and medical disciplines together in a single College with a new governance and leadership model is warranted to position us for the future.

We look forward to your participation and contributions to this consultation phase to inform the development of a white paper that will outline the new structure.

Consultation process

The University has set out the below timetable to meet and confer with staff, students and stakeholders regarding this Green Paper.
Feedback and comments are encouraged and can be directed to science.consultation@anu.edu.au.

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) is also available for small group sessions for more personal discussions with groups of ANU staff and students (ANUSA and PARSA), staff based at Canberra Hospital and external stakeholders to hear views about the Joint Colleges of Science structure that may benefit from a group discussion. Groups who may be interested in a face-to-face meeting, please send your request to science.consultation@anu.edu.au , indicating availability for 1 hour slots in the sessions indicated below.

** Noting that the Easter Break, Anzac Day Public Holiday and School holidays all fall in April, additional face-face to meetings will be scheduled if necessary for people who may not be available at the indicated times; please send requests to the consultation email address

Accessing linked files

If you are unable to access the documents this page links to, please contact science.consultation@anu.edu.au.