Our partnership
La Trobe is a great match for a partnership with Sheffield Hallam.
- We share a vision of the transformative power of universities
- We believe in the importance of providing students with opportunities to succeed at whatever they choose to do, irrespective of their background and personal circumstances
- We consider education and research as having the potential to address the most significant social, cultural and economic challenges
Both universities are connected to our regions. A significant proportion of our students come from within our respective regions, and we both provide opportunities for students who are from non-traditional backgrounds and/or the first in their family to attend university.
Alongside this, we both have an international profile – connecting globally to provide an international perspective to our teaching, learning and research.
The future of our partnership
As we look ahead to the next five years, our partnership will focus on projects under four focus areas:
- Innovative joint courses and experiences
- Internationally recognised, high impact joint research and innovation focused on global challenges
- Shared regional and global place-based commitments in support of communities and economies, with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship
- Impactful interventions in areas of special interest including student access and participation, staff development and climate change
Research collaboration: Global Security and Society Institute
Sheffield Hallam and La Trobe lead a new joint research institute to help societies tackle complex global security challenges, such as sophisticated cybercrime and cyberterrorism, the growth of artificial intelligence, and modern slavery.
The Global Security and Society Institute works with governments, intelligence agencies, industry and others to address critical global security problems and enhance the capability to respond to new emerging challenges.
Building on a well-established partnership between the two world-leading universities, researchers from both institutions bring together advanced technical expertise with humanitarian and social science perspectives – with a vision to develop more joint research and training in global security.
The partnership will also train the next generation of security academics, through joint international PhD programmes, teaching and learning at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and short courses.
Key partnership achievements
The initial priorities for collaboration were research, social mobility and collaborative undergraduate programmes. The global pandemic limited our ability to support some of our original ambitions. However, progress has been made in forging the partnership.
- We have a Semester Abroad programme, providing an opportunity for students from each university to spend one semester abroad
- We set up a new Semester Abroad programme, providing an opportunity for up to 50 students from each university to spend one semester abroad. This bespoke exchange offer enables students from La Trobe to study for one semester at Sheffield Hallam University, gaining transferable credit and a Sheffield Hallam University Award
- We brought our students together through collaborative projects, including an innovative audio theatre piece and online history project
- We secured significant external research funding, including $1.8m to boost dementia research through a collaboration between Swinburne University, La Trobe and Sheffield Hallam
- We created an internal research co-funding scheme to support 20 collaborative projects
- We started developing a critical friends network for doctoral students
- We signed a joint PhD contract, where each university will provide funding for three PhD students
- We co-launched the International Collaborative Programme, a unique collaborative degree course and joint PhD programme that sees Sheffield Hallam students spend one year at La Trobe and vice versa
About La Trobe University
La Trobe has been one of Australia's pioneering universities for more than 50 years - transforming people and societies.
With eight campuses in Melbourne, Sydney and across regional Victoria and New South Wales bring together students, academics, researchers and industry professionals who make a real impact every day. They offer a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees with a focus on student experience and graduate employability.
Whether it’s helping solve issues around foreign and defence policy, cybersecurity, global food insecurity, protecting the world’s biodiversity, understanding and preventing disease, or leading social change and equity, La Trobe is at the forefront of impactful research. That’s why the 2018 Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) National Report rates our research performance as ‘well above world standard’ in no less than 23 fields.
Ranked in the top one per cent of universities worldwide, La Trobe is positioned in the top 400 of all three major world university rankings. For the second year running, La Trobe University was named in the world’s top 250 universities, achieving a ranking of 218 in the 2022 Times Higher Education (THE) World Ranking.
La Trobe places its focus on social impact and inclusivity and they are in the Times Higher Education’s Top 20 universities globally for overall contribution to advancing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. This includes being in the top 10 universities worldwide for gender equality and being rated fourth internationally for health and wellbeing.
