Education and Research Training
NICTA’s (National ICT Australia) Sydney Research Laboratories at the Australian Technology Park (ATP) in Eveleigh and the Kensington campus of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) collaborate with UNSW and The University of Sydney to deliver enhanced research training for doctoral candidates undertaking ICT studies. This is known as the NICTA-enhanced PhD program.
Candidates enrolled in a NICTA-enhanced PhD program at either of these universities are supervised by a university-appointed panel. At least one member of the supervisory panel must be a NICTA researcher and at least one must be an academic in the candidate’s school of enrolment.
NICTA-enhanced PhDs may be undertaken in areas aligned with NICTA’s Research Themes, Business Areas and Projects. In the Sydney laboratories, NICTA’s research spans Bio-informatics, Embedded Real-time and Operating Systems, Empirical Software Engineering, Databases, Formal Methods, Human-machine Interfaces, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Networks and Pervasive Computing and Symbolic Machine Learning and Knowledge Acquisition.
NICTA’s support for postgraduate students includes the award of generous scholarships for local and international candidates enrolled, in most instances, at UNSW or The University of Sydney.
For students at other universities, opportunities for NICTA-enhanced PhD studies with the Sydney research laboratories may be offered without scholarships. In each instance, university agreement is a pre-condition. Applicants for NICTA-enhancement should be aware of NICTA’s guidelines for inter-laboratory research.
Scholarship Opportunities at UNSW [...find out more]
Scholarship Opportunities at The University of Sydney [...find out more]
Advice to All Applicants for the NICTA-Enhanced PhD Program in Sydney Research Laboratories
The award of government, university or NICTA-funded scholarships is highly competitive. In general, NICTA scholarships are only awarded to applicants who have a four-year first class honours degree or equivalent.
To ensure your application is ranked as accurately as possible, it is important that you note the following:
1. The most important criterion in the preliminary assessment of applications is the weighted average mark you obtained in your undergraduate degree. As different countries and universities have different ways of computing these marks, it is essential that you provide as much information as possible to assist the necessary interpretation of your final grade. For example, the university at which you are applying will need to know:
(a) The minimum grade for first class honours at your undergraduate institution, assuming that honours is offered at that institution
(b) Your overall ranking in your undergraduate degree, compared with others in the course
(c) The standard of your undergraduate university nationally and internationally.
2. It is imperative that your application for the NICTA-enhanced PhD program and scholarship(s) be supported by your NICTA supervisor (or proposed supervisor) and/or NICTA Project or Program Leader. You will need to confirm their willingness to supervise and/or support your research before you apply for the program or scholarship.