Our region, which spans from Tweed Heads in the North, to Urbenville in the West, and to Grafton Region in the South, is closely positioned to or has within its boundaries a number of key Academic, University and Research partners. This includes Griffith and Bond Universities, situated just north of the boarder in South East QLD, Southern Cross University, with campuses located within our LHD and also just north of the border in Bilinga, the University Centre for Rural Health and their affiliated Universities, and the North Coast Primary Health Network.

These key partners are major providers of high quality tertiary and ongoing education and training in our region, and are also important partners for research collaboration.

Griffith University is a major provider of tertiary education in South East Queensland and Northern NSW, and is a central training hub for many health and medical professions. These professions include medicine, nursing and midwifery, medical sciences, pharmacy, psychology, dentistry and a suite of allied health careers. Degrees for these careers are run from various Schools, including:

• Allied Health Sciences
• Applied Psychology
• Dentistry and Oral Health
• Human Services and Social Work
• Medical Science
• Medicine - Griffith
• Nursing and Midwifery
• Pharmacy and Pharmacology

Griffith University also engages in high quality health and medical research, led by the Menzies Health Institute Queensland and the Institute for Glycomics. Griffith University has a large number of internationally renowned scientists, which are recognised as leading academics and researchers in their field. Griffith University’s researchers can be found at: https://experts.griffith.edu.au/academics.

Bond University, situated in South East Queensland with its main campus in Robina, is a provider of education for a suite of health and medical professions. This includes medicine, health and biomedical science, physiothearpy, occupational thereapy, nutrition and dietetics, and psychology.

Relevant study and education programs include:

• Social Sciences, Psychology and Counselling
• Medicine - Bond University
• Health Sciences

Bond University has also developed considerable research expertise in several areas, including health and medicine through the Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine and the Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice. Bond University researcher profiles can be found at: https://research.bond.edu.au/en/persons/.

Southern Cross University (SCU) is a fast growing provider of quality tertiary education throughout Northern NSW and South East Queensland. Founded in 1994, SCU has established main campuses in Lismore, Coffs Harbour and the Gold Coast, with branch campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. SCU is an important regional provider of higher education and is a member of the Regional Universities Network. SCU has numerous academic schools, and delivers quality health education via the School of Health and Human Sciences. The School provides a range of degrees in the field of health and human sciences, including:

• Occupational therapy
• Pedorthics
• Osteopathy
• Midwifery
• Nursing
• Exercise Science
• Psychological Science
• Speech pathology

School of Health and Human Sciences academics and staff engage in research across a range of disciplines including Clinical outcomes, Exercise, health and human performance, Health workforce development, Human behaviour and communications, Nursing and midwifery, and Health pedagogical research. Researcher profiles from the School of Health and Human Sciences can be found at: Find a research supervisor at Southern Cross University - Southern Cross University (scu.edu.au)

The University of Sydney is one of the leading Universities in Australia, consistently ranking among the top 5 in Australia, and top 100 globally each year. The University has a number of faculties including the newly created super Faculty of Medicine and Health. The faculty consists of a number of Schools and Clinical Schools, which deliver a large range health and medical degrees and training programs, at both undergraduate and graduate levels. These Schools include:

• The University of Sydney School of Dentistry
• The University of Sydney School of Medicine
• School of Medical Sciences
• The University of Sydney Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery
• The University of Sydney School of Pharmacy
• The University of Sydney School of Public Health
• Clinical Schools

In addition, the Faculty of Health Sciences also offers degrees in a number of health-related disciplines including:

• Behavioural & Social Sciences
• Exercise & Sport Sciences
• Medical Radiation Sciences
• Occupational Therapy
• Physiotherapy
• Rehabilitation Counselling
• Speech Pathology

The University of Sydney is also among the leading Universities for research in the world, and has many internationally renowned scientists and researchers. Researcher profiles can be searched using the “Find a Researcher” tool at: https://sydney.edu.au/research.html.

The University Centre for Rural Health (UCRH) is a major and important provider of education for medical, nursing and allied health students and continuing professional development for rural health practitioners in Northern NSW. The UCRH is a partnership between The University of Sydney, Southern Cross University, Western Sydney University, Wollongong University and Northern NSW LHD. The UCRH currently supports high quality education programs for around 700 students annually across multiple disciplines. The UCRH has three main campuses in Lismore, Murwillumbah and Grafton, and facilitates the placement of students throughout the entire Northern NSW region. The UCRH also engages in high quality research through a suite of research programs relevant to rural populations, with implications for policy and practice. The UCRH have identified three priority areas for research to meet the community needs of our region:

• Health systems and service research: health workforce, models of care, team-based approaches to care, quality of care, system and process development, effectiveness, efficiency and coordination of care
• Population health and equity: understanding and influencing the determinants of population health.
• Medical and allied health education and workforce development: inter-professional learning and engagement with the community to support the delivery of training to students, service learning models and curriculum design.

The UCRH also hosts the NHMRC funded Centre of Research Excellence in Integrated Quality Improvement, and provides supervision for postgraduate research students and methodological support to rural health practitioners undertaking research.

Healthy North Coast is one of 31 Commonwealth Funded Primary Health Networks that work alongside, and provide support to, a range of health and social services to improve the health of local communities. As part of their mandate, HNC conducts regular needs assessments to identify priority areas and gaps in the region. Based on these findings, the HNC provide a range of programs and services to address gaps and priority areas, some in collaboration with Northern NSW LHD. A list of the programs and services delivered by the HNC can be found at: Programs and Projects - Healthy North Coast (hnc.org.au)