VIP Application Process

Most UNSW students can apply to a VIP project  in order to begin the project in 2025.

Engineering Students

In general Engineering students can count VIP as discipline/breadth electives or can use their first year electives to enroll in the course.

Find out how it fits into your program or first year electives.

All other UNSW students

UNSW students outside of the Faculty of Engineering can enrol in the program as a General Education course. Also, students must get permission to overload to enrol in the terms where they have greater then 18UoC course load. 

Follow the below links if you are a:

• Medical student
• From other faculties
• International students

Course Prerequisites: 

• Completed at minimum 42 UoC of course work. (See 'Select VIP course code')
• Engineering only: Completed ENGG1000/DESN1000/DPST1071 (NOT Comp/Sci or Food/Sci)

First year students, who have not yet met the prerequisites can still apply for VIP assuming they will have met the prerequisites before they start the VIP program in 2025.

VIP project's are cutting-edge research projects run by UNSW's world leading researchers and their industry partners! Each team has unique research area and project goals which can be found on their project page. They are a great opportunity to expand your experience in a real-world project, work in multi-disciplinary teams and gains insights into a specific field!

Select a VIP course according to the number of Unit of Credits (UoC) your have completed in your degree:

ENGG2600 | Second-year - Completed 42 UoC

ENGG3600 | Third-year - Completed 72 UoC

ENGG4600 | Fourth-year - Completed 114 UoC

ENGG4600 and/or Thesis | See 'Do your thesis with a VIP Project'

If you are a returning VIP student you must select a different course code to the one you had completed previously.

VIP courses are weighted the same as other Engineering courses for Honours calculations. (2x for 2600, 3x for 3600, and 4x for 4600).

What you need to provide:

• Provide your current WAM and the total UoC you will have completed by the end of this year.
• Select your project and course code
• Answer long form questions:
  • Why do you want to join this team?
  • What are your contributing skills?

Students can only apply for one team at a time and may withdraw their application at any time. Although you can reapply again for a different team.

Your application will be reviewed by the ChallENG Team and then the lead academics of the VIP Project you applied for.

You may be invited to take part in a discussion with the academic in regards to the project and we invite you to ask questions and express interest here.

Also, an academic may approve or decline your application without a discussion/interview. You will be notified of the progress of your application via email.

Please contact the ChallENG team via email challeng@unsw.edu.au to help guide you find a team that is still looking for members.

Your application is considered successful if the VIP academic lead approves it. After it will be processed by Student Services and you will be notified by email when you can enrol into the course for 2025. 

Students MUST enrol in a single VIP course code consecutively across ALL three terms: T1, T2 and T3 and remain in the same VIP project across all terms. 

Example: If a student has completed 72UoC in their current degree program, they would enrol in ENGG3600, three times for Term 1, Term 2 and Term 3. Each term enrolments represents a 2UoC 'course portion' and totals to 6 UoC. 

No partial credits are given for completing only one or two terms. Also, there can be no 'break' between completing VIP course.

Student IP deed-poll: submit it to your VIP lead academic by no later than start of the term.

Download a copy of the IP deed-poll here

Students can apply to continue on with their VIP project the year  provided there is enough elective space in their degree and can enrol in the VIP course for all 3 terms.

Students can also change to another VIP project at the end of the chosen course.

Students CANNOT again enrol in a course code they have already completed,  ie if you completed ENGG3600 you could return and take ENGG4600.

We strongly advise before applying to do thesis with a VIP project to contact the VIP Team lead academic found the project page.

Subject to approval from the VIP academic, you may be able to utilise a VIP Project as your undergraduate thesis project and apply to do ENGG4600 & Thesis or Only Thesis.

The thesis project would be structured according to the UNSW Engineering undergraduate thesis structure NOT the ChallENG VIP course codes. Standard UNSW Engineering course codes, prerequisites and rules apply.

• Undergraduate Thesis Information – School specific information about enrolment processes and requirements
• Contact your Undergraduate Thesis coordinator – Contact details for thesis co-ordinators

Contact challeng@unsw.edu.au if you need any help.