New leadership role to drive UNSW’s innovation agenda

UNSW has announced the appointment of Professor Brian Boyle as Deputy Vice-Chancellor Enterprise to lead a new portfolio that will drive the University’s innovation agenda as a key component of the UNSW 2025 Strategy.

The new role heading up the Enterprise Division will also have responsibility for engagement with key partners including government, business and industry.

Professor Boyle will take up the post on 1 August, moving from his current position as Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research. Prior to this he was UNSW’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research and Director of the Research Strategy Office.

UNSW President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Jacobs said the appointment was an excellent one for the University.

“Professor Boyle has an impressive record of research success, leadership and strategic management and his ability to build partnerships and attract significant investment for large-scale projects will be a major asset in this key leadership role.

“Brian has already done much to drive our innovation agenda, including leading the development of UNSW’s Innovation Statement in 2015, guiding the strategy for the successful UNSW–Torch Innovation venture announced earlier this year in China, and leading the formation of the Bays Precinct Consortium, which has proposed an ‘Innovation Forum’ concept for White Bay,” Professor Jacobs said. "I am looking forward to Brian working closely with Professor Nick Fisk our new Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research who will also take up his post on August 1^st."

Professor Boyle said: “It is a wonderful opportunity to establish a new portfolio that will work across the University to support and enhance our culture of innovation and enterprise.

“I am particularly excited to work on building the UNSW Innovation Precinct as well as engaging with government and industry to advance the University’s innovation agenda and ensure that we deliver UNSW's ambitious goals for Strategy 2025,” he said.

Prior to joining UNSW, Professor Boyle led the development of the federal government’s strategy and policy in the Australian Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Office, which successfully bid to co-host the multi-billion dollar international SKA project to build the world’s largest radio telescope. He was director of the CSIRO’s Australia Telescope National Facility from 2003-2009 and the Anglo-Australian Telescope from 1996-2003.

A highly distinguished astronomer, Professor Boyle shared in the 2007 Gruber Prize for Cosmology and the 2015 Breakthrough Award in Fundamental Physics as a member of the Supernova Cosmology Project team that discovered the universe’s expansion was accelerating. The discovery won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2006, Professor Boyle is a recipient of the Australian Public Service Medal and was last year awarded the CSIRO Chairman’s Medal, the agency’s highest honour, as a member of the team that pioneered the $200 million SKA Pathfinder, built in Western Australia. Professor Boyle has a PhD in physics from the University of Durham and has held academic positions at the University of Edinburgh and Cambridge.