The Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success acknowledges Indigenous peoples across Australia as the Traditional Owners of the lands on which the nation’s campuses are situated. With a history spanning more than 60,000 years as the original educators, Indigenous peoples hold a unique place in our nation. We recognise the importance of their knowledge and culture, and reflect the principles of participation, equity, and cultural respect in our work. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and future, and consider it an honour to learn from our Indigenous colleagues, partners, and friends.

You are reading: New research: Supporting careers of LGBTQIA+ students in Australian universities

During 2020/21, the NCSEHE is funding research led by Zhou Jiang at Flinders University which will inform higher education policy and practice to maximise the success of LGBTQIA+ students.

This is one of 17 projects to be supported under the 2020/21 round of the NCSEHE Research Grants Program.

Australians who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual and more (LGBTQIA+) face tremendous challenges in preparing careers through higher education. However, there is very limited knowledge on how they are being supported to achieve better career outcomes and what unique expectations they hold for university support systems.

Investigating these areas through Australia-wide interviews and surveys, this project aims to identify best practices for universities to support the careers of LGBTQIA+ students generally and during COVID-19 specifically.

The first phase of the project will be an interview that will be approximately an hour long. A second phase—a national survey—will be informed by the interview results and involve wider participation as well.

The team is currently recruiting participants for the first phase — the interview study, and the 2nd phase will be conducted in early 2021.

If you are a current student or recent graduate and interested in sharing your career-related experiences with us for research purposes, please register your interest in the below survey, by November 30, 2020:

curtin.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1Sn5dKoKJ8jxktT

Research project manager Dr Andrew Chapman will be in touch with you shortly.


Read more about this research project on Flinders in Touch.

The final report will be published by the NCSEHE in 2021.