Goal #9

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation

UNSW is committed to this goal and demonstrates its commitment through:

  • harnessing of research in materials science, design and engineering to innovatively address the world’s most pressing problems
  • educational excellence that capitalises on our tradition of innovation
  • work ensuring the buildings and campus demonstrate leading sustainability principles
  • strategic priority of innovation and engagement with enterprise partners.

What comes first – innovation or infrastructure?

If you had to struggle daily to feed  and clothe yourself and your family would you have the time and energy to care about the sustainability of clothing manufacturers or the degradation of arable land? While innovation leads to improvements in infrastructure, infrastructure is often required for innovation to take place. Currently, more than half of the worlds population is online and almost all of the worlds population is covered by mobile phone coverage, however real infrastructure improvements such as quality water and electricity systems, effective road networks and advancements in manufacturing sector are required to enable sustainable and resilient innovation and further infrastructure development, particularly in under developed countries.

 

In this video, Dr Sarah Grundy from the School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW, breaks down some of the key challenges behind SDG #9.

Industry, innovation, social engagement and global impact

Design Next; consisting of four faculties and over 30,000 students, supported by expert staff with access to world class facilities; invites partners from commercial, public sector, community and not-for profit organisations to engage with us to improve the value and effectiveness of products and services.

Design Next would like to work with industries to ensure every student leaves UNSW with a strong foundation and appreciation of design that uniquely couples multi-disciplinary knowledge, complex technical skills and other important skill-sets including communication, project management, and teamwork.

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Design Next is UNSW’s centre for integrated design, bringing our engineering, architecture, business, and art and design capabilities together in a world-class learning environment.

UNSW Strategy in Action 2025

Universities are at the heart of the sophisticated global knowledge system shaping our future and UNSW has a key role to play. We aspire to improve lives globally, through partnerships, innovative research, transformative education and commitment to a just society. With this context in mind, we believe the strategic priorities of Academic Excellence, Innovation and Engagement, and Social Impact, have become increasingly important to address the key challenges we face.

Wheel showing UNSW 2025 Strategy strategic pillars

 

The ongoing work and achievements of our community help propel us towards our vision. 

World 1st

Professor Veena Sahajwalla opened the world’s first e-waste microfactory in 2018 at UNSW’s Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT Centre).

$1 Billion

UNSW invested record amounts of  capital in infrastructure since 2015, totalling almost $1 Billion.

Underway

Large-scale Health and Innovation precincts are under development with diverse mutli-sector partners including Randwick Health and Education Precinct & ​​​​​​​Liverpool Innovation Precinct.

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UNSW 2025 Strategy Update

This document celebrates the key achievements of the first phase of the 2025 Strategy, highlighting where we have come from and where we are now. It also updates the framework against which we will assess, track and measure existing and new strategic initiatives over the next five years.

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UNSW Environmental Sustainability Plan

UNSW has a history of environmental stewardship across research, learning & teaching and campus operations across several decades. The Environmental Sustainability Plan (ESP) will build on past achievements, while raising our ambition levels to meet the environmental challenges of today.

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Engineering Ethics in the Age of Digital Advancement

The future of multiple industries are being impacted through the advancement of digitisation and AI. Our Civil Engineering industry is no different and the future holds significant change and opportunity as technology plays an ever-increasing role in our work. This advancement also brings up the question of ethics as we are asked to help shape this new future. What will this technology look like? What parts of our jobs do we anticipate for it to play a part? How do we ethically build a model that works at all levels and inspires trust both within yourself and with the community that we work with? And the biggest question of all, how do we become greater ethical engineers ourselves?

UNSW Materials and Manufacturing Futures Institute

There are many future challenges that can be addressed with advanced materials and manufacturing technologies. The UNSW Materials & Manufacturing Futures Institute will transform materials and manufacturing research by transitioning serendipity-driven materials research methodology to property-driven materials design.

 

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Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety 

Roads at night in western Australia

Facilitates advanced research in all aspects of civil engineering infrastructure, including building structures, bridges, tunnels, roads, railways, pavements and materials.

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Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation

Sydney Light Rail

Unites the wide range of transport research at UNSW and aims to pursues globally-leading interdisciplinary solutions for transport planning and management for societal impact.

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