The University of Queensland's Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Hay, said he was deeply honoured to have been awarded a Companion in the Order of Australia (AC) in the Australia Day Honours List.
Professor Hay, who has led UQ for the past eight years and is currently chair of the Universitas 21 group of international universities, won the award for exceptional services to higher education, especially in research and innovation and in the creation of new academic, research and administrative structures.
"I see the award as a recognition of the vital importance of Australia's universities in the creation of a knowledge-based future for our nation and as an acknowledgement of the outstanding work done by so many of my colleagues," he said.
"In my various senior roles in Australian universities, I have dedicated myself to creating strategic opportunities for people with ideas and with passionate commitment to teaching, research and interacting with the wider national and international communities."
Under Professor Hay's leadership, UQ has enhanced dramatically its success in winning research funding. Its academic staff have also won or been short-listed for more Australian Awards for University Teaching than those of any other university. In 2003, UQ received unprecedented praise for its wide-ranging commitment to excellence in the report of the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) Audit.
Professor Hay has had exceptional success in attracting new sources of external funding, totalling almost $400 million, especially from the US-based The Atlantic Philanthropies and the Queensland Government, for major research and cultural initiatives at UQ. These initiatives include:
* The $105 million Queensland Bioscience Precinct which houses UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience.
* The Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. A $60 million construction project for the centre is about to begin.
* The Queensland Brain Institute. Another $60 million construction project is in the planning stages.
* A major supercomputing facility.
* The UQ Centre, a $20 million cultural and sporting facility also used for University ceremonies.
* A new Art Museum to house the first national collection of Australian art and self-portraits. The $8 million museum is due to open in May this year.
Professor Hay was educated at Perth Modern School, the University of Western Australia (UWA) and Cambridge University. He held the chair of English at the UWA where he was also deputy chair of the Academic Board, was Dean of Arts and then Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Monash University, was Vice-Chancellor and President at Deakin University and has been Vice-Chancellor at UQ since 1996.
Professor Hay is the only vice-chancellor to lead two universities - UQ and Deakin - to win the Good University Guide's University of the Year Awards. He was honoured in 2003 when Deakin named the Dalgety building at the Geelong Waterfront campus the John Hay Building, in honour of his role in transforming the historic woolstores into a modern university campus and revitalising the city's entire waterfront.
Professor Hay played a key role in the major post-merger restructurings of Monash, Deakin and UQ. At Monash, he established the National Key Centre for Australian Studies and since moving to Brisbane he has helped establish the Brisbane Institute (in conjunction with the Brisbane City Council, the Queensland State Government and The Courier-Mail). He is a trustee of the QPAC and has been on numerous state and national committees on topics as diverse as including research and teaching in higher education, the Crossroads Review of Higher Education (as a member of Federal Education Minister Dr Brendan Nelson's reference group), medical research, secondary education, economic development and innovation.
Professor Hay has published widely in the fields of English, Australian and comparative literature, is a regular judge of literary prizes and general editor of the Bibliography of Australian Literature.
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