About the University of Ballarat

The University of Ballarat is the only regionally headquartered, multi-sector university in Australia. It is only one of three Australian universities which takes its name from an Indigenous word, with Ballarat meaning "resting place". The University's Act mandates that it must provide for the "educational, cultural, professional, technical and vocational services to the community and of persons living and working in Central and Western Victoria." The University has six campuses. They are located at Mt Helen, the historic SMB and Camp Street Campuses in Ballarat and at Horsham, Stawell and Ararat.

The University of Ballarat offers the best of both worlds combining a strong tradition of 137 years of tertiary education in Ballarat with the freedom and dynamism that comes with being a relatively new University with close links to local industry and technology.

The University has 25,000 students of whom 7,500 are international students and 25 per cent of its students are studying for postgraduate qualifications. It draws its 17,500 domestic students from across Australia and especially from a broad area of regional Victoria including the communities of Ballarat, Ararat, Stawell, Horsham, Nhill, Hamilton, Maryborough, Warrnambool, Portland, Bacchus Marsh, Bendigo, Mildura and Swan Hill. All of these communities have significantly lower participation rates in postsecondary education than the national average.

Dare to be Different is the motto for the University of Ballarat and, throughout its 138 year history and that of its predecessor institutions, a strong belief in this motto has been in evidence. The University has gained a national reputation for its commitment to high quality learning, teaching and training, for its applied research and for its engagement with industry, business and its regional communities. In fulfilling its motto, the University of Ballarat is distinguished from other Australian universities by a set of differences which establish its uniqueness and diversity within the tertiary education sector. The University catalogues its major differences from other Australian universities as follows:

The University of Ballarat is the third oldest site of higher learning in Australia with the accompanying rich tradition of learning, teaching, training and research in the arts, sciences, humanities and the trades which comes with this ancestry;

The University of Ballarat is the only regional, multi-sector, comprehensive university in Australia with provision for secondary schooling, technical and further education (TAFE), higher education, further education and research students;

The University of Ballarat continues to be recognised nationally and internationally for the outcomes and impact from its four research centres: the Centre for Environmental Management; the Centre for Health Research and Practice; the Centre for Informatics and Applied Optimization; and the Centre for Regional Innovation and Competitiveness;

The University of Ballarat has international students from more than 40 countries and the single largest number of students from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Poland, Burundi and Cuba of any university in Victoria;

The University of Ballarat is the first university in Australia to provide students with the option of completing an undergraduate degree program within TAFE with a Commonwealth supported place;

The University of Ballarat is the only regional university in Australia to achieve consistently a top 10 rating from the Commonwealth Government's Learning and Teaching Performance scheme; and,

The University of Ballarat is the only regional university in Australia with its own Technology Park, ecology park and Arts Academy for TAFE and higher education students.

The Technology Park facilitates and promotes new technology in products and services through scientific and industrial research.

The History of the University of Ballarat.