Purpose and values

Changing lives through revolutionary learning and research with real impact.

Meet our leadership team
Student group smiling on Gold Coast campus
Portrait of Chancellor Sandra McPhee

Our strategic plan

Southern Cross University is inspired by a powerful purpose. With values that guide our choices and a strategy which puts our students at the centre.

On behalf of the University Council, I invite you to explore and connect with our purpose, values and strategy to discover what they mean to you.

Sandra McPhee AM
Chancellor

Our Purpose

Changing lives

We are proud of how education and research at Southern Cross can be life-changing. For the brightest young minds, the career-changers, the ambitious, those who are first-in-family at University, Indigenous scholars and internationals from across the globe, the impact can be profound.

Research Centres

Revolutionary learning

The Southern Cross Model is a revolution of the traditional University curriculum that delivers immersive learning experiences for superior student outcomes.

Student in auditorium with laptop

Research with real impact

From the sustainable production of food, improving the health and wellbeing of our community, or building resilience through education, we deliver genuine impact.

The Analytical Research Laboratory (ARL) provides specialist capabilities in applied phytochemistry, crop quality and herbal medicine quality control.
Portrait of Vice Chancellor Professor Tyrone Carlin

Pursuit of opportunity

As a University community, we have in recent years confronted a series of profound challenges. It has often been necessary during this period to work with determination and focus simply in order to attend to the matters immediately before us. But as we have done this, we have also taken the time to reflect on the things that most deeply define us and how we might with reference to these build a vision for our future. In myriad conversations over many months we have distilled a sense of our purpose, and found ways to evoke the values that will stand us in good stead as we go forward. These are the bedrock of our strategic plan. They will guide us in adversity and enliven our pursuit of opportunity. Above all they will remind us of the virtue of being bold and ambitious as we strive to realize our enormous potential.

Professor Tyrone Carlin
Vice-Chancellor

Our values

We strive for excellence

We apply the highest standards. We're always seeking to be at our best.

We are bold

We're ambitious. We're dynamic. We make bold decisions.

We care

We care for our people. We champion our communities. We respect our planet.

We own it

When we commit, we keep our word. When we fail, we learn.

We build trust through action

We tell the truth. We do what's right.

Our strategic priorities: how we will achieve our purpose

Creating outstanding student outcomes and experience with the Southern Cross Model that:

  • Improves retention, engagement and success
  • Enhancing equity, supporting diverse students’ lives
  • Supports regional opportunity, national needs and global rankings
2026 Priorities
  • Advance the Southern Cross Model learning experience
  • Uplift the service and support experience
  • Increase student quality and acquisition through a targeted course portfolio

Delivering translational research that:

  • Develops areas of high impact and return
  • Invests in early and mid-academic careers 
  • Supports industry development and global rankings
2026 Priorities
  • Develop an institutional narrative to facilitate strategic investment and reputation uplift
  • Increase researcher impact with AI and digital capabilities
  • Excellence in research culture and performance
  • Mature faculty and cluster impact and translation

Strengthening communities with engagement that:

  • Is caring and responsive
  • Supports regional opportunity through industry partnerships
2026 Priorities
  • Progress philanthropic and alumni engagement
  • Strengthen industry partnerships

One SCU - through engaged and outstanding people.

2026 priorities
  • Leadership capability and succession
  • Make AI part of the everyday way of working at SCU
  • One SCU

Create intuitive digital experiences for students and staff, powered by AI and built on a radically simplified core technology stack.

2026 priorities
  • An agile delivery model
  • A simplified core stack
  • AI enabled at scale

Managing for our financial sustainability and developing a surplus for long-term investment.

2026 priorities
  • Revenue growth and diversification
  • Cost management
  • Constructive regulatory and compliance relationships

Create campuses which have thriving culture, are environmentally resilient and connected.

2026 priorities
  • Reinvigorate campus culture
  • Invest for growth in Gold Coast/Tweed
  • Provide student housing

Download our Strategic Plan

Southern Cross University, Strategy 2030

Strategic plan