Contribute to Ag/Hort deep Sector Engagement

UTS has introduced its dSE initiative to transform the way we engage with the various industry sectors in which we have cross-disciplinary research expertise. This externally framed approach seeks to understand how a sector operates and how UTS and its partners can co-create value.

There are currently four different sectors identified within the dSE initiative: Climate, Agriculture and Horticulture, Health and Med Tech, and Defence and Space. 

The Ag/Hort dSE co-leads are:

• Distinguished Professor Damien Giurco from the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures, who leads UTS involvement in the NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub
• A/Professor Negin Shariati Moghadam, Founding Director of the RF and Communication Technologies (RFCT) laboratory in the Faculty of Engineering and IT, and former R&D program lead at the Food Agility CRC.
• Grace Wangari, Business Development Officer in the Faculty of Science.

Damien said bringing the Ag/Hort dSE co-leads together has already led to new proposals and new ideas, with exciting opportunities in the sector already identified in the group’s first workshop held in October.

“Deep Sector Engagement is going to be such central part of how we can deliver our UTS 2030 strategy. We will be able to use this approach to realise our ambitions of being a leading university of technology recognised for its global impact by being well embedded in the sector,” he said.

Negin added, “We want to first understand the needs and the gaps in the Ag/Hort sectors and then map our all of our UTS capabilities across different faculties against  those external needs and challenges.”

Negin said this will allow UTS to integrate effectively within those sectors and align our research capabilities with the external needs that are emerging as priorities for both industry and government.

Deep Sector Engagement is going to be such central part of how we can deliver our UTS 2030 strategy.

Negin acknowledged the importance of external mapping and stakeholder engagement so that stakeholders know how to connect with the dSE Ag/Hort team for collaboration on research projects.

"By working together, we can address complex problems at scale. This naturally leads to securing major funding delivering real-world outcomes, and creating greater research impact. It’s all about collaboration and synergy—where the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. It's a win-win situation for the university and also for the Ag/Hort sector.”

Negin emphasised the importance of working together.

“We have great expertise at UTS in this sector. There are also many complex multidisciplinary problems where it is hard to achieve things in isolation,” she said, adding that the aim is to create a core team internally to understand and utilise UTS’ capabilities across disciplines,

Grace spoke about the success of bringing a core group of researchers together who work in agriculture and horticulture research 

“Previously there was a lot of work done in isolation, so we needed to work in a different way to grow this initiative.”

She said many people who attended their first workshop in October were unaware of the dSE Ag/Hort initiative, or even what Ag/Hort research and expertise exists within UTS, before attending.

By working together, we can address complex problems at scale. This naturally leads to securing major funding delivering real-world outcomes, and creating greater research impact.

“Even when starting from the internal context, it is very important that we understand what we can offer and the research expertise at UTS that we do not know about,” she said.

In the first half of 2025, the team focused on activating connections within UTS. This work has led to cross faculty collaborations and developed into a pan-university approach. 

“We are now in the process of developing a strategy for dSE in Ag/Hort which we would like to co-develop with our UTS colleagues who would like to get involved.”

The team’s goal for 2026 is to test this strategy to with industry and hear about what priorities areas they would like to work on together.

What’s next?

• Attend the workshop on Tuesday, 25 November 11am - 1pm on campus in CB01.21.054 to learn more about the Ag/Hort dSE group and help the team create the strategy. Please scan the QR code to find out more and join the working group:

• Reach out to the team via email to see how you can get involved or scan the above QR code to join.
• Learn more about the UTS deep Sector Engagement strategy.