UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA
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J eff Murray , Chief Information Officer ( CIO ) at the University of Tasmania ( UTAS ), remembers reading Martha Heller ’ s book , The CIO Paradox : Battling the Contradictions of IT Leadership , a few years ago , in which she says the CIO ’ s role is to create a team of many CIOs .
It ’ s something that ’ s stuck with Murray , who has built – and continues to build – a solid , award-winning IT team at the university , which is ranked in the top 10 Australian research universities and the top 2 % of universities globally .
In the last year alone , the team has won numerous national and state awards , including :
• AIIA iAward Winners Tasmania ( 2017 ) - Winners of Government and Public Sector for the eResearch Ecosystem - Merit Infrastructure and Platform Innovation of the year
• Australian Institute of Project Management ( AIPM ) Project Management Achievement Awards ( 2017 ) - Winners of Tasmanian Project of the Year for Skype for Business project - Winners of Small Project of the Year for Skype for Business project
• 11th ranking in the CIO Australia Top 50
“ The team are outstanding and it ’ s fantastic their contribution has been recognised in this way ,” he says . “ At any one time we ’ re working on up to 40 capital-funded projects . The current team is 109-strong and we ’ re a third more productive than ever before , producing a greater number of outputs per person .
“ We ’ ve refined our people , becoming more efficient and we ’ ve done that through programme delivery and better governance .”
UTAS is one of Australia ’ s most geographically-splayed universities , with courses across 65 locations and four main campuses at Sydney , Burnie , Launceston and Hobart . It ’ s home to more than 50 world-class research centres and institutes across science , engineering and technology , health and medicine , marine Antarctic and maritime , business , arts , law and education , and together they generate a rich and diverse research culture , underpinned by vibrant multi-disciplinary collaborations , world-class facilities and a global reputation for research excellence .