In 2019, the NSW Government committed $8 million to establish 5 new Country Universities Centres across NSW via a grant to Country Universities Centre (CUC) Ltd. This followed an earlier grant (also $8 million) to establish an initial tranche of 5 centres, following CUC’s success at their first independent centre at Snowy Monaro. There are now 11 Country University Centres in NSW.

The grant included a requirement for an independent evaluation to be conducted, to consider the success of the program against agreed key performance indicators. The independent evaluation was completed in February 2024 by UNSW’s Social Policy Research Centre under relevant procurement guidelines. The evaluation found that CUCs were meeting or exceeding all agreed KPIs.

The independent report can be downloaded below. Note: financial information relating to individual centre budgets has been removed.

For more information on regional university study hubs, please visit the Australian Department of Education webpage.