Grants and Writing Resources for UNSW Sydney

A Bachelor of Medical Studies / Doctor of Medicine student nominated by UNSW was a winner at the 2025 NSW International Student of the Year Awards. On campus, the university's prizes and medals program recognises more than 500 students a year. Faculties and schools nominate winners on the strength of their course results. Among the faculty prizes, the Malcolm Chaikin Prize for Research Excellence in Engineering goes to the best PhD thesis and carries A$10,000.

Thesis and Research Prizes

Many of UNSW's faculty prizes reward thesis work. The Malcolm Chaikin Prize for Research Excellence in Engineering goes to the best PhD thesis and carries A$10,000. In Computer Science and Engineering, the Norman Foo Memorial Best Research Paper Prize pays A$2,000 for the best PhD research paper, and Optometry's Brian Kirby Prize for Research Excellence awards A$1,000 for the best doctoral thesis.

Business offers the Professor M Weinstock Memorial Prizes of A$1,000 each for the most innovative completed PhD and the most innovative Honours thesis. Undergraduates in Arts, Design and Architecture have prizes of their own. Examples include the John Shaw Memorial Prize (A$1,000) for the best Year 4 thesis in City Planning and the Harry Howard Undergraduate Prize (A$5,000) for the best graduation studio project or thesis in Landscape Architecture.

Three Minute Thesis

The UNSW Three Minute Thesis prizes are listed under the Graduate Research School, with prizes listed among the faculty prizes. First place earns A$3,000 and the runner-up A$1,500. There's also A$1,000 for People's Choice and an A$500 ASPIRE Prize, judged by high school students from UNSW's ASPIRE program, for the most impactful talk. Engineering runs its own faculty heat with separate prizes.

Student Journals

The UNSW Law Journal is entirely managed and produced by students, and its work is cited as far up as the High Court of Australia. Its Student Series publishes research papers by UNSW LLB and JD students, recommended by their lecturers and supervisors.

For general writing, UNSW's student media organisation is Gamamari, run under Arc UNSW Student Life. It was founded as Tharunka in 1953 and has since been renamed. Its page lists email contacts for the Features, News, Media and Design editors.

Writing Support

Through Academic Skills One-to-One, Academic Learning Facilitators help with structure, referencing and understanding the task. Thesis and Research students book through their own on-campus and online links, and Arts, Design and Architecture students can meet a facilitator at Paddington on Wednesdays. Sessions focus on how the writing works; facilitators leave proofreading to the writer.

The academic skills toolkit adds self-paced guides, including guides to writing a thesis or research proposal and a literature review for Honours and postgraduate writers. Undergraduates can take Academic Skills Plus (GENY0001), a General Education course whose outcomes include developing an academic voice in writing and presentations.

If you'd like an editor's eye on a thesis chapter or a research paper before it goes out, we can help. See our UNSW Sydney dissertation and thesis editing page, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.