University of New England (Australia)

The University of New England (UNE) is a public university in Australia with approximately 21,000 higher education students. Its original and main campus is located in the city of Armidale in northern central New South Wales.

The University of New England was the first Australian university established outside a state capital city. 

Each year, the University offers students more than $5 million in scholarships, prizes, and bursaries and more than $18 million for staff and students involved in research. 


The University of New England was originally established in 1938 as the New England University College, a College of the University of Sydney. It became fully independent in 1954.

The University of New England has undergone two major changes since 1989. The University of New England Act, 1989, created a network University consisting of: (i) a campus at Armidale, incorporating the former University of New England and the former Armidale College of Advanced Education; and (ii) a campus at Lismore, incorporating the former Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education. The following year the Orange Agricultural College joined the network University. The network also included the UNE-Coffs Harbour Centre, which provided courses from within academic departments of the Armidale and Lismore campuses.

The University of New England has been re-formed once again, with legislation (The University of New England Act, 1993 and the Southern Cross University Act, 1993) passed by both Houses of the New South Wales Parliament in November, 1993. This legislation had the effect of dismantling the network University. The University of New England from 1994 has only one campus, at Armidale. A new University (Southern Cross University) was created with campuses in Lismore and Coffs Harbour; the Orange campus was amalgamated with the University of Sydney.

The University of New England has, since 1989, included the former Armidale College of Advanced Education, which was amalgamated with the Armidale campus at the time of the creation of the network University. This process of amalgamation was complete by the time of the new legislation in 1993, and the dismantling of the network University had no effect on its status. 

The University was notified of plagiarism issues in November 2006. The University initiated several procedures, systems, and policies on 31 July 2007 to fortify its academic integrity. UNE Policies UNE New Policy.

In research, among many areas, it is particularly active in agricultural science, economics, linguistics and archaeology. The university averages approximately 700 PhD candidates at a given time