The Block Internships Initiative is designed to give universities access to offer their students and industry partners internships within their allocation, and enable better access to industry rebates through the ‘Supporting more women into STEM careers: Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) – National Research Internship Program (NRIP)’.

Supported by the Australian Government, this rebate gives industry 50% off the cost of an internship for the placement of 1,400 PhD students into short-term projects through to 2020.

Internships will be managed by APR.Intern to ensure quality control and duty of care, and the initiative will sit alongside regular business development activity – APR.Intern will continue to bring new industry partners to universities.

A pilot offering block allocations of up to 20 internships per university will commence in October/November 2018. Following a successful pilot, the first full round of block internships is planned to open for applications in September/October 2019.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Industry partners, students and their academic supervisors should work together to complete the following documents.

These documents should then be sent to the Block Internships Contact at your university to progress the application.

APR.Intern’s Business Development team are happy to assist along the way to offer guidance in preparing these documents.

To find out who the Block Internships Contact is at your university, or for any other questions, please email block-internships@aprintern.org.auor get in touch with someone in our Business Development team.

PARTICIPATING UNIVERSITIES

Australian National University
Central Queensland University
Curtin University of Technology
Edith Cowan University
Federation University Australia
Macquarie University
Monash University
RMIT University
Swinburne University
University of Canberra
University of New England
University of Newcastle
University of Queensland
University of Southern Queensland
University of Tasmania
University of Technology Sydney
University of Western Australia
Victoria University
University of Western Sydney

HOW THE INITIATIVE WORKS

  1. Universities submit expression of interest applications for the pilot by 31 October 2018.
  2. Participating universities allocated a block of internships in early November 2018, must have contracts executed by 31 March 2019.
  3. For each internship, academic supervisors, their students, and the industry partner together develop a project plan for a 3-5 month internship on the template in consultation with APR.Intern’s Business Development staff. This is then delivered, along with a completed contract schedule, to APR.Intern for quality review and contract generation. APR.Intern will send the contract to all parties for signing. APR.Intern’s Business Development staff will help facilitate development of a suitable project plan for an internship under this initiative.
  4. Upon execution of an internship agreement, APR.Intern will facilitate the internship with regular check-ins to the student and industry partner, scheduling mid-point reviews against milestones, and following up on final presentations and reports.
  5. If the project is identified as a possible promotion opportunity, APR.Intern’s marketing team will write a case study which can be shared on the industry partner’s, university’s and APR.Intern’s media channels.

ELIGIBILITY, CONSIDERATIONS & CONSTRAINTS

The Government rebate under NRIP has specific targets, eligibility and key performance criteria which are outlined in the NRIP Commonwealth Conditions of Grant.

In order to satisfy these, internships under this initiative will be subject to the following:

  • The Conditions of Grant has a 20% cap on international student participation. Domestic students are defined as: Australian Citizens, Permanent Residents and New Zealand Citizens.
  • The Conditions of Grant has a target of 40% on female student participation.
  • An APR.Intern internship contract must be fully executed prior to the start of any internship for rebate eligibility.
  • Open to full-time and part-time domestic PhD students at Australian Universities, and full-time international PhD students at Australian Universities (subject to acceptance by APR.Intern and other eligibility criteria). Students must be enrolled at the time of the internship.
  • Students must have an academic mentor assigned to the internship who can provide guidance to them on completing the internship’s objectives as described in the project plan.
  • Internship projects must be 3-5 months in duration.
  • Students must complete a final report at the conclusion of the internship.
  • Rebates are only payable to industry partners upon payment of all invoices relating to the internship, and on completion of an impact statement.

CONTACT

For any initiative enquiries or to provide feedback, please email block-internships@aprintern.org.au where it will be forwarded to the relevant APR.Intern team member.

Block Internships Initiative (Pilot)

This program is supported by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training, through the ‘Supporting more women in STEM careers: Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) – National Research Internships Program’.