This project investigates student‑to‑academic harm in Australian universities, with the aim of generating national evidence to inform institutional policy, sector reform, and workplace safety practices. It conceptualises harm as a continuum of behaviours, including bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment, intimidation, and digital abuse, occurring within university teaching contexts, and treats these not as isolated incidents but as structurally produced features of contemporary academic work.

Using a cross‑sectional, mixed‑methods design, the project combines a national survey of academics with follow‑up interviews to examine how such harms emerge, how they are experienced across different identities and employment conditions, and how they are managed within institutional systems. The survey captures demographic, disciplinary, and employment diversity, enabling analysis of how experiences of harm intersect with gender, sexuality, race, disability, and contract status. Interviews provide deeper qualitative insight into the meanings, impacts, and dynamics of these experiences.

A central focus of the project is identifying the conditions under which student‑perpetrated harm occurs, particularly its embedding within routine teaching relationships such as assessment, feedback, and classroom interaction. It examines how institutional structures, including precarious employment, complaint systems, and consumer‑oriented models of higher education, shape both exposure to harm and responses to it. The project also explores reporting practices and barriers, highlighting how fear of retaliation, lack of clarity, and distrust in institutional processes influence decisions to disclose or not disclose harm.

Importantly, the project analyses the impacts of harm on academic work, wellbeing, and career trajectories, emphasising their cumulative and enduring nature. It situates these impacts within broader social patterns of gender‑based violence, racism, and workplace bullying, while also attending to the specific governance conditions of universities.

Overall, the project aims to reposition student‑perpetrated harm as a workplace health and safety issue, contributing evidence to support systemic institutional change and more effective, accountable responses across the higher education sector.

De-identified survey data are openly available. All other data are restricted. To discuss the research, contact Erika (Rik) Smith [e.smith@westernsydney.edu.au] [0000-0001-8657-5224].