“Barawul Yana : better strategies for the recruitment, retention and support of Indigenous medical students” (Barawul Yana) was undertaken by a consortium from Monash (Monash) University, James Cook (JCU) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW). The UNSW component identified the high school years as an important window of opportunity for encouraging and supporting the retention of Indigenous students through to tertiary education.

The Rural Clinical School, Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit and Nura Gili Indigenous Programs at UNSW investigated the opportunities for, and barriers to, Indigenous student entry into medical and other health higher education. A core component of this research was to examine the role of university-based health career residential programs in facilitating the entry of students into higher degrees in medicine and other health professions. Barawul Yana is primarily a qualitative research project drawing on the use of in-depth interviews, both face-to-face and telephone, and narratives as its principle methods of data collection. Demographic and selected quantitative data were also collected.