Chief Minister Andrew Barr will discuss high rates of sexual assault and harassment among Canberra university students with local institution heads at an upcoming vice-chancellor's forum.
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An ACT government spokesman confirmed the issue had been added to the meeting agenda following the release of the Human Rights Commission's damning report Change the Course.
The associated sector-wide survey found more than 30 University of Canberra students were sexually assaulted in 2015 or 2016, including about five on campus. In the same period, 116 ANU students were sexually assaulted, 52 of those at the university.
The universities had 460 and 1477 survey respondents respectively.
A UNSW report released on Thursday, designed to complement Change the Course, recommended that states and territories review the legislative frameworks regulating their relationship between universities and their colleges, halls and residencies, with a view to strengthen them to ensure residential colleges and their staff were following policies relating to sexual assault and harassment.
The ACT government did not respond directly to a question relating to the UNSW recommendation. However, a spokesman said: "All Canberrans have the right to feel safe and one sexual assault at one of our universities is too many.
"The Chief Minister will add this issue to the agenda for the next VC's Forum and the Coordinator-General for Family Safety will work with universities on ways to improve safety for students.
"The next VC Forum will provide an opportunity to discuss the UNSW report and the wider issue of keeping our students safe."
One in nine Canberra residents are university students and international education is the territory's largest export.
The VC Forum will bring together leaders from the ANU, the University of Canberra, the Australian Catholic University, UNSW Canberra and the Canberra Institute of Technology.
The Human Rights Commission's survey of more than 30,000 students from Australia's 39 universities found about half of all university students were sexually harassed on at least one occasion in 2016, and 6.9 per cent of students were sexually assaulted on at least one occasion in the past two years.
The sector-wide report found women were four times as likely as men to have been sexually assaulted in a residential college setting.
The ANU fully accepted all of the Human Rights Commission's recommendations, including a review of residential colleges, and University of Canberra vice-chancellor Deep Saini said the institution would digest the findings over the coming weeks.
