Editorial-29 November 2008

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Vice-Chancellors from the Group of Eight

Show a Remarkable Lack of Perception 

 

 

 

Last month we noted in an address to the National Press Club on October 29 the vice-chancellor of The Australian National University (ANU), Ian Chubb appeared to vent his frustration at the government's slow implementation of its education revolution as regards the tertiary sector by telling his listeners that the nation risks a dramatic slide in global [university] rankings if it fails to concentrate research spending on proven performers. He explained his viewpoint to The Australian's Higher Education Supplement: "If an institution that has no demonstrated capacity and can't bring forward evidence of that capacity says that it wants to be a world class research institution, then somebody has to say: 'No, you're not going to be funded for it'."

 

And this month has seen the Group of Eight (Go8) release its eighth "Backgrounder", The international tendency to concentrate research capability, while The University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor, Glyn Davis, put forth the view that the current cohort of public universities should be split into those that do research, and those that serve only to teach, pointing to the US state of California's community colleges (which are two year tertiary institutions, and oughtn't to be confused with elite four year liberal arts colleges which have strong research elements).

 

In using as blunt a set of instruments as could be imagined the Go8 is trying to beat the government, prior to the release of the Bradley Review's recommendations for higher education, into allocating university research funding to a small select group of universities.

 

 

Surely the Go8's executive director, Michael Gallagher, with his previous extensive experience in the federal public service would have advised against such a divisive approach whereby those not of the Go8 who already tend to see them as arrogant and greedy, would round on them.

 

TAFE director Gregor Ramsey told The Australian: "I would suggest that Davis tour the country and see how well his great US idea might be accepted here, rather than proclaiming from a position of self-interest what should be established elsewhere."

 

Representatives of James Cook, Flinders, Griffith, La Trobe, Murdoch and Newcastle universities made the point that Go8 universities already command 74% of competitive grants while RMIT vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner speaking as chairwoman of the Australian Technology Network, suggested to The Australian's HES that the real fight for the sector was not the concentration of research but its full funding, and the key challenge for her group was the fostering of innovative research links with industry. She also rejected the argument for structural reform to produce a tier of community colleges.

 

Were the Go8 to argue that public research funding should be principally directed to the researcher and that redirection should be undertaken with that paramount, they would be far more difficult to attack, and in all likelihood would be in a commanding position for the allocation of resources without looking as though they were rending the fabric of the nation's university research out of self interest, in short the concept of enlightened self-interest doesn't appear to have been entertained.

 

Unfortunately the damage is now done with in all probability the furthering of Australian university research significantly set back the result.

 

 

Alex Reisner

The Funneled Web