Adrian Gibbs* questions if the first discussion paper from the Department of Education, Science and Training isn't telegraphing its intentions.

Universities will progressively ossify if they do not attract, support and retain the best and brightest staff, especially from among the young.  At the moment Australian universities do not.  The Government should define broad priority areas, and encourage Australian Universities to evolve by minimising bureaucratic meddling, which at present is throttling them.

The Discussion Paper "Higher Education at the Crossroads" is clearly based on the premise that higher education in Australia should be even more actively managed from the top than at present. 
    The Consultative Questions in the Paper presumably reflect the Government's view that yet another review of Higher Education is required.  These rhetorical Questions make it clear that more "rationalising..., productivity.., efficiency.., staffing flexibility.., performance management.., streamlined bureaucratic structures… and a framework of accountability" could usefully be applied to the Higher Education sector.  Many of the Questions imply that the facts are already beyond doubt.  For example "Can Australia have at least one world-class university? What would it take?" (Qd1) tells an uncritical reader that Australia does not at present have a "world-class university", whatever that may be, and, similarly, "How can staffing productivity (both general and academic) be increased and monitored?" (Qe2) tells one that "staffing productivity" is less than it should be both in quantity and quality!

Two of the Consultative Questions, namely:

• Qa2 "How can we best enhance the …quality of teaching in higher education?"  and     

• Qd1 "How can Australia best develop and maintain world class capability in knowledge advancement?"

can be answered unequivocally.

These objectives can only be achieved by attracting the very brightest people to work in Universities and providing support that induces them to stay working there. 
    Nonetheless any objective analysis of the Australian University sector would overwhelmingly conclude that neither of those two conditions currently apply, and that recent Government-driven bureaucratic initiatives are largely to blame; conditions currently offered in Australian universities do not attract the brightest, nor do they induce them to stay.  At a recent joint meeting of the four learned academies I asked the speakers for their views on this point, and all were also unequivocally of the same opinion.

 Most of the work and much of the innovation in academia comes from the young,
    however the amount of support and independence most receive at present does not allow them to build a career and skills base, and this current treatment of young academics poses the greatest long term threat to the quality of Australian universities, and hence to the intellectual life of the nation.

In research most young Australian scientists are, at present, working on short-term contracts for older academics. 
    This trend has been fostered by almost all recent Government initiatives and funding agency restrictions, such as dollar for dollar 'funding increases' or new ventures, the requirement for funding applications to include promises of 'support' from tenured staff, funding for groups not individuals; all such restrictions build the empires of the old at the expense of the independence and careers of the young.  One can apply a 'Peter Doherty test' to recent Government initiatives by asking whether an initiative would have been available to, and helped, Peter Doherty at the time he did the work that earned him the Nobel Prize.  Only one recent ARC initiative might have helped him; a slight increase in funding 'earmarked' for young scientists.  All other initiatives totally fail the Peter Doherty test as all build support for 'established' older workers rather than the young, most notably the Federation Fellowship scheme which seems to based on the absurd notion that some professors are more innovative if paid more!

Merely putting more money into university research is not the answer to present problems. 
    I believe that the current structure of the higher education sector is almost totally antipathetic to its aims.  There needs to be fundamental change from the present system in which bureaucracies either deliberately or unwittingly build the 'empires of the old and tenured' and meddle in the fine details of research, to a system in which the Government sets broad priority areas, and merely organises for the best brains to be selected, supported and given the freedom to work in those areas.

The best brains can be picked by examining their past performance (or potential in the case of the young);
    present demands that grant applications require evidence of support from existing Departments, combined with fantasies of what it is hoped to accomplish, must be abandoned.  The best individuals should be fully funded at all levels (students, post-docs and post-post-docs) with support commensurate to the project area.  Support should be full, stringless and for 3 years, or more for the PP-doc, and those supported should be encouraged to join forces with the best wherever they might be.  Thus teams will build by the natural attraction of those with like interests, or around specially funded 'equipment centres' (e.g. AGRF, APAF, ANU, WA State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre, etc).  The Government should abandon the current system which fosters those who work the bureaucracies in order to build empires by gaining control of large grants; only 'equipment centres' should be really long-term and large.  The existing gargantuan funding agencies (ARC, NHMRC, **DCs and other agencies) could be cut by at least 75%, thereby releasing large amounts of funds and staff for productive work, and also removing the drain on time and energy they impose on all who take part of the present funding charade.  Academic research must be allowed to evolve (Qd1#b) using the intellectual and geographical mobility of the brightest, especially the young, rather than ossifying it by top-down planning.

It is totally anomalous that the present Government, which espouses deregulation in most areas it controls should stifle the University research sector with a steadily increasing regulatory load.  Presumably it is because most Government advice comes from those, who benefit from the current system, namely the tenured, the old and the increasing army of ‘committeers/consultants’ most of them ex-academics.

Finally it should be noted that although the Consultative Questions in the Paper clearly imply that there is currently insufficient accountability, flexibility, productivity etc of university staff, no questions address the commensurate need for accountability of the bureaucracies that control universities and make ever increasing demands on the time and energy of staff at the coalface while never justifying their demands. 

*Professor Adrian Gibbs, retired
   Yarralumla, ACT.
This contribution, submission No.87 to the "Higher Education at the Crossroads" review, is reprinted with the permission of the author.