News & Views item - October 2007

 

The Higher Education Endowment Fund Gets an Advisory Board To Do What? (October 3, 2007)

The Higher Education Endowment Fund (HEEF) according to the Department of Education, Science and Training has as its objective the provision of funds for "capital expenditure and research facilities in Australian universities. The support will be provided by the dividends on the capital invested in the HEEF [estimated by DEST to be initially $300 million per annum], not the capital investments. Announced with an initial capital investment of $5 billion from the 2006-07 Budget surplus, the HEEF was augmented in August 2007 with a further $1 billion capital investment from the Budget surplus."

 

Yesterday the minister, Julie Bishop, announced the make up of the HEEF advisory board:

According to DEST: "The Advisory Board will be responsible for conducting sector consultations, advising the Minister on programme development and making recommendations to the Minister on grants for capital expenditure and research facilities."

 

The distribution of funds will be at the discretion of the Minister who is to receive advice from the Advisory Board . This has engendered concerns by the Group of Eight and the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) that it could be used for political ends, i.e. pork barrelling.

 

Defending the mechanism Mr Clark said: "If you have the starting point right and you have the right objectives, I think a lot of these concerns are going to fall away. Getting the fundamentals right is the key to this, rather than argy-bargy down the track."

 

What Mr Clark and his board will consider to be the "starting point", the "objectives" and the "fundamentals", and if Ms Bishop will see it their way remains to be determined let alone promulgated. However, the minister assured The Australian's Milanda Rout the expertise of the board should give the sector confidence in its decisions. "I've appointed a board with expertise not only in the higher education and research sectors but people with the ability to engage with the corporate and business sectors," and she continued that it: "...will be a very open process."

 

Nevertheless FASTS president Tom Spurling told Ms Rout that while the new board was "eminent ...funding decisions will be primarily determined by the ministerial guidelines and we look forward to seeing them in due course".

 

Just who are the advisory board and are they capable of producing a set of guidelines any less of a dog's breakfast than the product of the RQFDAG. And are they and the minister really capable of deciding how to apportion the funds in such a manner so as to significantly  advance Australian universities' research quality?

 

The thumbnail biographies below are supplied by DEST.

 

 

Chair – Mr Philip Clark AM

     Mr Philip Clark is well respected within the Australian business and legal communities. He is an Emeritus Australian Fellow of the United States College of Law Practice Management. Previously he was a member of the International Legal Services Advisory Council, former Inaugural Chairman, Practice Management Section, Law Council of Australia, and a former member of the Business Council of Australia, Education, Skills and Innovation Taskforce. He has also been very involved in the various development groups for the Research Quality Framework as a representative of the Business Council of Australia.

     Mr Clark has extensive experience in the legal and business sectors. He is a former Managing Partner/Chief Executive Officer of Minter Ellison and former Managing Partner of Mallesons Stephen Jaques. He was Head of Corporate with ABN Amro Australia. Earlier in his career he worked with Pratt Industries and with Shell Australia.

     He currently is a member of the JP Morgan Advisory Council, a director of ING Management Limited and CRI Asset Management Limited and is also involved with a number of charitable and philanthropic endeavours. Mr Clark is Chairman of the Zoe Hall Scholarship Foundation Ltd, a Director of the St James Ethics Centre, a Director of the Karen Lynch Foundation which provides scholarships to Indigenous law students and an adviser to CSIRO. He is also a Director of the Garvan Research Foundation, which is the Garvan Institute of Medical Research’s marketing and fundraising arm.

     Mr Clark was made a Member of the Order of Australia (Queen’s Birthday 2007), for service to the legal profession and business, particularly through the development of national law firms and encouraging corporate involvement in community programmes.

Dr Peter Farrell AM

     Dr Peter Farrell is the Founder of ResMed Inc. and has been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company since 1989. Dr. Farrell was previously Vice President, R&D with Baxter Healthcare (1984-89) and Foundation Director of University of New South Wales Graduate School for Biomedical Engineering where he remains a Visiting Professor.

     He has 30 years' consulting and executive experience in the medical device industry. He is a Fellow of several professional bodies, including the Australian Institutes of Management and Company Directors. Dr. Farrell is Vice Chair of the Executive Council of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School and serves on the Board of Trustees at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) as well as the Health Sciences Advisory Board of the Dean of Medicine and UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering.

     In 1994, the Australian Institution of Engineers awarded Dr. Farrell the honour of National Professional Engineer of the Year, and in 1997, he received the David Dewhurst Award (Biomedical Engineer of the Year) from the same institution. He was also named San Diego Entrepreneur of the Year for Health Sciences in 1998, Australian Entrepreneur of the Year for 2001 and US National Entrepreneur of the Year for Health Sciences for 2005.

     Peter was admitted to Membership of the Order of Australia in 2004. Dr. Farrell holds bachelor and masters degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology respectively, a PhD in bioengineering from the University of Washington in Seattle, and a DSc from the University of New South Wales for research related to dialysis and renal medicine.

Dr Cherrell Hirst AO

     Dr Cherrell Hirst is a medical doctor and was a leading practitioner in the area of breast cancer diagnosis. She was Queenslander of the Year in 1995 and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

     Dr Hirst has been a Director of Suncorp Metway since February 2002. She is Chairman of Peplin Limited, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Brisbane Girls Grammar School and Deputy Chairman of Queensland BioCapital Funds Pty Ltd. She is a director of MBF Australia Limited Group and Australasian Medical Insurance Limited and was a director of Metway Bank from July 1995 to December 1996.

     Dr Hirst was Chancellor of Queensland University of Technology from 1994 to 2004 and is a director of Opera Queensland Limited, a not-for-profit organisation.

     Dr Hirst was awarded the Centenary Medal for distinguished service to education and medicine, and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1998 for service to education as chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology, and to medicine, in particular women's health through the promotion of mammographic screening for the early detection of breast cancer.

Mr John Poynton AM

     Mr John Poynton is co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Azure Capital, a merchant bank based in Perth. He is a Senior Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia, and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Australian Institute of Management.

     Mr Poynton is a director of Austal Limited and is a board member of the Payments Systems Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia. He is also Chair of the Western Australian Museum Foundation and a member of the Business School Board of the University of Western Australia. Previously Mr Poynton served as a director and chairman of Alinta Limited, as a director of the Australian Stock Exchange Limited and, and as Chair of the Australian Stock Exchange in Perth.

     Mr Poynton was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the business and finance sector, particularly professional conduct and regulation, and to the community through a range of charitable institutions. He was awarded West Australian Citizen of the Year in the Industry and Commerce category in June 2006. Mr Poynton was also Campaign Chairman for the Association for the Blind of Western Australia’s Building our Vision fund raising campaign.

Dr Michael Vertigan AC

 Dr Michael Vertigan is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration of Australia and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He was the Winner of the Australian Institute of Company Directors' Tasmanian Division Gold Medal as Director of the Year (2000), and was awarded the Centenary Medal. He holds an honours degree in economics from the University of Tasmania and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

     Dr Vertigan has experience in the public, higher education, philanthropy and business sectors. A former Chancellor of the University of Tasmania, he previously was Secretary of several Victorian and Tasmanian Government departments. He is currently Chairman of Agest Superannuation Fund and Tasmanian Perpetual Trustees Ltd, and is a director of Eraring Energy. He has previously held the position of director on the boards of the NT Power and Water Corporation, ASX Supervisory Review Pty Ltd and Tattersalls Ltd.

     Dr Vertigan has participated in several government activities. He was the Chair of the Review into first Accrual Budget for the Department of Treasury, former Chairman of the Pooled Development Funds Programme (AusIndustry) and member of the Intelligent Island Board (DCITA).

     Dr Vertigan was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (Australia Day 2004) for service as a community leader in public administration, through development of far reaching fiscal policy reform; in business and industry, through focusing on strategic investment for sustainable economic growth; and in education through university governance.

Dr Jim Peacock AO – Chief Scientist of Australia (ex-officio)

     Dr Jim Peacock was appointed Australia's Chief Scientist in March 2006. Dr Peacock is an outstanding scientist with a record of academic excellence and is highly respected by the science, engineering and technology community.

     Dr Peacock is an award winning molecular biologist and fervent science advocate. He is recognised internationally as an eminent researcher in the field of plant molecular biology and its applications in agriculture.
         More information can be found on the Chief Scientist’s Website.

Ms Lisa Paul PSM – Secretary of the Department of Education, Science and Training (ex-officio)

     Ms Lisa Paul was appointed Secretary of the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) on 26 October 2004.

     She has more than 20 years’ public sector experience, including three Deputy CEO roles. Her work has focussed on human services, and she has held senior positions in education, welfare, community services, health and housing, in state and Commonwealth governments and in central and line agencies.