Take collective view on reforms, says Australian lobby head

Australian universities will need to adopt a collective view when they appraise proposals from their once-in-a-generation review, according to the new head of one of the country’s institutional networks.

James Cook University vice-chancellor Simon Biggs, who has been named chair of the Innovative Research Universities (IRU), said vice-chancellors and lobbyists should consider the impacts on the “sector as a whole” when the time arrived to evaluate proposals from the Universities Accord panel.

“The current funding model is what it is,” he said. “I would argue, from a small regional university, it doesn’t work very well for us. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work OK for others. If you change it in some way, that might work better for me [but] make it a little bit worse for somebody else.

“What we really need to be asking is, will the recommendations of the accord…satisfy the original ambition that the minister [for education, Jason Clare] provided to the panel? Is this the most effective way of spending the money? Where should we be supportive? Where should we point out the risks?”

Professor Biggs said the IRU’s diverse nature – with members in both metropolitan and regional Australia, ranging in size from the University of Canberra’s 17,000-odd students to Western Sydney University with almost triple that number – made it a good testing ground for proposals likely to gain widespread support.

“It’s rare that…anything that comes forward looks great to all of us,” he said. “We have that ability to say, ‘Well, it might look good for a big capital city university, but I can tell you it doesn’t look good for us in North Queensland.’”

Professor Biggs will head the IRU in 2024 and 2025. He takes over as chair from former Canberra vice-chancellor Paddy Nixon, who quit without notice last month.

It is a pivotal time for the sector, with the 47 recommendations in the accord’s final report expected to be released publicly at the end of the month, together with the government’s response.  

Professor Biggs said he expected a positive response. “We should assume that the minister is looking to accept as many of the recommendations as he can. Otherwise, why go through the process? Our job is…to think about what does [each recommendation] mean? How will we implement it? Can we live with it?”

He said he expected some of the recommendations to be achievable without government intervention, while others might require little expense. The “thornier” ideas would be about money.

“You can never say never, I guess, but it’s unlikely we’re going to see some bumper package of additional funding,” he said. “I think one of the traps that universities and other people fall into frequently is just saying we need more money.”

Professor Biggs said a tertiary education commission, which he expected to be recommended by the panel and supported by the government, would warrant particular scrutiny. “How will that operate? Is that another layer of compliance overhead or can it replace some layers of the overhead we’ve already got? Does it facilitate a holistic system that’s going to work better?

“My [test] will be, does this make the public spend on universities more efficient and more effective?”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com