“Experts gather to tackle the elephant in the room,” UWA Media promotes a conference, Monday. Very wise – tough job for just one.
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Discovery Grants for 2025 are announced, with a 47% success rate and yes, it is too good to be true.
Monash U leads with 72, followed by UNSW (64), Uni Melbourne (61), Uni Sydney (57) and Uni Queensland (56). All up the big five account for 310, just under 60% of total awards.
This round used the new two-stage process with 4,149 expressions of interest reduced to 1,130 full applications, which is where the 536 awards as a nearly 50% approval rate comes from.
The National Interest Test link was broken on announcement day (Tuesday) but project descriptions are probably enough for Opposition MPs looking for results to mock.
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As of January, pharmacy grads with an Australian Qualifications Framework Level Nine masters (extended) in the discipline can use the title Doctor of Pharmacy. The qualification is for “individuals who apply an advanced body of knowledge in a range of contexts for professional practice and as a pathway for further learning.” But it’s not a doctorate – that takes Level Ten, “individuals who apply a substantial body of knowledge to research, investigate and develop new knowledge, in one or more fields of investigation, scholarship or professional practice.”
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The Senate has sent the new fee free TAFE bill to its standing committee on education and employment, to report by mid-February. “High quality vocational education and training is vital to Australia’s future” and “a well-resourced and supported public TAFE network is at the heart of a high-quality, responsive and accessible national VET sector,” is the pitch. A piece by the Prime Minister, (Canberra Times, Monday) could qualify as a submission. “TAFE opens doors and gives Australians one of the greatest opportunities they have – not just to fulfil their potential, but expand it. And in the process, Australia fulfils more of its own vast potential,” Mr Albanese’s writers wrote. Perhaps sceptical Coalition members of the Committee will invite him to give evidence.
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The ever-understated Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes warns MRIs “will not be financially viable” in five years without (who would have thought) “urgent action in the next Federal Budget.” Apparently, a funding shortfall “has brought the sector to breaking point.”
According to AAMRI, every dollar in government grants requires another 64c for on-costs,
The Association wants funding to “support the full costs” of medical research, specifically:
- more money for the National Health and Medical Research Council, to fully fund researcher salaries
- “an urgent boost” for MRIs, “to cover the cost of undertaking their life-saving research”
- a plan to include all direct and indirect costs in the new National Health and Medical Research Strategy.
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An end to the public relations challenges on moving may be in sight for University of Tasmania management, even though the State Government is sticking with a Bill that requires both Houses of Parliament to approve any sale of land at the Sandy Bay Campus. The university wanted to sell just about all of Sandy Bay to fund its relocation to the CBD, which is only happening in part now, after years of opposition from community members, who like Sandy Bay as is. There is now a proposal to build a STEM teaching centre at Sandy Bay, but this depends on Commonwealth funding, which may, or may not, eventuate. However, State Minister Madeleine Ogilvie, who loudly opposes the original plan, now says the university could sell some land at Sandy Bay to fund the hypothetical development. This upsets activists who say any sale will make the existing campus untenable. The minority Liberal Government and Labor Opposition have the numbers to get this through the lower house. But between them they have seven seats while there are seven Independents and one Green in the upper house – which is maybe why Labor is piling on the pressure. The Opposition has long backed the city-move as good for the university, its students and the State.
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The apparatchiks at ASQA are way happier in the service than they used to be, demonstrated by the new Australian Public Service staff census for 2024. Back in 2022 just 43% of ASQA-ites stated they were “proud to work there;” this year it is 74%, within coo-ee of the all of APS 78%. Overall, staff are positive about their jobs and colleagues and believe what the agency does matters.
Ditto at TEQSA, with 71% of staff proud of the Agency, an 11% lift on last year. The total 71% “employee engagement score” is just 5% under the all-regulator average.
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There was a media flurry during the week over the government getting involved in regulating university management pay. Setting probably not, strongly suggesting for sure. The imminent Australian Tertiary Education Commission could potentially do it -the Academic Salaries Tribunal certainly did, circa middle ‘70s to ‘80s.
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“They told me university would be the best years of my life. They were wrong,” is the headline on an SBS story. SBS! And there is not a word blaming neo-liberalism. Recruiters take note – your institutions are in trouble when SBS runs a yarn by a student explaining why, “university made me feel like a cash cow with an anonymous number, handing out money for a course regardless of if I passed or failed.”
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The University of Sydney made such a hash of managing Gaza protests that it commissioned Sydney barrister Bruce Hodgkinson to review what it did and suggest what it can do better.
His recommendations include:
- Continued prohibition of encampments “as a form of protest”
- A student addressing a class before it starts is misconduct, but at the end is ok – people can leave
- Overhaul and simplify university complaints procedures
- “Strengthen” alternative dispute resolution
- Establish formal protocols for assistance from NSW and Federal Police
Plus there is the New Civility Rule.
“Finding a balance between the proper exercise of the right to freedom of speech and academic freedom and the use of speech which is not protected by those freedoms is a very difficult matter,” Mr Hodgkinson suggests.
Which is where the Rule can help. It would apply “to lectures, seminars, tutorials and meetings which take place within any of the University’s buildings” and “make the speaker responsible for ensuring that the meaning of the words and phrases used by them was clear to the audience being addressed.”
Failing to comply with the Rule “should be dealt with as a misconduct matter.”
And won’t the “when I said, what my friends correctly heard” defences be fun.
The University Senate has adopted all his recommendations, in principle.
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Ever pragmatic Universities Australia congratulates the Government on passage of “pro-student” reforms arising from the Accord. “We will continue to work with the Government to overcome any administrative burdens,” UA announces. That might mean the student services and amenities fee clauses, which require 40% of what students pay to go to student organisations on their campus. This, UA previously warned, could be a problem where “appropriate student-led organisations do not exist.”
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The learned Jennifer Parker (ANU’s National Security College) thinks we need a coastguard. “A layered defence model, which includes the establishment of a coastguard to address Australia’s civil maritime security and maritime home defence, would enhance our capabilities while relieving pressure on the RAN and ADF”, she argues. Hang on, you say, wasn’t somebody else recently making a similar case, FC certainly thought so. But it depends how you define “recent.” Kim Beazley campaigned for a coastguard in 2005-2008.
