The pandemic was hard for PhD researchers, with lockdowns slowing their work and eating into time-limited scholarships. It was more than enough to make research a tough sell – but the hard times started way-before then. Australian postgrad research numbers have been stagnant across the century. There were around 37,500 research PGs in 2001 and 40,900 in 2023.
In comparison, the national population grew by just under 30% and total Australian student enrolments increased 20% plus, from just under 630,000 in 2003 to 934,000 in 2023.
There was research PG growth – just not much. Health was the big winner, up nearly 10%, to nearly 9200. But otherwise not declining was a win, the hard sciences stayed between 8,600 and 8,900. IT was up 30 as in 3-0 places, across the five years to ‘23.
And that was the growth news. The society and culture category started falling and did not stop, 10,700 in 2018 to 9,480 in ’23. Engineering was down 15 % to 3,470. Biz ed and creative arts are both endangered species, down 20 % to around 2,000 scholars.
Whether we will run out of local creative arts researchers probably will not bother the government and while engineers are another matter Australia can do what it always does and import talent. But there is still the question, will we do a Japan birthrate on replacing people with doctorates.
Universities Australia is its usually sunny self in explaining the decline in PhD study, “while education is often considered an investment in human capital, the return on investment for PhD studies may not be obvious to many.”
The years of graft to complete one and uncertain employment with one might have something to do with that.
