Only 15% of respondents to the Future Campus Tertiary Education survey thought the Accord's primary target of four in five workers having a tertiary qualification by 2050 was likely to be met.
In contrast, 65% of respondents said the 80% qualification target was unlikely to be achieved, or definitely would not be achieved – underscoring the magnitude of change required to convince even the sector's own staff that the Accord vision is both practical and likely to be resourced.
The survey revealed a range of other concerns among respondents, who were almost all HE sector staff.
Social licence and/or improving public perceptions of the sector was clearly ranked as the leading issue for 2026 by the Future Campus survey. Concern over funding came second, which is understandable after a year of belt tightening and cuts at many institutions, and approaches to tackling Gen AI a relatively distant third.
We were surprised, frankly, that social licence was recognised as such a big issue by so many. Iain Martin revealed the first polling to be shared publicly by the sector in relation to social licence earlier this year at HE FEST, noting a steep slump in public trust.
Other earlier polls have confirmed the issue, but have been kept under wraps by the sector. For a sector that has tried and apparently failed to win back the hearts of minds of voters over the past couple of years, this is not a wake up call – our organisational leaders were already aware of the problem.
With an avalanche of regulatory responses required next year, it would be easy to cave in to pressure and defer any real effort at listening and responding to the community for another 12 months – but recent months have shown that staff also want real change in key areas – and it will be difficult to drive effective reform from within institutions unless Vice-Chancellors and CEOs win back staff support.
This is illustrated in the outcomes of the Future Campus Tertiary leaders survey. While there were a relatively small number of respondents (140 – almost all of whom were sector staff), there were a few clear trends that emerged, which echo similar findings in intra-institutional staff surveys reported through the year.
The Future Campus survey found that while 68% strongly agreed that universities played an important role in Australian society and also that university research was important to them, just 28% strongly agreed that they trusted universities and 34% strongly believed it was important to complete a university degree.
This is stunning – that more than one in five respondents said they did not trust universities and 30% were neutral or in disagreement that it was important to complete a university degree.
There are many caveats. Larger samples are required, and the survey may have attracted disaffected staff disproportionately. But the results are not far away from other similar questions pitched to staff during the year, and align with a range of commentary questioning the value and role of institutions and their qualifications.
Addressing these concerns will be critical both within institutions and across the wider community in 2026 – enough to whet the appetite of any aspiring HE leader looking to make their mark in the new year.