The peak humanities lobby has demanded the breadth of university research be protected as it seeks to defend its members’ jobs, in a submission to the ATEC inquiry on reducing the research capacity of some universities.
The Australian Academy of the Humanities responds to the proposal that universities could focus on fields where they have research expertise, but only “without sacrificing the breadth of scholarship, disciplinary capability and educational provision of Australian universities, or weakening Australia's national knowledge system.”
The 40/40/20 teaching, research and service “is what constitutes a university,” the Academy announces
The ATEC inquiry follows Education Minister Jason Clare asking whether universities should research everything they teach. The Higher Education Threshold Standards requires universities to research in half their fields of education (minimum five).
The Academy acknowledges specialising research can enable targeted investment, but that should not occur at the cost of, “the broader scholarly foundations of university education.” And these could be at risk from a lower research range requirement that meant, “an organisation can achieve university status by assembling a small number of prestigious research affiliations while operating primarily as a specialist teaching provider.”
It also calls on the national government to protect institutions from concentrating research resources. “The Commonwealth must retain responsibility for overseeing national capability as a whole: identifying gaps that individual institutional choices will not fill, protecting capabilities of national significance, and ensuring that the Australian University category continues to represent something more than a collection of specialist qualifications and research strengths.”
And it fears for the fate of academics. “What will happen to research staff whose field of research falls outside a university’s newly nominated areas of research specialisation? Would such staff be expected to transition from teaching-and-research to teaching-focused roles, face redundancy, or retain opportunities to undertake research?”