Max Lu is delighted that his Uni Wollongong is university partner of the St George-Illawarra team in the National Rugby League. Perhaps he would be ecstatic if the Dragons were not at the bottom of this year’s table, nil wins and 17 losses so far.
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What’s in a university-lobby name? A heap when Jason Clare is re-engineering the system. The Innovative Research Unis group was created when all Aus unis wanted to be seen to be as good as the Group of Eight – the name was the aspiration. But now, Mr Clare wants a focus on expanding equity access to study – he has ATEC onto it. And so IRU becomes (with more-members), the 2050 Alliance. “This is all about building the sort of workforce we will need in the future and the type of country we will become,” the minister X-ed on Wednesday. And ending the old aspiration for all unis to be famous for research. After decades of being told to focus on their H-Index, older academics might take a while to adjust.
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Among all the politics and pleading over immigration, policy gets lost in the posturing. The learned Joe Walker is here to help with three long conversations on his Podcast. Martin Parkinson (economics of immigration), Mark Cully (history of) and Mike Pezzullo (selection and integration). Good to set the context for international ed arguments.
Have a look at all his other podcasts, a policy polymath is Walker.
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The tumbrils are again delayed at ANU. The Australian National Audit Office announces the report into the university’s previous Renew ANU restructure, scheduled for release this month, is now due sometime in June. This will not please ANU people who believe all is, and always was, well with the university’s finances – they took great pleasure in unproven claims in March that the ANAO agreed with them.
The wheels have already come off a previous attempt to discredit former VC Genevieve Bell. An independent inquiry by former Deakin U VC Jane den Hollander found allegations against Professor Bell were not substantiated. And an investigation of bullying allegations against former chancellor Julie Bishop this month made no findings against her under the whistleblower-protecting Public Interest Disclosure Act, nor grounds for referring her to the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
ANU Enragers are now waiting in the hope that the ANAO will discredit the Renew ANU job cutting plan. They have even greater expectations for Lynelle Briggs’ inquiry commissioned by TEQSA into ANU governance, originally expected in April.
But curiously, no one is hanging out for the University’s annual report, to be tabled in Parliament whenever the Government gets around to it. That will reveal the state of the books for 2025, making the case, or not, for Bell’s now cancelled savings and setting the context for Interim VC Rebekah Brown’s plan for a 2026 balanced budget.
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The Fair Work Commission announces a review of 22 modern awards that require an UG degree, “on work value grounds to remedy potential undervaluation.” The post-secondary Education Services Award is included, so are those for HE Academic and General Staff. Public sector universities have their own enterprise agreements but an award rate hike would set a new base.
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Regional Education Commissioner Fiona Nash’s newly-released annual report for 2025 includes a bunch of advice for the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, for example, “implement regional university and regional campus impact measures as part of the mission-based compacts process.” Ms Nash’s appointment as an ATEC commissioner was announced yesterday.
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EMCRs know what side of the valley of R&D death they prefer, according to a survey of 3,300 of them, for the Australian Academy of Science. Two-thirds want careers in universities, while just 20% want to work in industry. But some recognise grim reality, with 38% considering leaving academic employment “due to funding or job insecurity.”
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Casual academics put up with precarity because they hope it might lead to a permanent job.
Jacqueline Willis and Erika K Smith (both Western Sydney U) surveyed 59 casuals, around two-thirds women, with 13 follow-up interviews, at an unnamed Australian university and its pathway institution. They found their subjects put up with being marginalised and not paid for all their work, “in the ‘hope’ of achieving permanency.”
“Ultimately, participants’ sense of belonging appeared to be negatively affected by the fact that many felt nameless and disposable, and this further undermined their ability to build an academic profile” they write.
But there is some good news, they add the university they surveyed had “taken steps” to convert 150 casuals to continuing academic positions, including them.
Sounds like Western Sydney U to FC, where former VC Barney Glover and the campus branch of the NTEU set a national precedent for creating careers.
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YTD April visa grants for HE are up 6% on ’25 but at 65,400, are nearly a third down on 91,755 in 2023. But that is way better than the rest of international ed. At 10,500, VET is 49% lower than last year. Just half of visa applications for VET were granted YTD April. As for ELICOS, just 5,600 visas were granted, compared to 21,000 in ’23.
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Paul F Burke (UTS) and colleagues surveyed academics in Australia, the US and Europe on their perceptions of research misconduct. Participants reported they think it is more likely when, penalties are lower, when it is less likely to be investigated and when, “the negative human/animal/environmental impact: is smaller.”
“Three latent classes are also identified, revealing differences among researchers with respect to their judgement of the factors that drive misconduct.”
And they are? Alas, behind publisher Taylor and Francis’s paywall is where.
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Jason Clare announced yesterday what everybody interested thought had already happened, that Barney Glover is the permanent head of ATEC. And nobody else outside the sector cares – It did not rate a mention in the Minister’s Thursday spot on breakfast TV.