The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia presents a portfolio of achievements for the community with policy props on ways its members can accomplish more.
The comprehensive information compiled in the report on the state of the sector demonstrates that securing the needed resources will not be easy.
Stand-out issues to address include:
Student demand is changing
UG demand across all fields is down 2015-24. Some disciplines have not recovered from Covid. UG education has grown but PG is down. Internationals in management-commerce have not moved since 2021. “The decline in social sciences enrolment may not be cause for immediate concern. However, it requires further analysis at a disciplinary level to ensure that areas critical to Australia’s future workforce are not at risk.”
Job Ready Graduates is “unfair and unworkable”
Low SES enrolments in the top student paying band were down nearly 20 percent 2020-24. They increased 2 per in lowest cost to student courses, education, nursing, languages.
The report is admirably frank in acknowledging that universities can “make pragmatic decisions to redistribute places across disciplines to optimise the use of their funding envelope,” but overall a “fairer and more sustainable funding model” is a “high priority.”
“Some key disciplines face alarming declines”
Due to a fewer starters from school university economics is “increasingly skewed to males from advantaged backgrounds” Southeast Asian language HE enrolments are down three quarters over a decade, while South Asian languages fell 72% and Eastern languages over 40% lower.
Social science research is losing global share
Aus publications are increasing, but not as fast as China and India.
Risk of mission-based research becoming “too narrow”
“Research policy is too often “framed narrowly around technology and commercialisation … research funding, assessment and institutional settings must recognise social scientists as powerful leaders and partners in innovation and research discovery and translation.”
But while research capacity is down, share of ARC up
Since 2020, research capacity (funding settings, workforce conditions, international student revenue) has declined where disciplines “intersect” with humanities – language comms and culture are down 27%, history-archaeology 12% lower. Education research is “a particular concern … the only social science discipline contracting across every source of expenditure simultaneously.”
The better news is that last year social science researchers had 27% of National Competitive Grant Program money.