AUR 51 01 by NTEU

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009 Published by NTEU

ISSN 0818–8068

AUR

Australian Universities’Review

AUR Editor Dr Ian R Dobson

AUR Editorial Board Dr Carolyn Allport Professor Walter Bloom

Editorial Policy

Book Reviews

The Australian Universities’ Review (AUR, formerly Vestes) is published by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) to encourage debate and discussion about issues in higher education and its contribution to Australian public life, with an emphasis on those matters of concern to NTEU members.

Books for review should be sent to the Editor. Our policy is to review books dealing either with tertiary education or with matters pertinent to issues in tertiary education. Book reviews should be between 200 and 1200 words; review essays may be longer.

Editorial decisions are made by the Editor, assisted by the AUR Editorial Board. The views expressed in articles in this publication, unless otherwise stated, are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Editor, the Editorial Board or the publisher. Although some contributions are solicited by the Editor or the Editorial Board, AUR is anxious to receive contributions independently from staff and students in the higher education sector and other readers.

Dr Anita Devos Dr Jamie Doughney Professor Ralph Hall Professor Simon Marginson Mr Grahame McCulloch Dr Alex Millmow Dr Paul Rodan Dr Leesa Wheelahan

AUR publishes both articles and other contributions, including short commentary and satire. Articles will be assessed by independent referees before publication. Priority is given to contributions which are substantial, lively, original and have a broad appeal. Responses to previously published contributions are encouraged. AUR is listed on the DEEWR (formerly DEST) register of refereed journals.

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Contributions should normally be between 1,000 and 5,000 words, although longer articles will be considered. All articles should be accompanied by an abstract that would not usually be longer than 150 words.

Australian Universities’ Review, c/- NTEU National Office, PO Box 1323, South Melbourne VIC Australia 3205 Phone: +613 9254 1910 Fax: +613 9254 1915 Email: editor@aur.org.au

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Satire AUR welcomes contributions to its satirical section, ‘The corridor of uncertainty’, created in the belief that the contemporary academy provides rich resources for wit, irony and humour.

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Archive This and previous issues of AUR (currently back to 1995) can be viewed online at www.aur.org.au/archive.html.

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Style Style should follow the Australian Government Publishing Service Style Manual, Sixth Edition, 2002.

Sub-headings should be typed in lower case, ranged left, with relative importance indicated by A, B etc.

References in the text should be given in the author-date style:

Single quotation marks only should be used, except for quotes within quotes. All quotes of more than 50 words should be indented and placed in a separate paragraph.

McCallum (1990) argues... or as various authors argue (McCallum 1990; Kenway 1989). Page references should be thus: (McCallum 1990, p. 41). Page references should be used for direct quotations. The reference list should be placed in alphabetical order at the end of the paper, utilising the author-date system. For a reference to a book: Australian Universities’ Review is printed in Australia by Geon Group on 100% certified Forest Stewardship Council Mixed Sources paper products. Stock is from well-managed forests and other controlled sources. Subscribers can contribute further to the environment by opting for ‘soft delivery’: receiving an email alert about new issues online (e-book or downloadable PDF) rather than a posted paper copy.

McCallum, D 1990, The social production of merit, Falmer, London. For a reference to a chapter in a collection: McCollow, J & Knight, J 2005, ‘Higher Education in Australia: An Historical Overview’, in Bella, M, McCollow, J & Knight, J (eds), Higher Education in Transition, University of Queensland, Brisbane. For a journal reference: Zappala, J & Lombard, M 1991, ‘The decline of Australian educational salaries’, Australian Bulletin of Labour, 17(1), pp. 76–95.

Dates thus: 30 June 1990. ‘ise’ should be used rather than ‘ize’, e.g. organise not organize. ‘per cent’ should be used rather than ‘%’ in the text. Abbreviations should be avoided, but if their use is necessary, they should be explained at their first use. Neither male nor female pronouns should be used to refer to groups containing persons of both sexes. Figures should be provided in EPS, PDF or Excel format, numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear (or are cited). Figures should be drawn precisely and boldly. Photographs and illustrations may be submitted for possible inclusion. Style sheet available at www.aur.org.au/submissions.html

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009 Published by NTEU

ISSN 0818–8068

Australian Universities’ Review 2

Letter from the editor

Ian R Dobson

The Bradley Review and access to higher education in Australia Bob Birrell & Daniel Edwards The Review of Higher Education in Australia (the Bradley Review) has recommended a massive expansion in the level of domestic training in Australian universities. This article examines the Review’s rationale for rejecting the previous orthodoxy that there is no need for such expansion to the higher education sector, and considers the feasibility of achieving its recommendation.

Mike Willis & Rowan Kennedy This study identifies the specific steps that were taken over the first two years to establish a group of Sino-foreign educational alliances. Information from interviews with Chinese and foreign university managers was used to establish the steps required to develop a mature basis for ongoing alliance activity.

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing: issues for Australian universities

The profile of university research services staff Darlene Sebalj & Allyson Holbrook The Australian higher education sector has a strong focus on ‘research’, but has rarely concerned itself with the staff that provide bureaucratic support to that research. This paper reports on a survey of 36 Australian universities on the structure and demographics of their ‘research services’ staff.

REVIEWS 71

The theatre of the classroom Improving Student Retention in Higher Education: The Role of Teaching and Learning, by Glenda Crosling, Liz Thomas and Margaret Heagney (eds). Review by Maree Conway

Hey Big Spender! An analysis of Australian universities and how much they pay their general staff Ian R Dobson An analysis of publically-available staff statistics and salary schedules reveals a considerable variation between universities as to the salaries they pay their general staff and the relative seniority of those staff. This paper identifies the highest- and lowest-paying universities and the range of general staff ranks employed by each.

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance Daniel Edwards Australian university students are not as geographically mobile as their counterparts in many other countries. This paper suggests that the location of academically accessible university campuses in outer suburban areas could help to improve opportunities for university entrance.

Tania Bezzobs This paper is about research costing methodologies. There are inherent tensions between competition law and competitive neutrality, but these could be resolved by improving costing and pricing transparency for research.

Professional staff in UK universities: recent developments Celia Whitchurch, Maureen Skinner & John Lauwerys This paper reviews three developments relating to professional staff in UK higher education: a major report undertaken for the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education; a Continuing Professional Development Framework developed by the Association of University Administrators; and the publication of case material on career pathways.

Research productivity: some paths less travelled Brian Martin Conventional approaches for fostering research productivity, such as recruitment and incentives, do relatively little to develop latent capacities in researchers. This paper examines six ‘unorthodox approaches’ that could be used to improve research productivity.

Not quite like a honeymoon: Charting the first 24 months of Sinoforeign educational programmes

Higher education under the rising and midnight suns University Reform in Finland and Japan, by Timo Aarevaara & Fumihiro Maruyama (eds). Review by Eric Skuja

Education Revolution’s little red book Education, Science and Public Policy: Ideas for an Education Revolution, edited by Simon Marginson and Richard James. Review by Paul Rodan

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Letter from the editor Ian R Dobson

Life after fifty is a reality for the Australian Universities’ Review. Having notched up its 50, AUR is looking forward to batting on to its maiden century. This issue of the Australian Universities’ Review is the second in the ‘new, improved’ format. It covers considerable academic ground, examining current policy and practice in Australian universities from several perspectives. The report of Professor Denise Bradley’s Review of Australian Higher Education is hot off the press, but this issue of AUR has a paper that considers how it would be possible for Recommendation 2 to be achieved: ‘That the Australian Government set a national target of at least 40 per cent of 25- to 34-yearolds having attained a qualification at bachelor level or above by 2020’. Bob Birrell and Daniel Edwards suggest that new universities will be needed before it would be possible achieve this recommendation: “It is clear that the existing university infrastructure will not be able to cope [with the necessary expansion of enrolments]. Incremental expansion on existing metropolitan campuses could only provide a small fraction of the required capacity’. Roll on University of the Outer Suburbs! One of the results of the emphasis on non-government sources of income that has created Australia’s higher education sector as it now is has been an increase in dealings with international students and arrangements with universities abroad. Mike Willis and Rowan Kennedy provide a list of ‘must do’ items in order for Sino-foreign agreements to work. Research has also received considerable attention over the past couple of decades, and this issue of AUR has three research-related papers. The first of these examines research performance and how it might be improved through considering a few ‘different’ techniques. First, Brian Martin considers six unorthodox

Letter from the editor, Ian R Dobson

approaches that could be used to develop researchers’ latent capacities. Tanya Bezzobs’ paper examines research in a legalistic sense and discusses research commercialisation and the tension between competition law and competitive neutrality exists which could be resolved through improved costing and pricing transparency for research. The third paper is a nuts-and-bolts analysis by Darlene Sebalj and Allyson Holbrook of the staff that work in Australian universities’ ‘research services’ divisions. The findings from the authors’ survey identified a staff group that is typically female, older and university qualified. But (guess what!) men are more likely to earn a significantly higher salary and move up the salary scale at a faster rate. Three papers in this issue of AUR examine staffing from various perspectives, and one of those papers was mentioned in the previous paragraph. Of the other papers, Celia Whitchurch and her colleagues report on the current situation for ‘professional staff’ in the United Kingdom. The term ‘professional staff’ encompasses managers, non-academic professionals, student welfare workers, careers advisors, personnel and planning officers, and public relations and marketing professionals. Many of Australian universities’‘general staff’ fall into these categories. It is interesting to see that in some national education systems, university staff who are not academics are occasionally the subject of formal review and analysis. The third ‘staffing’ paper is ‘Hey, Big Spender’ (with apologies to Shirley Bassey and others). It identifies the universities that pay their general staff higher salaries than others. The gap between those at the top and those at the bottom is considerable, and in many cases the lower-paying universities also have a higher proportion of staff in relatively junior ranks. Subsequent vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

research in this area could examine university budgets and just what universities spend their money on. Some universities seem to have short arms and deep pockets when it comes to general staff salaries! Daniel Edwards, co-author with Birrell of the paper mentioned above, has his name appearing a second time in this edition of the AUR, with a paper solicited several months ago. Edwards notes the propensity of Australian students to attend universities close to where they live, in contrast with behaviour in many other countries. He considers the measures that might be needed to improve rates of access for students from fringe suburban areas of Melbourne.

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The Australian Universities’ Review is a major scholarly journal in all aspects of higher education research, policy and practice. Authors interested in getting their work to a large audience should consider AUR, which circulates to about 8,000 in hard copy and is available online for free download. Australian higher education journals do not usually have such reach. Some might suggest that this is a ‘never mind the quality, feel the width’ argument, but a journal with a large audience has a greater ‘real’ impact than a journal with two or three hundred subscribers. Send your paper in now, and let your work be spread far and wide!

Call for papers The Australian Universities’ Review (AUR) encourages debate and discussion about issues in higher education and its contribution to public life. The AUR Editor and Board have identified areas in which scholarly or practitioner papers would meet these aims.

Bradley Review What effect will the Bradley Review have? If its recommendations are taken up by the Commonwealth Government, the Australian higher education sector could be up its biggest shake-up since the Dawkins reforms twenty years ago. What influence will Australia’s current economic situation have? AUR seeks papers and commentary on the Bradley Review and what it might mean for Australia’s postsecondary education.

Ethics An issue of considerable concern to many researchers in the humanities and social sciences is the imposition of many of the ethical requirements (rightly) demanded of biomedical researchers dealing with human experimentation. Why would any university ethics committee think it necessary for ethics clearance to be granted to a researcher analysing data files that are publicly available? Why would an ethics committee require ethics clearance on a questionnaire on university reform to be administered to Vice-Chancellors? What protection would the subjects of this research require? Do ethics committees understand the concepts of academic freedom, professional responsibility and common sense? Is privacy legislation the last resort of the scoundrel? Papers are invited from all sections of the research community and from members of ethics committees. Papers and opinion pieces alike are sought. These should be between 1,000 and 6,000 words in length. They should be received no later that 30 June 2009 in order to allow adequate time for the peer review process. Please refer to the Style Guide at the front of this issue. For further information, please email editor@aur.org.au.

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Letter from the editor, Ian R Dobson

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The Bradley Review and access to higher education in Australia Bob Birrell & Daniel Edwards Monash University & the Australian Council for Education Research

The Review of Higher Education in Australia (the Bradley Review) has recommended a massive expansion in the level of domestic training in Australian universities. This article examines the Report’s rationale for rejecting the previous orthodoxy that there is no need for such expansion and, to the extent that there is, it would be better focussed on the vocational sector. It examines the scale of the enrolment expansion envisaged and critically examines the Review’s policy recommendations to achieve this increase. It concludes that there will have to be a major expansion in university campus construction in the outer suburban regions of all Australian metropolises.

Introduction The Final Report of the Review of Australian Higher Education chaired by Professor Denise Bradley is a crucial milestone in the recent history of the Australian higher education sector. The Review has set the scene for a major expansion in domestic higher education training in Australia. It calls for a sharp increase in the participation rates of under-represented groups and recommends an overall target increase in enrolment which will achieve an increase in the share of 25- to 34-year-olds holding a bachelor degree or above from 29 per cent in 2006 to 40 per cent by 2020. These aspirations are well founded. Domestic higher education training was neglected throughout the economic boom since the late 1990s – at great cost to opportunity for young Australian residents. There has been a flood on new jobs in professional and related fields where university credentials are the minimum requirement, yet during this time there has been almost no growth in domestic undergraduate course completions.

This paper begins with an analysis of the divergent views on the merits of expanding higher education participation. Until recently, the prevailing view amongst policy makers was that there was no need for an increase in higher education participation. To the extent there was a need for the opening up of postschool educational opportunities, the orthodox view was that it lay mainly with the vocational education sector.The Review decisively breaks with this perspective.We explore its reasoning on this issue and broadly endorse its conclusions. This is important, because if the Rudd Labor Government is not convinced by the Review’s stance on this issue, it is unlikely to support the Review’s key recommendations. The second part of the paper deals with the practical issues of achieving the Review’s recommendations on the provision of higher education opportunity.This is done in the context of calculations of the increase in enrolment levels that will be required if the targets recommended by the Review are adopted. When the projected increase in Australia’s population is taken into account, the expansion in places needed to achieve

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vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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the proposed increase in participation turns out to be huge. The final parts of the paper explore the issues of how the additional students are to be attracted and where they are to be drawn from.

for workers with VET and higher education qualifications with projected supply, given current training rates. The key finding from Shah and Burke cited in the Discussion Paper was that there would be a greater need for additional completions in the VET sector than in the The changing policy emphasis on higher higher education sector (Discussion Paper 2008, p. 41). education Since the study also concluded that most of the extra completions in the VET sector would have to be at the During the eleven years of Coalition Government diploma or advanced diploma level rather than at the (from 1996 to 2007), successive ministers with responcertificate or trade level (Shah and Burke 2006, p. 44), sibility for higher education insisted that there was no these findings were significant. If accepted as the basis case for increased public funds to expand the sector. for higher education policy they implied a cautious This was partly because they believed/hoped that any stance on university training and close attention to the increase in domestic university training would come needs of the VET sector.The Discussion Paper, however, from young people paying full fees, but also because did cite an alternative view, put by the present authors they were not convinced that there was a need for (Birrell, Healy and Smith. 2008), which argued that the more university graduates. job creation pattern of the The mantra, pushed with last decade implied that the The mantra, pushed with more and more more and more vigour as rate of growth in demand vigour as the resources boom took hold the resources boom took for those with higher eduin the early years of this century, was that hold in the early years of cation credentials would higher education was an indulgence which this century, was that higher exceed that for those with reflected parents’ status aspirations for education was an indulVET credentials (Discussion their children. gence which reflected parPaper 2008, pp. 22 and 41). ...When the Review of Australian Higher ents’ status aspirations for By the time the Review their children. Instead, the completed its Final Report Education began, this perspective also Government insisted that in December 2008 there appeared to hold sway within the senior what Australia needed was were no further references levels of the Rudd Government. an expansion in Vocational to this issue. The Review Education and Training concludes that for the (VET) both at the trade (certificate III level or below) job markets of the future, ‘Estimates of skills demand and at the diploma and advanced diploma levels. vary, but suggest that it will be greatest for those with When the Review of Australian Higher Education higher levels of skills, qualifications and experience’ began, this perspective also appeared to hold sway (Review 2008, p.180). By this the Review means those within the senior levels of the Rudd Government. with bachelor degree level qualifications or above. Labor’s education policy prior to the 2007 election This conclusion depended in part on work commisfocussed on secondary school and VET level education sioned by the Review from Access Economics (Access and training. Since taking office, the Government has Economics, 2008).The firm projected the demand and announced that it will create some 500,000 training supply for persons with post-school qualifications over places in the vocational sector. The only action on the the period 2006 to 2018. higher education front has been the establishment of Access Economics examined the likely domestic the Review. demand for university and diploma/advanced diploma The Review itself began with an open mind on the places, in the light of demographic constraints (numVET/university balance issue. The Review’s Discussion bers of people in the relevant age cohorts) and the Paper, issued in June 2008, framed its discussion of the potential financial rewards for those with such qualifiissue around a report by the Centre for the Economics cations. It also projected likely demand from employers of Education and Training (CEET) at Monash University for these qualifications. It concluded that the Australian by Shah and Burke (Shah and Burke, 2006). This study economy was changing in ways favouring those with projected the training outlook over the decade 2006 to higher education qualifications – relative to those with 2018 through a comparison of the projected demand VET qualifications (Review 2008, p. 16). vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

The Bradley Review and access to higher education in Australia, Bob Birrell & Daniel Edwards

The Access Economics projections put employer demand for those with undergraduate qualifications by 2008 at 145,379, well above domestic university completions in that year of 115,930 (Review 2008, p. 16). Access projected that employer demand for those with undergraduate qualifications by 2017 and 2018 respectively would be 168,298 and 150,588 (the variation attributable to Access Economics’ judgement about the phase of the business cycle at this time). By contrast Access Economics projected employer demand for those with diploma/advanced diploma qualifications in 2008 to be only slightly ahead of completions in that year. It also projected that employer demand for such persons will fall, from 45,729 in 2008 to 42,921 in 2017 and 37,407 in 2017 and 2018 (Review 2008, p. 16). These findings are consistent with research undertaken by the Centre for Population and Urban Research (CPUR) for the Review (Birrell, Healy, Edwards and Dobson 2008). The CPUR research was based on an analysis of the qualifications of persons employed in managerial, professional and associate-professional occupations which compared recent entrants to these occupations with older cohorts. It was found that the younger cohort was far more likely to possess degree level qualifications and less likely to possess diploma level qualifications than their older counterparts (Birrell, Healy, Edwards and Dobson 2008, pp. 6-9). The authors argued that the possession of a degree was becoming the minimum entry qualification for managerial, professional and associate professional occupations. There may be an element of credentialism in this development, but a more important factor is that from the point of view of employers, these occupations require increasingly sophisticated analytic and communication skills. That is why degree level qualifications are usually regarded as essential for those entering these occupations. This background helps explain why the Review has overturned a decade of official denial that there is any need for expansion of the higher education sector.The Review does so in dramatic terms. It recommends that the Australian Government should aim for a massive increase in the share of Australians aged 25-34 with degree qualifications from 29 per cent in 2006 to 40 per cent in 2020 (Review 2008, p. xiv). This target appears to be drawn from parallel higher education targets declared by various European nations, including Sweden, the UK, Germany, Ireland and Finland (Review 2008, p. 20).

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Implications for expansion of university places However, the Review provides no detailed estimate of what the 40 per cent target means for future enrolment levels in Australia’s universities. The following section provides an estimate of the required enrolment level. In order to assess the enrolment level required to achieve the 40 per cent target, account must be taken of both the demographic and participation rate factors. To the extent that Australia’s population expands there will have to be a parallel increase in enrolments just to maintain the current level of university participation. This is the demographic component. In addition, because the recommended qualification target requires an increase in the share of those with degrees there will also have to be an increase in enrolments attributable to an increase in participation rates amongst the university aged population. This is the participation rate component. We have assumed that the enrolment increases attributable to the participation rate component will have to approximate the target increase in the required growth in the share of the 25 to 34 cohort who hold degrees, from 29 to 40 per cent between 2006 and 2020. This assumption is based on the fact that there has been very little increase in university participation rates in Australia over recent years. For instance, data drawn from the 2001 and 2006 censuses show that the share of Australian 18 to 20 year-olds who were attending university in 2006 was 28.9 per cent, only marginally above the 28.4 per cent level in 2001 (Birrell and Edwards 2007, 2). The implication is that there is no increase in the pipeline of younger degree holders which will add to the share of degree holders aged 25 to 34 by the year 2020.All of the boost to participation rates required will have to occur after the Review’s reforms are implemented. There is one qualification to this last point. If Australia continues to rely heavily on an influx of migrant professionals, then a significant proportion of those with degrees by 2020 will derive from this source rather than from an increase in domestic training. The Review itself ignores this issue. The implicit assumption is that Australia’s future skill needs will derive from domestic training. Indeed, there will be much less need for skilled migrants if the Review’s recommendations are followed. However, at the present time, the skilled migration intake is large relative to domestic training. In

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vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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2007-08, 26,975 settlers with professional occupations arrived in Australia. Another 18,000 gained permanent residence visas while in Australia, most of whom were former overseas students who had completed university courses here. By way of comparison, there were 111,027 domestic undergraduate completions from Australian universities in 2006.

involved an increase in higher education participation rates of two per cent per annum for each age group over the period 2006 and 2016, with stable participation rates thereafter. On this assumption the share of each age group participating in higher education would have increased by about 22 per cent over the period to 2020. In this case – again using ABS Series B assumptions – the total growth in student enrolments The demographic component between 2006 and 2021 would be 284,034. This repThe Review panel commissioned the CPUR to invesresents a 39.6 per cent growth in enrolments from tigate the size of the demographic component. The the 716,885 starting point in 2006. The participation CPUR prepared university enrolment projections rate component of this increase is 179,817 – the rest which applied current (2006) age-specific university being the 104,817 increase required to keep pace with participation rates to the latest Australian Bureau of population growth. The 179,817 figure represents an Statistics (ABS) projections for the numbers of perincrease of 25 per cent on the enrolment base in 2006 sons resident in Australia by age group over the period of 716,885. 2006 to 2031 (ABS 2008). Would an increase in For this purpose the ABS enrolment of 284,034 by ... in dramatic terms [the Review] Series B projections were 2021 achieve the Review’s recommends that the Australian used. These are classified 40 per cent degree qualiGovernment should aim for a massive by ABS as their median profication target? Perhaps increase in the share of Australians aged jection. These assume that not, since the increase in 25-34 with degree qualifications from 29 the recent high annual net participation involved in per cent in 2006 to 40 per cent in 2020 overseas migration intake this projection is just 22 of around 180,000 per year per cent, well short of the and comparatively high fer37.9 per cent growth in tility levels will continue over the projection period. If share of 25 to 34 year-olds with degree qualifications these assumptions are correct, the number of students sought by the Review. On the other hand, such is the enrolled in Australian universities will increase from scale of migration to Australia of persons with degrees 716,885 in 2006 to 821,102 in 2021.This represents an that they would significantly augment the number of increase of 104,217 students, which is the equivalent degree holders by 2020 without requiring any increase of a 14.5 per cent growth in university enrolments. in domestic training. To repeat, this increase will be solely attributable to Another way of looking at the increase in particithe current demographic outlook, since it assumes no pation required for the Review’s degree qualification change in university participation rates. It is one of the target is to ask how many of the persons projected many unanticipated consequences of Australia’s poputo be in the age group 25 to 34 by the year 2020 lation surge. Contrary to the concerns of some who are would have to have degrees if the 40 per cent target worried about Australia’s ageing population, Australia was reached. Again, using the ABS median projections, is not running out of young people. Even without any the answer is that the number of degree holders in rise in the university participation rate, if the current the 25 to 34 age group would be 1,433,090 by 2020. (relatively low) participation levels in higher educaThe Review assumes that in 2006 the share of this age tion are maintained, the number of university gradugroup with degrees was 29 per cent. If so, the number ates will increase by a far greater annual rate than has of degree holders in 2006 would have been 839,183. been the case since 1996. These figures imply an overall increase of 71 per cent in the number of degree holders over the 2006 to 2020 The participation rate component period in the 25 to 34 year age group. Some of this is The CPUR provided other projections for the Review attributable to the demographic component and the panel which tested the enrolment implications of rest would have to reflect an increase in age specific various increases in participation rates.The most ambiuniversity participation rates as well as an influx of tious participation assumption chosen by the panel university graduates from overseas. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

The Bradley Review and access to higher education in Australia, Bob Birrell & Daniel Edwards

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Location Enrolment increase 2006–2021 Further elaboration of the statistics is probably not of much value. This Scenario 1 Scenario 2 is because it is clear that whichever Sydney 20,334 12.2 61,212 36.8 way one looks at the issue, a massive Rest of NSW 3371 4.8 19,399 27.8 increase in university enrolment levels Melbourne 21,718 15.1 57,867 40.3 will be required if the Review’s target Rest of Vic 483 1.4 7,955 23.6 levels are to be achieved. Brisbane 21,229 25.9 43,810 53.5 For the purpose of exploring the policy implications we assume that Rest of Qld 15,263 25.7 31,570 53.3 the enrolment outcomes resulting Adelaide 3,154 7.0 13,669 30.5 from the panel’s optimistic participaRest of SA -124 -2.0 1,220 19.5 tion assumptions will come to pass. Perth 155,783 24.8 33,193 52.1 Although these participation rates are Rest of WA 835 9.0 3,050 32.8 probably less than the level required to achieve the Review’s target degree ACT 1207 7.0 5,262 30.4 qualification level, they are a reliable Tasmania -369 -2.4 2,926 19.0 and conservative estimate of the scale Northern Territory 1,334 22.9 2,900 49.8 of expansion required. As noted, they Australia Total 104,217 14.5 284,034 39.6 imply a 39.6 per cent increase in enrolment levels between 2006 and 2021 or Table 1: Increase in the number of domestic students under two scenarios the enrolment of an additional 284,034 2006 to 2021 by capital city and rest of state students by 2021 on the 2006 level. There has not been an increase on this scale since the decade 1989 to 1998 when the The Review recognises this point. Partly as a connumber of domestic students (at all levels) increased sequence, it has recommended a raft of measures from 419,962 to 599,670 or 43 per cent (DETYA 1999 designed to facilitate the opening up of access to higher p. 20). Most of this increase occurred during the receseducation on the part of young people from disadvansion period of the early 1990s and thus well before the taged backgrounds. The Review panel has appreciated Coalition took office in 1996. that if large numbers of these young people are to take up the university option, the terms and conditions of Where are the university students going to university enrolment will have to be sharply improved. come from? The Review’s recommendations to open up eligibility for, and the dollar amount of the higher education The scale of the projected enrolment increase is enorYouth Allowance go some way towards this end. mous. But nonetheless, it is almost certainly justified One focus of the Review’s recommendations is on if Australia’s higher education training effort is to be increasing the share of university attendees who come brought into line with the changing demands of the from low socio-economic status families. The panel job market. For the past decade, at least half of the net wants to increase the share of young people from the job growth in Australia has been in managerial, profesbottom 25 per cent of families who are enrolled at sional and associate professional occupations which, university from the present level of about 15 per cent as noted, increasingly require a degree as the minimum to 20 per cent (Review 2008, 45). In order to achieve entry point. this outcome it recommends that individual universiTo achieve an increase on this scale will require the ties intensify their affirmative action measures so that recruitment of young people from social strata hithdisadvantaged students procure an increased share of erto largely excluded from university attendance. It annual enrolments. cannot be achieved through marginal additions from In our view, the emphasis on affirmative action is the better off families that currently dominate ranks of redundant. If, as suggested above, there must be a 40 university students. This is because the great majority per cent or more increase in enrolments it will be of young people from these families already attend or necessary to open up avenues for students from less have attended university. favoured backgrounds anyway. There will be no need

The Bradley Review and access to higher education in Australia, Bob Birrell & Daniel Edwards

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

University participation rate (%) by SSD 18-20 year olds Geog location based on home address at 13-15 years of age

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Location and size of campuses Campus size (UG, PG, domestic and international enrolees)

42,000

43 to 62

Gosford Wyong SSD

21,000

33 to 43

4,200

27 to 33 21 to 27 13 to 21 Outer Western Sydney SSD

Central Northern Sydney SSD Northern Beaches SSD Blacktown SSD Lower Northern Sydney SSD Central Western Sydney SSD Inner Western Sydney SSD Fairfield/Liverpool SSD

Outer South Western Sydney SSD

Canterbury Bankstown SSD

Inner Sydney SSD

Eastern Suburbs SSD

St George Sutherland SSD

20 km

SYDNEY, NSW Figure 1: University participation rates of 18 to 20 year olds in 2006 by home location at 13 to 15 years, by Statistical Subdivision (SSD) and location of main university campuses, Sydney to pursue measures which might displace other applicants who qualify for entry. The Review panel was well aware of the predicament that some lower tier universities currently face, which is that they can barely fill their existing entitlement of Government-funded places.The Review notes that the Howard Government did move to free up the capacity of universities to enrol beyond the strict government prescribed quotas in place until recently. They could ‘over-enrol’ to a level of 5 per cent without financial penalty and take as many additional domestic students as they liked beyond this level – though the financial return was limited to the student contribution to the financing of the place. The Review notes that very few universities took up the ‘over-enrolment’ option, in part because of ‘the desire of many institutions to maintain entry standards. Some universities vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

have also made it clear that they do not wish to pursue major growth in their undergraduate cohorts, placing greater priority at the higher degree level’ (Review 2008, p. 156). The Review proposes additional incentives to overcome these expansion barriers. These include an increase in the funding allocated to universities for teaching purposes by 10 per cent and a freeing up of the rights of prospective students to attend the university of their choice. If the universities which are currently blessed with more applicants than places (generally the higher status universities in each capital city) decide that the financial inducement of taking on extra students is worth pursuing, they might increase their enrolment levels. However it is not likely that these reforms, if taken up by the Government, would achieve much. The

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University participation rate (%) by SSD 18-20 year olds

Location and size of campuses

Geog location based on home address at 13-15 years of age

Campus size (UG, PG, domestic and international enrolees)

43 to 62

42,000

33 to 43

21,000

27 to 33 Northern Outer Melbourne SSD

Hume City SSD

21 to 27

4,200

13 to 21

Ballarat

Melton-Wyndham SSD

Geelong

Moreland City SSD Northern Middle Melbourne SSD Western Eastern Melbourne Yarra Ranges Shire Part A SSD Boroondara Middle SSD City Melbourne Inner SSD SSD Eastern Outer Melbourne Melbourne SSD SSD Southern Melbourne SSD Greater Dandenong City SSD South Eastern Outer Melbourne SSD Frankston City SSD

Mornington Peninsula Shire SSD

20 km

MELBOURNE, VIC Figure 2: University participation rates of 18 to 20 year olds in 2006 by home location at 13 to 15 years, by Statistical Subdivision (SSD) and location of main university campuses, Melbourne favoured universities may prefer to focus on quality rather than quantity, or may prefer to use any available teaching capacity to take on more of the lucrative overseas student clientele. In any case, there are physical limits to the capacity of established universities to expand their undergraduate numbers.

How and where will the additional places be provided? These observations draw attention to an alternative perspective on enrolment expansion. This is to put universities closer to the communities they serve. The recommended scale of expansion implies massive infrastructure investment in the higher education sector. An enrolment increase of 280,000 or so would require the addition of 20 full scale universities cater-

ing, at least in their early stages, for around 14,000 university students each. There is simply not the space in existing university campuses to accommodate such numbers. Nor would it be advisable to locate most of the additional teaching and research facilities on existing campuses even if it were possible. To appreciate why requires background information on the geography of university participation. Table 1 sets the scene for the development of this point. It shows the distribution of students by capital city and ‘rest of state’ under the two scenarios outlined above. The first is where university participation rates by age group remain unchanged for each capital city or ‘rest of state’, but population increases according the ABS median projections. In the second scenario, there is an increase in participation rates in each capital city and ‘rest of state’ by two per cent

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vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

University participation rate (%) by SSD 18-20 year olds

Location and size of campuses

Geog location based on home address at 13-15 years of age

Campus size (UG, PG, domestic and international enrolees)

43 to 62 42,000

33 to 43

21,000

27 to 33

4,200

North Metropolitan SSD

21 to 27 13 to 21

East Metropolitan SSD

Central Metropolitan SSD

South West Metropolitan SSD South East Metropolitan SSD

20 km

PERTH, WA Figure 3: University participation rates of 18 to 20 year olds in 2006 by home location at 13 to 15 years, by Statistical Subdivision (SSD) and location of main university campuses, Perth per annum between 2006 and 2016. Thereafter these rates stabilise. It is evident that under both scenarios enrolment growth would occur primarily in the capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and to a lesser extent in Adelaide. The overall share of the enrolment increase between 2006 and 2021 in these five cities is 78 per cent for the first scenario and 74 per cent in the second scenario. It may be that efforts to increase opportunity in regional areas (as recommended by the Review) would modify this prospect a little. However, given the demographic outlook, it is inevitable that most of the additional enrolees will be drawn from young metropolitan residents. Within these cities the bulk of the young people who would have to be attracted would be located in outer suburban locations. Most of the expansion in vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

the metropolitan urban youth population is occurring on the outer frontiers of these cities (with the partial exception of Sydney, where frontier housing is too expensive for many young families). As Figures 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3 show, these are areas with low university participation rates. This is partly because there is a low presence of the business and professional households in these suburban locations where low university participation rates prevail. It is not so much that these suburban households are poor. Rather, they tend to be modest income earners from lower white collar or blue collar backgrounds, most of whom have no tradition of university attendance. Their children have been largely disenfranchised from university attendance because the high schools in their location generally do not have a focus on the academic curriculum required for university attendance. In

The Bradley Review and access to higher education in Australia, Bob Birrell & Daniel Edwards

addition, these areas are typically a long distance from a university campus. This is because the location of metropolitan universities reflects their heritage – which means that they are located in what are now inner or middle suburban areas. As a result, physical access to existing universities is becoming increasingly difficult for young people living in outer suburbia. These points are illustrated in the following maps showing university participation rates by statistical subdivision within each capital city, along with the existing university campus locations. They show the university participation rates for those aged 18 to 20. The data was drawn from the 2006 census. The home location of the young people was identified by their location five years earlier in order to eliminate any bias in the data towards metropolitan areas.This could occur where significant numbers of students originally resident in regional or even outer suburban locations had moved into urban areas near university campuses between 2001 and 2006. The incompatibility of the suburban spread with the location of universities campuses is obvious. So are the very low university participation rates for almost all outer suburban areas with the exception of Central Northern Sydney. In Sydney, for example, there are no campuses (or only tiny outposts of inner city universities) located in the outer suburban SSDs of Outer South Western Sydney, Outer Western Sydney, Gosford–Wyong, Fairfield/Liverpool or Blacktown. With the exception of Fairfield/Liverpool, the university participation rates in these SSDs are around 20 per cent, which is well below the average for Sydney of 32.4 per cent. (See Figure 1). The story is similar in the other major metropolitan areas. In Melbourne, the three Statistical Subdivisions (SSDs) with the lowest university participation rates were the outer suburban SSDs of South Eastern Outer Melbourne, Frankston City and Mornington Peninsula Shire.Their participation rates were 20.8, 16.9 and 17.9 per cent respectively, compared with 32.3 per cent for Melbourne as a whole. The Melbourne map (Figure 2) shows that these three SSDs are the worst affected in Melbourne as regards distance from a university campus.The only campuses located within these SSDS were the small branch campuses of Monash University located at Berwick and Frankston. By comparison, the young people living in Western Melbourne, which is a relatively low socio-economic status suburban area located near central Melbourne, recorded a much higher participation rate of 32.8 per cent than was

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the case for the three outer South-Eastern SSDs just described. This difference is probably related to the ease of access residents of Western Melbourne have to several university campuses, including Victoria University, which is located within the SSD and RMIT and Melbourne University, which are located in the Melbourne inner-city area. In Perth (Figure 3), there is a heavy concentration of university campuses clustered around the central Perth area. As a result, those living in the outer suburbs face long travel times to be able to avail themselves of higher education opportunities. Partly as a consequence, participation rates are far lower than for residents of inner city SSDs. In the Central Metropolitan SSD, the participation rate was 61.3 per cent. By comparison, it was 31.1 per cent in the South West Metropolitan SSD and 26 per cent in the South East Metropolitan SSD. As indicated, most of the growth in Australia’s school leaver population will occur in outer suburban areas, since this is where most young families with children tend to locate. For example, for Melbourne, 60 per cent of the growth of households between 2001 and 2006 occurred in outer-suburban locations (Birrell and Healy, 2008). The number of 18 to 20 year-olds living in these outer-suburban locations was already high in 2006.They will go much higher in the near future with the ageing of the young families settling in these areas and the addition of new families as housing in these areas expands. In Sydney, by 2006 there were 12,641 persons aged 18 to 20 living in Outer Western Sydney, 10,080 in Outer South Western Sydney and 10,139 in Gosford Wyong, or 32,860 in total. This 32,860 represented 25 per cent of the total number of 18 to 20 year-olds living in Sydney. In Perth, the two outer SSDs with low university participation rates mentioned above, South West Metropolitan and South East Metropolitan, account for 43.4 per cent of all 49,328 residents aged 18 to 20 whose families were living in Perth in 2001. Similar patterns exist in other capitals. In Brisbane for example, outer suburban areas such as Logan City, Ipswich City, Pine Rivers and Caloundra are already home to large numbers of 18-20 year olds, only a small portion of whom are university students. As noted in Table 1, enrolments in Brisbane over the period 2006 to 2021 will have to increase by 25.9 per cent or 21,229 students just to keep pace with the projected population growth in the city. If the proportion of young people enrolled in university increases as speci-

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vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

fied under the 2 per cent per annum scenario, the total increase in enrolments over this period would reach 53 per cent. This implies 43,810 more students in just 15 years, a huge addition.The case for establishing new campuses in the city’s growth areas under these circumstances is compelling.

Implications for higher education policy The combination of rapid growth in the university age population in the capital cities, particularly their outer suburban zones and low university participation rates in these zones, has obvious implications for higher education policy. It is clear that the existing university infrastructure will not be able to cope. Incremental expansion on existing metropolitan campuses could only provide a small fraction of the required capacity. New campuses will have to be built in locations which best serve the populations with the least access. The Review acknowledges that the proposed enrolment expansion it proposes will have to address the needs of outer suburban populations. However, it throws the ball back into the Government’s court with recommendation 18 which is that: The Australian Government initiate a process with key stakeholders to determine the needs of outer metropolitan and regional areas for higher education and the best ways to respond to those needs (Review 2008, p. 114). Subject to this ‘process’, the Review declares that its preference is to leave decisions about filling these needs to existing players. It states that ‘campuses should grow and decline in response to demand and planned decisions by providers’ (Review 2008, 114). But, as noted, it is questionable whether established universities are interested in meeting these needs. It is also unrealistic to expect that the existing university infrastructure in Australia could accommodate the growth in enrolments recommended by the Review. So why rely on existing universities to act as the agents of change? In our view the scale of growth required should prompt the Government to take the responsibility to drive a new era of higher education expansion. This program should include the establishment of new universities located in areas close to under-serviced communities and customised to meet their educational needs. There is a strong case that these should be teaching oriented universities with an explicit mission to attract young people who in the main have no family heritage of higher education and vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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must be convinced of the pay-off should they embark on a costly and extended post-school training regime. This would involve the provision of vocationally oriented courses in business/accounting, applied science, engineering and the health and social professions. A nation building exercise of this nature would have the best chance of simultaneously expanding opportunity for higher education within the social strata hitherto largely disenfranchised from access and of achieving the massive expansion in enrolments required to meet Australia’s labour market needs. Bob Birrell is director of Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research. Daniel Edwards is a senior research fellow with the Aus¬tralian Council for Education Research and an honorary research fellow with Monash’s Centre for Population and Urban Research.

References Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008, Population Projections, Australia, 2006 to 2101, Canberra, Cat. No. 3222.0 Access Economics 2008, Future Demand for Higher Education – Report for Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Birrell, B & Edwards, D 2007, Half of Australian youth aged 18-20 are not in training, Centre for Population and Urban Research, Monash University. Birrell, B & Healy, E 2008, ‘Melbourne’s population surge’, CPUR Bulletin No. 1. Birrell, B, Healy, E & Smith, T F 2008, ‘Labor’s education and training strategy: Building on false assumptions’, People and Place, Vol. 16, No. 1. Birrell, B, Healy, E, Edwards D &Dobson, I 2008, Higher education in Australia, Demand and supply issues, A report for the Review of Australian Higher Education. Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs 1999, Selected Higher Education Student Statistics, 1998. Discussion Paper 2008, Review of Australian Higher Education, Canberra. Shah, C & Burke, G 2006, Qualifications and the future labour market in Australia, Report prepared for the National Training Reform Taskforce, Monash University-ACER, Centre for the Economics of Education and Training, Melbourne. Review of Australian Higher Education, Final Report, 2008, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra.

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Research productivity: some paths less travelled Brian Martin University of Wollongong

Conventional approaches for fostering research productivity, such as recruitment and incentives, do relatively little to develop latent capacities in researchers. Six promising unorthodox approaches are the promotion of regular writing, tools for creativity, good luck, happiness, good health and crowd wisdom. These options challenge conventional ideas about research management.

Are there other ways? Michael Lewis in his popular book Moneyball tells how Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball club, produced winning teams on a shoestring (Lewis 2004). With a budget far less than many other teams, Beane helped the Athletics succeed by going against conventional wisdom in player recruitment and game strategy. Rather than relying on the recommendations of scouts, who looked for certain characteristics in young players, Beane instead went with statistics and recruited players who were unfashionable, for example due to their style, size or shape. In game strategy, he relied on statistics compiled by enthusiastic amateurs. The message from Moneyball is that the standard way of doing things may not be the best, and that collecting the right sort of data and following the numbers — and resisting instincts based on decades of experience — can reap huge rewards. A similar message emerges from the work of economist Steven Levitt, who has used data mining to challenge conventional policies and social explanations in a range of areas, from crime rates to choice of names (Levitt & Dubner 2005). Does this message apply to research productivity? Are there different yet promising ways of promoting productivity?

Research productivity: some paths less travelled, Brian Martin

Before addressing these questions, it is worth mentioning some conventional approaches. One is to appoint people who are or will become top researchers. This includes appointing proven performers, often at senior levels, and appointing promising new researchers, usually at junior levels. Choosing the best candidate for a post, or headhunting a research star, is an everyday occurrence around the world. Often it is not done in the most effective fashion, for example due to biases based on familiarity, sex, ethnicity and age. The interview remains a mainstay of selection procedures despite evidence of its weaknesses (Grove et al. 2000; Meehl 1956). Few organisations test their recruitment strategies by carrying out long-term follow-ups of successful and unsuccessful candidates. However, there’s a more fundamental issue: recruiting better researchers can improve productivity for the hiring organisation, but it removes those researchers from their previous workplaces.There is only a net improvement in output, overall, if the researchers are more productive in their new jobs. Sometimes, successful researchers are hired into administrative roles with a detrimental impact on their research. Another standard way to increase research productivity is to offer incentives such as teaching relief, promotions, higher status and praise. But there are associated costs. Giving a researcher a grant or teaching relief vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

may well increase that researcher’s output, but there is an opportunity cost: there is less grant money for others and someone else has to do the teaching. Being promoted can be an incentive for doing research, but promotions mean higher salaries for the indefinite future. Some researchers lose their incentive after being promoted, especially when a further promotion seems unlikely. Even praise, which costs nothing, has an opportunity cost: dependence on praise can reduce intrinsic motivation (Kohn 1993). Many researchers work long and hard because of the satisfaction of doing research, including developing and exercising high-level skills, discovering or developing knowledge, and being part of a socially worthwhile enterprise. For long-term productivity, intrinsic motivation is far more powerful than external rewards, because rewards have a declining impact: people adapt to new circumstances such as a higher salary, rank or prize, and soon treat them as the norm. Furthermore, external incentives can actually undermine intrinsic motivation. Incentive systems set up a win-lose mentality: some are winners, receiving grants, promotions and recognition, whereas others are relative losers.This can be a disincentive to the losers, including many who feel shame at not measuring up to the high performance levels of colleagues and therefore would rather not try (Dweck 2006). Shame is a powerful and debilitating emotion in workplaces (Frost, 2003; Wyatt & Hare 1997). Recruitment and incentives are two conventional ways to improve research productivity, but each has limitations. Are promising options being overlooked? What would a Billy Beane of research do with a limited budget trying to compete against well-financed competitors? In the following sections I outline six unorthodox yet promising approaches: regular writing, techniques for creativity, fostering good luck, promoting happiness, promoting good health, and using the wisdom of crowds. In the conclusion I suggest some reasons why approaches to research productivity have been so circumscribed.

Writing Writing is essential to research productivity: papers and books need to be completed. Publication is a key measure of research output because it is the way findings are communicated and placed on the record. Research is commonly thought to follow a sequence like this: have an idea, find out what has been done vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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already, plan the investigation, carry it out, obtain findings and — at the end — write papers. Writing is seen as the final stage. It is, in this picture, just a way of expressing what has been done. But there’s another perspective: writing is a way of thinking. It is a way of developing, clarifying and testing ideas as well as expressing them. The implication is that writing should be done from the beginning of a research project. Robert Boice (1990, 2000) spent many years investigating scholarly writing. A usual approach is writing in big blocks of time, when they can be found, which Boice calls binge writing. The trouble is that urgent small tasks eat up available time, so writing is postponed until weekends, holidays, semester breaks, sabbatical — or retirement. Boice advocates a different approach: writing regularly, in moderation, perhaps 15 to 30 minutes every day, brief enough that undertaking a session does not seem daunting. He found, in one experiment, that new academics who learned to write in brief regular sessions produced four times as many polished pages per year as those who used their usual approach of relying on big blocks of time. Furthermore, those who were held accountable to Boice for daily writing had nine times the output of binge writers (Boice 1989). Tara Gray (2005), building on Boice’s work, formulated a practical programme for writing and publishing that has been successfully implemented at several universities (Gray and Birch 2001). Boice’s and Gray’s approach is highly compatible with other advice on becoming a productive scholar (Johnson & Mullen 2007; Silvia 2007). In this approach, writing is like exercise and the brain is like a muscle. Everyone has the same sorts of muscles and they respond to training in the same sorts of ways: daily training is far more effective in building strength and endurance than occasional lengthy sessions. Similarly, people’s brains are similar in structure and, at all ages, respond to training (Restak 2001). Daily writing builds the capacity for further thinking and writing. Furthermore, Boice (1984) found daily writers had many more creative ideas than bingers who waited to write until they felt inspired. Boice’s findings are compatible with the view that the key to high-level performance in all sorts of fields is deliberate practice, over many years, with appropriate feedback (Ericsson 2006). From this perspective, expert performers are made, not born (Gardner 1993; Howe 1999). In this picture, the key trait associated Research productivity: some paths less travelled, Brian Martin

with productivity is not intelligence but perseverance (Hermanowicz 2005). Boice’s approach clashes with the common research management emphasis on highly productive researchers, often leaders of teams, commonly linked with an assumption that research performance depends on natural ability. With such an assumption, the goal is to recruit brilliant individuals and to foster them with suitable support and incentives. The daily writing regimen suggests that a much larger number of researchers can become prolific, given a suitable support system to promote development of habits that underpin high productivity.

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tions. De Bono (1995) argues that traditional Western thinking, based on truth-seeking and testing, needs to be supplemented by thinking emphasising change, design and creativity. Researchers spend enormous efforts on acquiring data and testing ideas, and a large amount of research training is oriented to these tasks. Creativity is usually left unexamined. De Bono, among others (Claxton 1998), points to an alternative: turn creativity into a serious process, fostered with practical techniques that anyone can use. Prominent choreographer Twyla Tharp agrees, arguing that ‘Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits’ (Tharp with Reiter 2003, p. 7).

Creativity Luck Research in every field requires some level of creative thinking, yet the process of creativity is seldom the focus of research management. Creativity is often thought of as a matter of inspiration that occurs mostly among certain right-brain-dominant individuals, especially in the creative arts. There is an alternative perspective: nearly everyone can become more creative by using practical techniques. This approach has been fostered most prominently by Edward de Bono. Since developing the idea of lateral thinking decades ago, he has continued to propose new techniques for thinking in fresh ways, such as the six thinking hats, the six action shoes, the six value medals, the concept fan, provocation operations and random inputs. What these methods have in common is a goal of making creativity a practical process, achieved by using techniques designed to foster it in suitable directions (de Bono 1992). De Bono’s six thinking hats are a way of dividing up the process of thinking into discrete types that can be given attention separately (de Bono 1999). The white hat is concerned with information, the red hat with emotional responses, the black hat with critical judgement, the yellow hat with optimistic possibilities, the green hat with new ideas and the blue hat with process control, namely setting the agenda for thinking. In terms of these hats, most research uses only the white and black hats: information and criticism. Very little attention is given to emotional dimensions of research, new possible applications, creative thinking or the process of thinking itself. For example, referees for journal articles and grant applications typically devote most of their reviews to criticising shortcomings and hardly any to suggesting new directions or applica-

Research productivity: some paths less travelled, Brian Martin

Researchers occasionally acknowledge the role of luck, giving it the multi-syllabic word serendipity and passing on stories of chemists who accidentally dropped test tubes and made a discovery after noticing unusual colours on the floor. Is good luck a matter of pure chance or are there ways to foster it? Psychologist Richard Wiseman (2003) studied people who considered themselves lucky, testing them to discover which characteristic beliefs and behaviours might contribute to their good luck. In using the word luck Wiseman is not talking about winning the lottery — no laws of probability are being violated — but having good fortune, such as meeting someone who tells of a job opportunity. Wiseman found that lucky people differ from unlucky ones in four main ways, which he calls principles of luck. The first is to create, notice and act on chance opportunities.An example is striking up conversations with strangers at a bus stop or supermarket. Random connections increase the odds of coming across a new idea or contact. Wiseman’s second principle is to listen to hunches and take active steps to improve intuition. Gut reactions can lead a researcher in a different direction than logical thinking, but gut instincts are not just emotional: they often draw on information unconsciously acquired and integrated. (Intuition is also valuable in protecting against danger (de Becker 1997).) The third principle of luck is to expect good fortune. People who are optimistic and expect success are more likely to achieve it, a type of self-fulfilling prophecy in part triggered by positive expectations causing others to react more favourably. One aspect of this principle vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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is being persistent because of the belief in eventual likely to be optimistic.They believe successes will consuccess (Segerstrom 2006; Seligman 1998). tinue but failures will be temporary, and that a success The fourth principle is to turn bad luck into good in one area will lead to success in other areas whereas luck, for example seeing the benefits of ill fortune. For failure in one area has no wider relevance. Happiness example, having a paper therefore will be correlated rejected might mean the with perseverance, a key to Happiness provides protection against opportunity to improve research success. An optiunhealthy stress, which can occur in it and publish it in a more mistic researcher will not workplaces due to animosities, personal suitable journal. be discouraged by failure failure to measure up or even just hostile Wiseman gives quizzes and will be spurred on by referee reports. Happy workers are more and exercises for highlightsuccess. likely to be cooperative, with spin-offs for ing attitudes relevant to luck Seligman offers a detailed and offers practical ways questionnaire to determine productivity. for adopting the beliefs and one’s ‘signature strengths,’ behaviours of lucky people. namely one’s characteristic Good luck need not be entirely a matter of fate but can beliefs and behaviours that lay the basis for performbe fostered. Researchers potentially have much to gain ance (Authentic Happiness, 2008). He recommends by using Wiseman’s techniques. There are no guaranbuilding on strength rather than spending too much tees but a lucky contact or propitious idea can make a time addressing areas that are weaker. The implicahuge difference in outputs and careers. tion for researchers is to build on previous research strengths rather than tackling entirely new areas: Happiness few zoologists become top historians and vice versa. Working within or near one’s area, using deliberate Happiness is commonly seen as a goal, but it can also practice to address weaknesses within it and become be a means to other goals — including research proeven better, is likely to promote both happiness and ductivity. Despite images of suffering artists, happiness performance and is compatible with what is known is more likely to promote research than reduce it. about expertise. Building on strength can also be used Csikszentmihályi (1990) describes the state of ‘flow’ as an approach to organisational development, in the in which a person is so absorbed in an enterprise approach called appreciative inquiry (Watkins and requiring full use of well-developed skills that time Mohr 2001) seems to pass without notice. Because research is one Happiness can be promoted at the individual level way to achieve flow, researchers will seek opportuniby developing different ways of thinking (Seligman ties to enter this state, thereby increasing their output. 2002), at the group level through rituals of mutual supHappiness provides protection against unhealthy port, recognition and congratulation, and at the level of stress, which can occur in workplaces due to animosisociety through policy-making oriented to happiness ties, personal failure to measure up or even just hostile rather than materialism (Frey & Stutzer 2002; Layard referee reports. Happy workers are more likely to be 2005). However, happiness promotion within research cooperative, with spin-offs for productivity. organisations has hardly begun. Martin Seligman has been a driving force behind positive psychology, which examines how to foster Health better-than-normal mental states, in contrast to the usual focus in psychology on addressing mental dysKey elements in maintaining good health are exercise, function. Seligman (2002) describes ways to increase diet, sleep and avoiding damaging habits such as smokhappiness by changing external conditions, such as ing. Good health is worthwhile in its own right. Is it having a rich social network and being religious. On also good for research productivity? There are several the other hand, happiness is relatively unaffected by connections. wealth (above poverty level), education, climate or People with healthy lifestyles are likely to have objective measures of health. fewer illnesses and hence more time to do research. At the level of individual psychology, beliefs about the They are likely to have more energy, which can help future have a big effect on happiness. Happy people are maintain research effort. They are likely to live longer vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Research productivity: some paths less travelled, Brian Martin

with less disability and therefore to have a lengthier research career. Regular exercise has several beneficial effects. It counteracts the shrinking of the brain observed in sedentary individuals (Colcombe et al. 2003). It counteracts unhealthy stress. It is the single most effective means of improving one’s mood (Thayer 1996). It helps prevent chronic disease (Kruk 2007). It can lengthen life expectancy by years and, more importantly, considerably increase the number of years of life adjusted for quality (Paffenbarger and Olsen 1996; Shephard 1997, pp. 310-324), which are likely to correlate with extra years of research productivity. Good nutrition can improve brain function and help prevent disease, including intellectually debilitating mental conditions such as depression (Holford 2003). Getting plenty of sleep can improve daily performance and foster a more optimistic, cooperative attitude (Coren 1996; Dement 1999). Sleeping is vital to memory consolidation (Stickgold 2005) and may be more effective in problem-solving than extra waking hours. Many illnesses reduce the quality of sleep, so good health overall promotes better sleep and associated creativity. Smoking is well known to reduce life expectancy, thereby reducing long-term productivity. Smoking may also reduce cognitive performance for complex tasks (Spilich et al. 1992). Drinking large amounts of alcohol reduces mental performance in the short and long term. Alcohol is often used to relieve stress, but is not as reliable as exercise. The available evidence supports the claim that a healthy workforce is a productive workforce. Promoting habits for a healthy life will make researchers more productive in the short term and keep them alive and capable for extra years of output.

Crowd wisdom The success of open source software — of which the operating system Linux is the most well known example — shows that combining insights from a wide range of contributors can lead to a superior product (Weber 2004). Wikipedia entries are comparable in accuracy to those produced by experts (Giles 2005). These examples indicate the possible returns to research by attracting multiple voluntary contributors. James Surowiecki (2004) in The Wisdom of Crowds reports on a wide range of evidence that combining

Research productivity: some paths less travelled, Brian Martin

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the independent opinions of many people can lead to better judgements than any individual, including the judgement of top experts. Note that the opinions need to be independent. This means asking each individual for a separate judgement and then aggregating the judgements — not getting together in a large committee. According to Surowiecki, ‘if you can assemble a diverse group of people who possess varying degrees of knowledge and insight, you’re better off entrusting it with major decisions rather than leaving them in the hands of one or two people, no matter how smart those people are. If this is difficult to believe … it’s because it runs counter to our basic intuitions about intelligence and business’ (p. 31). This argument is part of a wider promotion of peer-to-peer alternatives to conventional top-down decision-making (Foundation, 2008). There are four conditions for crowds to make wise decisions: diversity of opinion, independence, decentralisation (so people draw on local knowledge) and aggregation. The production of open source software satisfies these conditions, but the US intelligence community doesn’t because there is no means for combining information and judgements. An attempt to set up a decision market for intelligence purposes, with the market serving to aggregate independent judgements, was fiercely attacked by politicians (Surowiecki 2004, pp. 79-83). Scott Page (2007) has run simulation experiments examining decision-making by groups. He finds that diversity of perspectives and skills within a group is crucially important for problem-solving, often as important as the ability of group members. Surprisingly, a group of the best individual performers may not do as well as a randomly selected group of good performers, because the randomly chosen group is more diverse. Page’s studies have profound implications for improving recruitment and collaboration strategies for research efforts. For example, it might be better to make appointments by aggregating independent assessments by a broad cross-section of academics, students and outsiders rather than rely on a small selection committee. Crowd-based decision-making could be used to pick promising areas for research breakthroughs. A research team could set up a decision market, in which members make bets on options, and make its plans based on the state of the market. It sounds weird, but it could be that the first academic groups willing to take the wisdom of crowds seriously vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

will be able to make wiser decisions than more prestigious peers.

Conclusion Some standard approaches to fostering research productivity have limitations. Good appointments can improve an organisation’s productivity but at the expense of productivity somewhere else. Incentives for research have opportunity costs and can reduce intrinsic motivations. It is worthwhile, therefore, considering unorthodox approaches. Six have been outlined here: regular writing, practical tools for creativity, techniques for fostering lucky breaks, promoting happiness, encouraging good health, and drawing on the wisdom of crowds. These options are relevant to just about any researcher. For example, regular writing can help a low-output scholar produce more papers and help a high-output scholar produce an even more phenomenal number. Yet if there is a commonality in these options, it is that so-called ordinary researchers have a much greater capacity than usually recognised. This goes against the common assumption that some individuals are naturally talented and should be identified and given every encouragement — appointments, grants, less teaching, promotions, awards — to do more research. The alternative perspective is that skills for doing research can be learned by just about anyone: the key is learning habits that train the brain into the necessary capacities (Doidge 2007) and believing that effort rather than talent is the key to success (Dweck 2006). This conclusion is compatible with the massive expansion of higher education, with more PhD graduates today, as a percentage of the population, than university graduates decades ago. It is also compatible with findings in sports, with high school students now routinely exceeding world records of a century ago. Many young musicians can today perform concertos only tackled by virtuosi of earlier eras. It is also compatible with popular advice about how to be well organised and personally effective (Allen 2001; Covey 1989) To be sure, even with the best techniques, some individuals will demonstrate better performance than others. But how relevant is this to research progress generally? A slight advantage in skills may lead to a scientific breakthrough occurring a little bit earlier than otherwise. But if more researchers can be productive, this will increase the chance that someone will make vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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the breakthrough. Researchers whose creative skills have been fostered may find alternative approaches to the problem. Finally, it is worth noting the side-effects of different approaches to research productivity. Selecting for talent and providing incentives fit into a competitive mindset, with the negative consequences of stimulating envy and discouraging those who lose out (Kohn 1986). In contrast, regular writing, techniques for creativity and using crowd wisdom are more likely to encourage a sense that everyone can be a valuable contributor. Good luck, happiness and good health are worthy goals in themselves.

Acknowledgements I thank Scott Armstrong, Lee Astheimer, Michel Bauwens, Lyn Carson, Don Eldridge,Anders Ericsson, Bruce Martin and anonymous referees for valuable comments on drafts. Brian Martin is professor of social sciences at the University of Wollongong.

References Allen, D 2001, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity, Viking Penguin, New York. Authentic Happiness 2008, http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/, accessed 4 July 2008. Boice, R 1984, ‘Contingency management in writing and the appearance of creative ideas: implications for the treatment of writing blocks,’ Behaviour Research and Therapy, 21, 537-543. Boice, R 1989, ‘Procrastination, busyness, and bingeing,’ Behaviour Research and Therapy, 27, 605-611. Boice, R 1990, Professors as Writers: A Self-help Guide to Productive Writing, New Forums Press, Stillwater, OK. Boice, R 2000, Advice for New Faculty Members: Nihil Nimus, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA, US. Claxton, G 1998, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind: Why Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, Fourth Estate, London. Colcombe, S J, Erickson, K, Raz, N, Webb, A G, Cohen, N J, McAuley E & Kramer, A F 2003, ‘Aerobic fitness reduces brain tissue loss in aging humans,’ Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, 58A (2), 176-180. Coren, S 1996, Sleep Thieves, Free Press, New York. Covey, S R 1989, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Schuster, New York. Csikszentmihályi, M 1990, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper & Row, New York. de Becker, G 1997, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence, Bloomsbury, London. de Bono, E 1992, Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas, HarperCollins, London. Research productivity: some paths less travelled, Brian Martin

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de Bono, E 1995, Parallel Thinking, Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK.

Layard, R 2005, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, Penguin, London.

de Bono, E 1999, Six Thinking Hats, 2d ed., Back Bay Books, Boston.

Levitt, S D & Dubner, S J 2005, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, Morrow, New York.

Dement, W C 1999, The Promise of Sleep, Dell, New York. Doidge, N 2007, The Brain that Changes Itself, Viking, New York. Dweck, C S 2006, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Ballantine, New York. Ericsson, K A 2006, ‘The influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance,’ in K Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Paul J Feltovich & Robert R Hoffman (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 685-706.

Lewis, M 2004, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Norton, New York. Meehl, P E 1956,, ‘Wanted: a good cookbook,’ American Psychologist, 11, 263-272. Paffenbarger Jr, R S & Olsen, E 1996, LifeFit: An Effective Exercise Program for Optimal Health and a Longer Life, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Page, S E 2007, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives 2008,, <http://www.p2pfoundation. net>, accessed 4 July 2008.

Restak, R 2001, Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain’s Potential, Harmony, New York.

Frey, B S & Stutzer, A 2002, Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Well-being, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Segerstrom, S C 2006, Breaking Murphy’s Law: How Optimists Get What They Want from Life – and Pessimists Can Too, Guilford Press, New York.

Frost, P J 2003, Toxic Emotions at Work: How Compassionate Managers Handle Pain and Conflict, Harvard Business School Press, Boston.

Seligman, M E P 1998, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, Free Press, New York.

Gardner, H 1993, Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi, BasicBooks, New York.

Seligman, M E P 2002, Authentic Happiness, Free Press, New York.

Giles, J 2005, ‘Internet encyclopaedias go head to head,’ Nature, 438 (15 December), 900-901. Gray, T 2005, Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar, Teaching Academy, New Mexico State University. Gray, T & Birch, J 2001, ‘Publish, don’t perish: a program to help scholars flourish,’ To Improve the Academy, 19, 268-284. Grove, W M, Zald, D H, Lebow, B S, Snitz B E & Nelson, C 2000, ‘Clinical versus mechanical prediction: A meta-analysis,’ Psychological Assessment, 12, 19-30. Hermanowicz, J C 2006, ‘What does it take to be successful?’ Science, Technology, & Human Values, 31, 135-152. Holford, P 2003, Optimum Nutrition for the Mind, Judy Piatkus, London. Howe, M J A 1999, Genius Explained, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Johnson, W B & Mullen, C A 2007, Write to the Top! How to Become a Prolific Academic, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Kohn, A 1986, No Contest: The Case against Competition, Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Kohn, A 1993, Punished by Rewards, Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Kruk, J 2007, ‘Physical activity in the prevention of the most frequent chronic diseases: an analysis of the recent evidence,’ Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 8 (3), 325-338.

Research productivity: some paths less travelled, Brian Martin

Shephard, R J 1997, Aging, Physical Activity, and Health, Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL. Silvia, P J 2007, How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC. Spilich, G J, June, L & Renner, J 1992, ‘Cigarette smoking and cognitive performance,’ British Journal of Addiction, 87, 1313-1326. Stickgold, R 2005, ‘Sleep-dependent memory consolidation,’ Nature, 437 (27 October), 1272-1278. Surowiecki, J 2004, The Wisdom of Crowds, Doubleday, New York. Tharp, T with Reiter, M 2003, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life: A Practical Guide, Simon & Schuster, New York. Thayer, R E 1996, The Origin of Everyday Moods: Managing Energy, Tension, and Stress, Oxford University Press, New York. Watkins, J M & Mohr, B J 2001, Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination, Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, San Francisco. Weber, S 2004, The Success of Open Source, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Wiseman, R 2003, The Luck Factor, Hyperion, New York. Wyatt, J & Hare, C 1997, Work Abuse: How to Recognize and Survive It, Schenkman Books, Rochester, Vermont.

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The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing Issues for Australian universities Tania Bezzobs University of Melbourne

Increasingly universities are becoming commercial enterprises and their core activities of teaching and research subject to business imperatives. This paper reviews the research costing methodologies of 17 Australian universities. Tension between Competition Law and Competitive Neutrality exists which could be resolved through improved costing and pricing transparency for research.

1. Introduction The traditional perception of universities in Australia was that they were halls of learning, scholarship and research supported primarily by government, operating not in a market-oriented environment, but rather for the public good (Fels 1998). Yet, subsequent waves of government-initiated change have resulted in: • The steady decline in the proportion of conventional government funding universities receive (Productivity Commission 2002). • The introduction of Higher Education Contribution Scheme payments for undergraduate courses and full-fee payments for many courses. • The removal of compulsory student unionism. • Increased numbers of international students coming into Australia and the expansion of Australian universities into offshore markets. • Recent deregulation in the cap on full-fee paying places. • Government funding tied to governance reform. University activities are now increasingly seen as commercial operations, in their core functions (education vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

and research) and ancillary services (such as bookshops, food services, child care services, etc.). Universities now transact commercially and contract with individuals (that is, consumers-customers (Bessant 2004)) who gain personal benefit from the delivery of education services in a competitive market environment (Fels 1998). This view has been endorsed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). In this paper I will briefly review the applicability of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA) and the Competitive Neutrality principles to Australian universities, focussing particularly but not exclusively on researchrelated activities. A hypothetical costing scenario using information provided by Australian universities has been used, and the tensions between Competition Law and Competitive Neutrality compliance are discussed.

2. Applicability of the Trade Practices Act Many of the activities universities undertake can be viewed as being ‘commercial in character’ and will fall under the definition of engaging in trade or com-

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing, Tania Bezzobs

merce, thereby being applicable activities under the TPA (for examples, see Clarke 2003). As per Quickenden v Commissioner O’Connor of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission [2001] FCA 303, the University of Western Australia successfully argued that it was a trading corporation as it engaged in commercial activities from which it derived a substantial proportion of its revenue. In recognition of this changing view of university activities, many institutions have adopted guidelines concerning commercial activities. For example, University of Sydney Guidelines provide that an activity is likely to be commercial in nature if it involves the commercial development or exploitation of any facility, resource or property of the University; or meets the criteria under Competitive Neutrality Principles (see below) or involves the establishment of a joint venture or company; whereas an activity that falls within the core functions of the university and does not carry any significant commercial risk to the university is unlikely to be a commercial activity (University of Sydney 2007). To date, most scrutiny has been placed on competitive conduct by universities in relation to education or ancillary services in the context of part IV and part V of the Act. The following examples illustrate how universities could be in breach of section IV of the Act under a per se offence or as a consequence of an action resulting in a substantial lessening of competition: • s45 – market sharing arrangements and price fixing as a result of two or more universities agreeing to collaborate in the provision of joint coursework (e.g. Masters); or where an agreement is reached such that one institution does not offer a particular course; or where there is agreement reached in relation to the marketing or provision of courses on a geographical basis (Fels 1998). • s47 – exclusive dealing resulting in the substantial lessening of competition. As it relates to universities, such practices could include third line forcing where a university makes it a condition of tuition that a student purchase a service or product from a third party supplier. In relation to this section, many universities have sought authorisation from the ACCC. For example, in 2003 the University of Melbourne sought and received authorisation for third line forcing where overseas students received a discount or waiver of an administration fee provided that they acquired accommodation or other support services from a pre-approved third party provider (see ACCC 2003b). In another example, James Cook

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University sought authorisation for the requirement for students to compulsorily join the student union as a condition of enrolment. While the ACCC originally rejected the request, subsequent information provided by James Cook University demonstrating the public benefit resulted in the ACCC reconsidering its original position and allowing the authorisation (ACCC 2003a). This has subsequently been overtaken by changes to the Higher Education Support Act 2003 which have resulted in the abolition of compulsory student unionism. • s48 – resale price maintenance, where a university imposes a minimum price on the resale of course materials. Although previously thought to be an area of little concern to universities (Fels 1998), in an increasingly competitive environment, universities are beginning more entrepreneurial in relation to their intellectual property rights in course material. The common practice in recent years in relation to Part IV of the TPA appears to be for universities to seek authorisation in relation to the proposed activity. Despite the fact that there are 39 public universities in Australia, the number of authorisations is comparably small: since 2000 only six notifications of exclusive dealing have been allowed to stand (with none revoked). This suggests that universities either are compliant but rarely engage in anti-competitive conduct for which they seek authorisation; or potentially anti-competitive conduct is occurring in the absence of authorisation. Unlike Part IV, the consumer protection provisions of Part V of the TPA have been the subject of greater scrutiny in the context of university activities around misleading or deceptive conduct (s52) and false or misleading representations (ss 53-65A). Both Clarke (2003) and Bessant (2004) provide examples of where students have commenced proceedings against universities using the provisions of the TPA in relation to s52 and s53 (e.g. advertisements stating that a course was accredited or recognised by a professional body when it was not).

3. Competitive Neutrality Principles While the focus of the TPA is on the prevention of anti-competitive conduct in the market and consumer protection, Competitive Neutrality Principles aim to ensure that government businesses at any level of government do not enjoy a net competitive advantage

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing, Tania Bezzobs

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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because of their public sector ownership (CommonComplaints Office 1998, p. vii) and be critical as to wealth of Australia 2004). Application of the Competiwhether an institution is undercharging in relation to tive Neutrality Principles seeks to mitigate or redress the goods or services it offers. such advantages, provided that the costs of administraAs the Commonwealth Competitive Neutrality Comtion do not exceed the benefits (Commonwealth of plaints Office notes, many public sector agencies have Australia 2004). interpreted guidance that there should be full cost There are three initial criteria which determine attribution to mean that a business unit should include whether the Competitive all corporate overheads and Neutrality Principles are capital costs in its cost base ...since 2000 only six notifications of applicable, as they define on a pro-rata basis, that is exclusive dealing have been allowed to whether the entity is conon a Fully Distributed Cost stand (with none revoked). This suggests ducting a business activity: basis. However, this may that universities either are compliant but 1. There must be a charglead to a cost base in excess rarely engage in anti-competitive conduct ing for goods or servof the actual. The Commonfor which they seek authorisation; or ices. wealth Competitive Neu2. There must be actual or trality Complaints Office potentially anti-competitive conduct is potential competitors. advocates that the Avoidoccurring in the absence of authorisation. 3. The managers of the able Cost methodology activity must have a provides better guidance degree of independence in terms of the production because the cost base of a business unit is determined or supply of the goods or service and the price at by considering all costs which would be avoided by which it is provided (Commonwealth of Australia the parent if that business unit was not operating. 2004). 3.1 Competitive neutrality in the university These criteria are generally applicable to universi sector ties as they often charge fees, operate competitively in local, state, national and international markets and The majority, if not all, Australian universities are coghave discretion in relation to the prices they set (Fels nisant of the Competition Policy and Competitive 1998). However, the specific nature of the activity the Neutrality Principles and this is reflected in their overuniversity undertakes will be critical to determining arching policy documents. However, there is reasonwhether Competitive Neutrality Principles will apply. able variation in the way universities interpret the For example, Competitive Neutrality Principles are Competitive Neutrality Principles and apply them in likely to be applicable to domestic and international their costing and pricing models. Although ancillary full-fee paying places, and other university activities activities such as property services, child care etc are and services where they may compete with the private undertaken by universities and are subject to Comsector, including the provision of research services. petitive Neutrality, most attention in relation to ComCompetitive Neutrality policy is primarily concerned petitive Neutrality in the university domain relates to with how costs are allocated by government busiresearch related activities, particularly where univernesses and whether the pricing methods employed in sities are engaging in contract research, commercial relation to goods or services appropriately recognise consultancies or tenders and the discussion below the cost base. Therefore Competitive Neutrality guidfocuses on this aspect. ance documents devote significant time to the cost The primary guidance that Australian universities allocation principles which are based on neutrality (i.e. have in relation to Competitive Neutrality originates no cost advantage) in relation to taxation, debt, regulafrom Part 3 of the 1996 Australian Vice-Chancellors’ tion, rate of return and the costing of shared resources Committee (AVCC) ‘University Research: Some Issues’ (Commonwealth of Australia 2004). This last area is (AVCC 1996).The AVCC paper considers that ‘universimost contentious. As noted by the Commonwealth ties should be committed to a general policy of full Competitive Neutrality Complaints Office, the way ‘a cost recovery for externally funded research underparent agency allocates costs to its business unit can taken’ (AVCC 1996, p. 18) while still allowing universihave a significant impact on the unit’s cost base and ties to price flexibly after the full recovery cost has price levels’ (Commonwealth Competitive Neutrality been determined. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing, Tania Bezzobs

The AVCC provides guidance that research project costs are based on a formula which sums: • Total Direct Payroll Costs (TDPaC), which includes salary and oncosts for project staff that are not paid out of project funds (also known as salaried or imputed staff costs), as well as staff who are paid out of project funds; and • Direct Project Costs (consumables, materials); and • Direct Costs – Specific Services (for secretarial and support staff and hire of outside services); and • Major Capital Costs (includes building works and major equipment); and • Infrastructure Costs (see below). The AVCC paper, which pre-dates the advice of the Commonwealth Competitive Neutrality Office, provides that infrastructure costs are determined on essentially a Fully Distributed Cost basis as it is stated that ‘These [infrastructure] costs relate to the general overheads associated with the functioning of the university and are not easily assigned to individual projects. The costs to be included are general technical support; … accounting and administration services; …. amortisation of buildings’. AVCC (1996, p.16). The 1996 Report uses AVCC ‘current financial data’ to estimate the infrastructure costs, which are determined as a multiple of the Total Direct Payroll Costs and distinguished by whether the activity is laboratory (multiplier of 1.25) or non-laboratory (multiplier of 0.92) based. This advice to universities is still available via the AVCC/ Universities Australia website and has not been updated despite the endorsement of the Commonwealth Competitive Neutrality Complaints Office of an Avoidable Costs approach or the likely lack of currency of ten year old financial data. 3.2 Practices of Australian universities Seventeen websites of Australian universities were reviewed in relation to their Competitive Neutrality and costing policies and guidelines. The review was limited because of restricted access to university costing spreadsheets (often password protected) or worked examples. The universities were: Curtin University of Technology, Deakin University, the Flinders University of South Australia, Griffith University, La Trobe University, Macquarie University, RMIT University, Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Adelaide, the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales, the University of Queensland, the University of Sydney, the University of Technology, Sydney, the

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University of Western Australia, Victorian University, and the University of Wollongong. The universities’ policies and guidelines were applicable to all commercial activities but the most common area of application related to the costing of research projects. There were three common areas of agreement for all universities surveyed: 1. All direct project costs must be recovered. 2. All supported the AVCC principles. Some (e.g. the University of Western Australia) recognised that the AVCC multipliers were out of date but considered that determining a standard indirect cost profile for their institution would take time to develop, and thus continued to adopt the AVCC multipliers or derivations thereof. 3. Discretion should be applied in relation to the final project price and whether this price reflects the total project cost. For all universities, the price of projects where the funder is listed on the Australian Competitive Grants Register (DEST, nd), is priced at or near the direct costs of the project, as the organisations listed (such as the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)) often do not pay overhead costs. That is, in such cases, universities have little discretion to determine pricing and do not meet criterion 3 of the Competitive Neutrality Principles. This third point is often the source of contention for universities when costing research. Generally speaking, national competitive grants schemes such as those administered by the ARC or the NHMRC never fund the full cost of the project even excluding overhead costs, although the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) makes block funding allocations (e.g. Institutional Grants Scheme, Research Infrastructure Block Grants Scheme) which provide infrastructure support based on institutional research performance in competitive grants. Nevertheless, the ARC and NHMRC are the primary mechanisms of funding support for academics, and they may be conditioned to costing and pricing at a minimum level and for many academics it is difficult to make the transition to a pricing model which adequately covers costs. Nevertheless, the surveyed universities distinguished and applied different costing and pricing models in relation to commercial research projects, which include contract research, consultancies and tenders. University costing/pricing models varied with respect to their interpretation of what was included in the

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing, Tania Bezzobs

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indirect costs of research and the multiplier and formulae used. Accordingly, the universities surveyed can be classified under three main groupings as discussed below.

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adjustment factor if required. This factor depends on whether significant amounts of university space are to be used. Group Two: Conservative Application of AVCC/

Group One: Total price/cost charged includes a

Competitive Neutrality guidelines

minimum contribution to indirect cost recovery

Universities in this group (e.g. Adelaide, Deakin and Western Australia) adopt a conservative approach in which the costing model strongly reflects the original AVCC guidelines, where:

This category of universities, which includes Melbourne, Macquarie, Griffith, Queensland, Sydney and RMIT, have adopted a pricing model where: P = (1+Y) x (Total Direct Project Costs) and Y ranges from 0.15-0.60 and Total Direct Project Costs equal the sum of TDPaC and all other direct costs. Flexibility in pricing is dependent on the circumstances in which the project will be awarded. For example, the University of Melbourne requires that the minimum price to be charged for a research project is 1.35 times the sum of all direct costs. However, for business and government agencies the goal is to charge 1.45–1.60 on top of direct costs. Macquarie University’s costing rationale appears to be the closest to recognising the issues addressed by the Avoidable Cost method. The university observed that research projects might not necessarily deploy additional infrastructure resources. Nevertheless, as a consequence of research, these resources would wear faster and hence would need to be upgraded or replaced earlier. Therefore a contribution to the costs of using these resources should be made with a minimum infrastructure component of 15-25 per cent of the total costs added to the total costs to form the entire budget. A variation on this theme is where differential infrastructure charges are made depending on the nature of the direct cost. For example, the University of Sydney adopts an approach where there is an infrastructure charge of 30 per cent of direct salary costs and also a charge of 5 per cent of all non-salary components.The University of Queensland’s pricing model is similar with a two-part infrastructure charge where minimum cost recovery is 1.6 x total employment costs (including salaried staff time) plus 1.1 x all other costs. Of interest is RMIT’s costing model, which quite explicitly considers a range of direct costs as well as applying a cost recovery multiplier. RMIT appears to be one of a select group of universities (see also La Trobe University below), which considers whether it is receiving a competitive advantage and applies an vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

P = Total Direct Project Costs + Total Infrastructure Costs In principle this approach does not differ significantly from that of Group One, and discretion is also allowed as to whether the project price < project costs. The main differentiating factor appears to be the value of the infrastructure multiplier and how it is applied. For example, in the case of Deakin University, the above model is expanded as such: P = Total Direct Project Costs + TDPaC + Infrastructure Cost x TDPaC where Infrastructure Cost (IC) = 1.8 for lab projects and 1.31 for non-lab projects A similar approach is also adopted by the University of Melbourne when applying a full costing (direct and indirect costs) approach to be used in tenders where the university is competing with private sector, although the multipliers are lower (see Table 1). La Trobe University appears to adopt the most conservative (or arguably the most compliant) approach of all universities as it makes explicit allowance for Competitive Neutrality principles after determining its costing/pricing structure. This may reflect the fact that in the early days of the Competitive Neutrality regime, it was subject to a Competitive Neutrality complaint (Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission 1998). In the La Trobe model: Project Cost = Total Direct Project Costs + TDPaC +I C x TDPaC (excl. oncosts) where there are five IC possible values depending on location (Bendigo = 2.27) or faculty (Humanities = 1.9, Science = 2.39) To the Project Cost an adjustment is made which reflects the ‘notional costs for which the University would be liable but for its character as a public institution’ (e.g. La Trobe University 2001). A Competitive Advantage Factor of between 0.11 and 0.13 is there-

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing, Tania Bezzobs

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University

Costing/ Pricing formula Reference website

Lab-based overhead Non-lab cost multiplier (x Total based Direct Payroll Cost)

University of Western Australia

www.research.uwa.edu.au/welcome/research_services/ research_grants/forms_and_guidelines#infrastructure

1.27 (high cost centres) x salaried staff costs or 35% overhead applied to total direct costs.

1.00-114 (low medium cost centres)

University of Sydney

www.usyd.edu.au/ro/applications/overheads_policy.shtml www.usyd.edu.au/ro/applications/overhead.shtml

30% x TDPaC plus 5% x all non salary costs

Flat rate

Griffith University

www62.gu.edu.au/policylibrary.nsf/azcategory/20321fabdb500d 1.25 c04a2570530063eda8?opendocument

Macquarie University

www.research.mq.edu.au/researchers/funding/documents/ Res_Costing_Policy_12_05.pdf

1.25

1.1

University of Melbourne

www.research.unimelb.edu.au/ridg/costing-pricing/#bfrForm

1.26630

0.75590

Curtin University of Technology

www.policies.curtin.edu.au/documents/Research_Costing_ and_Pricing.doc

1.5

1.35

RMIT University

www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=5p8qv6du71u7;STATUS=A?QRY= competitive%20neutrality&STYPE=ENTIRE www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=mvdumaw8uocg1;STATUS=A?QR Y= costing%20research&STYPE=ENTIRE

1.255 for science portfolio 1.375 for business portfolio.

1.15% for design portfolio.

University of Queensland

www.uq.edu.au/hupp/index.html?policy=4.50.4 www.uq.edu.au/research/orps/index.html?page=4249

Minimum cost recovery is 1.6 X of TDPaC for all projects plus 1.10 of all other costs.

Flat rate

Deakin University

www.deakin.edu.au/research/admin/grants/costing_res/ national_comp.php www.deakin.edu.au/research/admin/grants/forms/index.php

1.8 x TDPaC (nb – no explicit inclusion of salaried staff in TDPC).

1.31

Flinders University

Price = full cost + 10% full costs Full cost = TDPaC plus project expenses plus 1.3xcost of project staff

1.3

Flat rate

La Trobe University

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/techpark/assets/downloads/cost_ price_2001.pdf

2.18-2.39 x TDPaC (excluding oncosts)

1.9–2.25

Table 1: Comparative pricing (excl. GST) from selected Australian universities. The pricing assumes a full cost recovery model unless otherwise specified and is consistent with the pricing policies of the selected universities. fore applied to the cost of academic salaries to arrive at the Competitively Neutral Cost. Group Three: Attempted real costing of indirect costs

Only one university of those surveyed explicitly provided the basis for the costing. This was Flinders University (2006) where for consulting and contract research: Project Cost = Total Direct Project Costs + IC x TDPaC (only for staff paid from project funds) where the IC is fixed at 1.3 and is based on an approximation of the ratio of the annual expenditure of total non-salary expenses from ordinary activities to total academic salaries (excluding oncosts)

and Project Price = Project Cost + 10 per cent margin for reinvestment x Project Cost

4. Discussion 4.1 Are Universities complying with Competitive Neutrality Principles? The preceding analysis suggests that universities are endeavouring to comply with Competitive Neutrality Principles by attempting to adopt a transparent costing methodology which includes a contribution to the cost of university infrastructure in addition to

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing, Tania Bezzobs

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Final project price/cost

Other comments (spreadsheet used/not used indicates whether that university’s own costing template spreadsheet was used)

$213,500 (using 1.27 multiplier on $50,000 salaried staff costs). $202,500 (using 0.35 multiplier on total direct costs and including salaried staff time).

Spreadsheet available but appeared inconsistent with guidelines so not used.

$247,500 (salaried staff costs included in TDPaC).

Note USyd inclusion of salaried staff into the cost model appears to be optional. No spreadsheet used.

$250,000 1.25 multiplier used. $250,000 1.25 multiplier used.

No spreadsheet used.

$270,000 with 35% cost recovery. $389,945 with full cost recovery (= direct project costs + 126,630 x 1.5 EFT).

Minimum indirect cost level of 0.35x total direct costs but preferably 0.45 to 0.60. Spreadsheet used.

$275,000

Note – a minimum cost recovery factor of 1.2 (x Total Cost) applies where it is not feasible or desirable to attempt full cost recovery. No spreadsheet used.

$286,417 (salaried staff costs included) (no contribution margin applied).

Spreadsheet used.

$295,000 (salaried staff costs also included).

Spreadsheet used.

$330,000 $470,000 including salaried staff time.

Spreadsheet used.

$363,000 n.b. without 10% profit margin, the price would be $330,000.

Guidelines have some ambiguity, thus the est’d price may not reflect actual uni pricing. University spreadsheet not used.

$544,844 2.39 multiplier used on direct salaried staff costs including salaried staff costs (includes competitive advantage multiplier).

Indirect cost factors depend on geography as well as faculty/ school. Cost factor also split between faculty and a central cost component. Spreadsheet used.

the recovery of direct costs. However in the main, universities are deriving their infrastructure costing methodology from the AVCC principles which reflect a full cost recovery not an Avoidable Cost recovery approach. Notwithstanding that universities are using the AVCC guidelines, there are substantial differences in the translation of these guidelines, as the following hypothetical example illustrates. I compared the comparative costing/ pricing methodology of nine Australian universities applying a common set of basic cost components. These universities were chosen because they either provided detailed information as to their costing methodology or made publicly available their research costing templates (i.e. Excel files) via their website. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

The cost components and assumptions were: 1. $100,000 for project staff directly employed on the project (including oncosts). 2. $50,000 for salaried staff already employed by the university and contributed to the project (including oncosts). 3. $50,000 in direct project expenses (e.g. consumables). 4. There were no major items of depreciable equipment or infrastructure purchased. 5. The project was in the science/ engineering discipline area, that is would employ the highest cost multiplier where applicable. 6. Unless the university prescribed a set profit margin, the cost calculated was equal to the price.

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing, Tania Bezzobs

The analysis, summarised in Table 1, shows that for this project example all universities priced above the marginal cost of $150,000, where marginal cost is determined as the direct cost of new staff employed plus all project expenses. All recognised the cost of salaried staff time being contributed to the project, which when included provided a total direct cost of $200,000. However, universities differed in how their infrastructure costs contributions affected the final cost/price. Thus a variation of over $300,000 is observed in the final price charged, from $213,500 for the University of Western Australia to almost $545,000 at La Trobe University. The University of Western Australia’s final cost was the lowest ($213,500) as its overhead multiplier is applied to salaried staff and not to other project staff employed on the project.The University of Sydney followed as a result of the low multiplier applied to TDPaC only. Following on was a grouping of four universities in the first group which used different multipliers and applied them in slightly different ways resulting in the given spread of $270,000 to $290,000. The next two institutions were comparable ($330,000 to $363,000: Deakin and Flinders) although different methodologies were used. The final institution, La Trobe University had the highest price of $544,844 reflecting its highly conservative costing policy. All the universities surveyed appeared to be adopting a Full Cost Distribution method, and it is probable, that as recognised by the Commonwealth Competitive Neutrality Complaints Office, inflation of costs is occurring. The range of infrastructure cost multipliers from 0.76 to 2.39 and the variation within universities based on discipline grouping and in some cases geography, suggests that an attempt may have been made to provide a rational basis for the cost multipliers. However the majority of university policy documents did not explain the origins of the multiplier. Further universities included what are in many cases likely to be fixed or non-avoidable costs in their costing. An Avoidable Costing approach would see all direct costs being determined in line with the approach described earlier. Infrastructure costs would be determined by firstly considering the ‘parent’ unit that the project is hosted by (e.g. Faculty, Institute) and then determining its infrastructure burden for those facilities and resources which the project indirectly consumes relative to the parent. Specific corporate overhead services such as maintenance, information technology provision or even legal might still be accrued but on

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specific cost multipliers based on project complexity rather than bundled into a generic multiplier. It appears that there is an increasing focus on cost management with up to seven universities adopting partially or in full elements of a Strategic Cost Management or Activity Based Costing into their financial systems (Monash, Murdoch, Charles Sturt, Edith Cowan, RMIT and James Cook universities). However of the universities surveyed for which pricing information was available, only RMIT’s research costing methodology appears most transparent and has some basis in an Activity Based Costing approach. 4.2 Is there a tension between Competition Law and Competitive Neutrality Principles? Competition policy theory suggests that firms act as profit maximisers and in a competitive market, the price of the good or service will be at the marginal cost to firms of supplying that good or service. However, it is questionable whether this theory which was developed in the context of an industrial economy is applicable to the ‘knowledge economy’ where different models of competition may also occur. In the knowledge economy, firms may resist pressure towards marginal cost pricing as competition is likely to be based on differentiation related to a firm’s skills, capability and reputation (i.e. non-homogenous good/ services), with price (value for money) often being a secondary consideration. A high level of knowledge will be embodied in the good or service and it is not in the interests of such firms to price at marginal cost as this commoditises their intellectual capital and does not support the high fixed costs and future knowledge generation or acquisition. For universities engaging in contract research, consultancy or tender, their competitors are often other universities, large consultancies or firms, or individuals. All will have different overhead cost structures. For competitors such as consultants, the model of business is often to use their knowledge, tools and templates as leverage such that they are re-applied to different customers while still providing a customised product. Marginal cost may be low although not necessarily, but this is not reflected in the pricing approach, although private firms may still adopt discretionary pricing policy structures (i.e. price discrimination/price differentiation). Further, while there are potentially many competitors, at any one time the actual number of firms (including universities) competing may be few as

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supply is not infinite and resources may be committed to other activities (teaching, research, other commercial projects). Additionally, in many situations there is a lack of transparency in the competitive process, e.g. a university may not know who or if indeed there is anyone else its potential client is considering. These factors add to the view that traditional competition models may be limited. For universities, while Competitive Neutrality policy aims to make them competitive, it often results in a full cost rather than a marginal cost pricing model being employed when competing (potentially) with the private sector. Some price discretion may occur, especially for institutions in the first group, but this appears to often be when there is no immediate or known competition. There thus appears to be an inherent tension between Competition Law and Competitive Neutrality Principles as the pricing approach of private sector competition and the application of Competitive Neutrality costing by universities results in high prices relative to marginal costs, which are not the expected or desired behaviour in a competitive market according to Competition Law. However, such a tension does not imply a direct statutory conflict with the TPA as s51(1) provides an exemption for things done or approved (i.e. Competitive Neutrality Principles) by Federal, State or Territory legislation. The solution may be not to change the principles of Competitive Neutrality, but the adoption of a common approach and understanding of the principles underlying full cost pricing across jurisdictions. Applied to universities, this could mean an agreed approach to pricing adjustments universities should make to satisfy Competitive Neutrality. It should be noted that the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has tried to encourage universities to move to an activity based costing method (Ernst and Young 2000), which would provide for greater costing transparency. However, in the context of a range of higher education reforms this issue does not appear to have had priority.

Acknowledgments This paper was originally prepared for the subject, Competition Law and Intellectual Property, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Intellectual Property Law, The University of Melbourne. Mr Arlen Duke, Melbourne Law School, The vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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University of Melbourne, is thanked for his advice and encouragement. Tania Bezzobs is Manager, Research Development at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

References ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) 2003a, ‘ACCC allows JCU to continue enrolment policy’ <www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/ itemId/347560/fromItemId/378016>, 30 April 2003. See also <www.accc.gov. au/content/index.phtml/itemId/531377> ACCC Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2003b, ‘University of Melbourne - Notification - N91190’ <www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/ itemId/481082/fromItemId/729976>, 7 October 2003. Australian Vice Chancellors’ Committee 1996, ‘University Research: Some Issues’ <www.avcc.edu.au/documents/publications/policy/statements/urissues.pdf> Bessant, J 2004, ‘Legal Issues in Higher Education and the Trade Practices Act’ Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. 26: 251-263. Commonwealth Competitive Neutrality Complaints Office 1998, ‘Cost Allocation and Pricing’ Competitive Neutrality Office Research Paper. Productivity Commission, Canberra, vii. Clarke, P 2003, ‘University Marketing and the Law: Applying the Trade Practices Act to Universities’ marketing and promotional activities’ 8 Deakin Law Review 304. Commonwealth of Australia 2004, ‘Australian Government Competitive Neutrality Guidelines for Managers’. Canberra, 1. DEST Department of Education, Science and Training, nd, Australian Competitive Grants Register. <www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/programmes_ funding/general_funding/research_infrastructure/competitive_grants_register. htm> Ernst and Young 2000, ‘A Study to Develop a Costing Methodology for the Higher Education Sector. Final Report’. Ernst and Young, May 2000. Fels, A 1998, ‘The Impact of Competition Policy and Law on Higher Education in Australia’. Presentation to the Australasian Association for Institutional Research 1998 International Conference, 24 November 1998. <www.accc.gov.au/content/ index.phtml/itemId/96894> Flinders University 2006, ‘Financial accounting, management and control policies and procedures’ <www.flinders.edu.au/ppmanual/financial/guidepric. html> La Trobe University 2001, ‘Costing and Pricing Guidelines’ page 7 <www.latrobe. edu.au/commercial/assets/downloads/cost_price_2001.pdf> Productivity Commission 2002, ‘University Resourcing: Australia in an international context’ Research Report, December 2002. <www.pc.gov.au/study/ highered/finalreport/index.html> Quickenden v Commissioner O’Connor of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission [2001] FCA 303 23 March 2001. University of Sydney 2007, ‘Guidelines concerning commercial activities: Section 26B of The University of Sydney Act 1989’ <www.usyd.edu.au/senate/policies/ CommGuidelines.pdf > Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission 1998, Investigation Report by the Complaints Office re La Trobe University Bendigo campus, Soil and Concrete Laboratory. See </www.vcec.vic.gov.au/CA256EAF001C7B21/0/F62F31D6E3AA12 DCCA256ECA001A8A80?OpenDocument>

The Trade Practices Act, competitive neutrality and research costing, Tania Bezzobs

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The profile of university research services staff Darlene Sebalj & Allyson Holbrook University of Newcastle

This paper considers the profile of research administration, based on a survey of 36 Australian universities. The findings identify a group that is typically female, older and university qualified. Males tend to be more likely than females to have a research higher degree, earn a significantly higher salary and move up the salary scale at a faster rate. Of the 194 respondents more than half reported previous research experience with just under one third having previously been employed as an academic. Almost two thirds had worked in research services for five or fewer years and the majority reported they had held their current position for five or fewer years.

Introduction The research performance of universities now attracts global attention, and while academic staff and research students are at the forefront of the analysis, we know little about the contribution of administrative staff. University administrative staff, including research administrators, have rarely attracted attention, although their invisibility in both the lexicon and the literature has now been clearly identified (Castleman & Allen, 1995; Conway, 1999, 2000b; Dobson, 2000; Szekeres, 2004). A recent study of occupational identity in universities found that research administrators believed their role was even invisible to their academic work colleagues ‘…particularly when the job was performed effectively and efficiently’ (Collinson, 2006, p. 282). Administrative and other support staff now make up over 55 per cent of Australian universities (DEST, 2007) yet statistical collections relating to staff other than academic staff remain thin on detail. It is argued here that in order to build a complete picture of university research activity there is a need to address the gaps in knowledge about the role and activity of research administrators, not least because of the growing numbers and changing functions of this group. At the close of the twentieth century Coaldrake and

Stedman (1999) noted the increasingly blurred lines between the work of academic and non-academic staff. As universities have become more complex the roles and responsibilities of administrative staff have shifted from being fundamentally subsidiary in nature to the work of academics towards forms of independent functioning and specialisation (Gornall, 1999; Whitchurch, 2004, 2006). This development is underlined by a concomitant push for university administration to be recognised in its own right (Conway, 1998, 2000a; Dobson, 2000; McInnis, 1998). This paper draws on the findings of a doctoral study that investigates the profile, roles and understandings of research administrators in Australia, their contributions to university research activity and their perspectives regarding large-scale workplace change. The specific foci here are the demographic characteristics, career paths, and staffing profile of this group.

Background Australian Research Services staff are located within divisions in universities variously termed: ‘Office of Research’; ‘Research Services’ or ‘Research Office’ or similar. Research services forms part of the university’s central administration with primary responsibility

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for supporting the research activity of the institution and for ensuring compliance with statutory requirements governing research. The structure and specific functions of these offices vary in complexity across the sector, ranging in size from four to fifty administrative and managerial staff members (excluding academic staff). In September 2006, an invitation to participate in an online questionnaire was emailed to all university managers and administrative staff within the research services sections of 36 of the 37 Australian public universities (the researchers’ own institution was excluded). The questionnaire was directed to centrally located university administrative staff undertaking functions in research policy development and implementation, research grants administration, higher degree research (HDR) administration and scholarships, ethics and safety clearances, research committee administration and research information systems and statistics. The identified research population of 640 research services staff was compiled from staff contact information contained on each university website during the period March to May 2006 and updated post questionnaire launch in September 2006. The population is qualified by the following statements: • It is a working guide to the total number of university administrative staff (assumed to be either full–time or fractional appointments as casual general staff contact details tend not to be listed on university internet sites) centrally located within a research service area in 36 Australian public universities as at September 2006. • It understates the total number of university administrative staff undertaking research administrative activities including HDR student administrative activities across the sector as it does not account for staff based in Faculties/Schools/Research Centres or separate Graduate Schools or consulting arms. • It was subject to the vagaries of staff contact information listed on university internet websites from which the identified population was drawn given the absence of an alternate data source and forms of data verification. Of the 640 research services staff invited to participate in the study, 194 responded by completing the online questionnaire resulting in a response rate of 30 per cent of the total identified population. Details on the demographic and career profile of participants have been drawn from the questionnaire and are presented in the following sections. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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Staff profile Gender and age Of the 194 research services personnel who responded to the questionnaire 143 (73.7 per cent) were female and 51 (26.3 per cent) were male. This ratio represents the gender balance of the target population of 640 research services staff of whom 492 (76.9 per cent) were female and 148 (23.1 per cent) were male. The median age of respondents was 44.5 years. In percentage terms, 35.1 per cent of respondents were aged in their 40s, 26.8 per cent in their 50s, 24.7 per cent in their 30s, and 8.8 per cent in their 20s or younger and 4.6 per cent over the age of 60. There was no significant decadal age difference between male and female respondents (chi sq=3.327, df=4, p=0.505). Comparison with the most recent and relevant government statistics available (DEEWR, 2008) indicated that there was a higher percentage of females in the respondent group than in centrally located university administration units generally (73.7 per cent versus 65.8 per cent respectively). Furthermore the percentage of female staff in centrally located university administrative units is higher than in the population of all general staff in all Australian universities (61.5 per cent) of the same year (DEST, 2006). In the absence of other historical data pertaining to university research services staff the high female-tomale ratio may be explained in part as continuation in, and reflection of, the underlying trend established by Dobson (2006) on university staffing patterns from 1994-2003. Dobson’s work showed an increasing number of female university staff in total for that period and more specifically an increasing proportion of female-to-male general staff. That said, according to trend data for the period 20012007 for central university administration (DEEWR, 2008) (a population which includes research services staff) there has been a very steady gender ratio of twothirds female to one-third male staff. This ratio has fluctuated by no more than 1 per cent during the seven year period. The data suggest therefore that the higher proportion of female research administrative staff is not only reflective of a higher proportion of female administrative staff generally, but also more strongly pronounced within research administration units. For age, a single humped distribution with a peak in the 40-49 decadal age range was found for the respondent pool and the 2006 population of general staff as drawn from the higher education statistics collection

The profile of university research services staff, Darlene Sebalj & Allyson Holbrook

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Table 1. Educational level by Gender (n=194) No university qualification

Bachelor degree or equivalent

Other postgraduate qualifications

Higher Research Degree

Total

Males

15.7

25.5

23.5

35.3

100.0

Females

29.4

31.4

23.8

15.4

143

100.0

Total

25.8

29.9

23.7

20.6

194

100.0

(DEST, 2006). Further it is clear from the distributions reported in Figure 1 below that this group had a similar age distribution as male central university administration staff in 2006. However, the age distribution of female central administration staff shows a younger profile with a single humped distribution peaking in the 30-39 decadal age range. A review of the trend data for the period 2001-2007 for central university administration (DEEWR, 2008) indicates that 2006 was the first year in which a younger profile of females in central administration was evident. Prior to that time female central university administration staff peaked in the 40-49 year decadal age range indicating flow on effects of earlier recruitment patterns. Educational level Respondents were asked for their educational level in the questionnaire and the results by gender are reported in Table 1. The majority of respondents had a university degree. Male respondents were more likely to have obtained university qualifications than female respondents and were clustered at the higher end of the qualification spectrum, whereas a higher propor-

tion of female respondents had exited at an earlier qualification level. These differences in gender for the four levels of education were found to be significant at the .05 level (chi-sq=10.409, df=3, p=.015) indicating that male respondents were significantly more qualified than female respondents. The age of respondents was not found to be a significant factor in terms of the educational level obtained. Salary The salary levels of respondents are presented in Table 2. The largest proportion of respondents (36.6 per cent) were appointed to positions in the Higher Education Worker (HEW) 6/7 salary range and a further 28.4 per cent were appointed in the HEW 8/9 range. Table 2 also provides a crosstabulation of gender by salary level describing a pattern of concentration of females at the lower salary levels and a concentration of males on higher salaries. After collapsing two categories at either end of the original six category salary scale, a chi square test indicated that male respondents were paid significantly higher than female respondents (chi sq=11.341, df=3, p=.010).

Percentage of Population

30% 25%

Central Males

20%

Central Females

15% Respondent Males 10% Respondent Females 5% 0% <30

30-39

40-49

50-59

60+

Age (Years)

Figure 1. Gender by 2006 Decadal Age (Respondents: n=194, Central University Admin n=12,362)

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Table 2. Gender by Salary level (n=194) Salary Level

Males

Females

Total

HEW 2/3 - 4/5

3.9

23.1

18.0

HEW 6/7

35.3

37.1

36.6

HEW 8/9

37.3

25.2

28.4

HEW 10 - 10+

23.5

14.7

17.0

Total

100.0

143

100.0

194

100.0

Comparisons to the 2006 salary levels of central university administration (DEEWR, 2008) as shown in Figure 2 indicate that the respondent group has a higher median salary with a greater proportion of staff at the higher HEW levels. Further, the respondent group has a higher median salary range compared to the median salary range of HEW 4/5 of the 2005 university general staff population (Dobson, 2008). A crosstabulation of gender and qualifications controlled by salary level indicated that neither male nor female respondents had been appointed beyond a HEW 8/9 unless they held a university qualification. There were no male postgraduates under HEW 6/7 whilst there were 3 female respondents in this category. Respondents with research higher degrees were evenly distributed between salary levels of HEW 6/7, HEW 8/9 and HEW 10/10+. Over half of the female respondents with no university qualifications were located within a HEW 2–5 band range while half of the male respondents at this educational level were at

HEW 8/9. This would seem to indicate that there are factors, other than educational levels, behind the finding that male respondents were appointed to salary levels significantly higher than females. Tests of significance were not performed here given the large number of small cell counts <5.

Career profile Length of service Respondents were asked about the length of time they had worked in: universities overall, in their current university and in research services. In descriptive terms responses to these three questions are reported together in Table 3. The length of time overall ranged from less than one year to more than 20 years. The most common length of time served in research services was 1–3 years (34.5 per cent) and in their the current university it was 6–10 years (25.3 per cent), and in universities in general 28.4 per cent of respondents indicated 6–10 years.

40%

Percentage of Population

35% 30% 25% Respondents Central Admin

20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 1a

2/3

4/5

6/7

8/9

10+b

HEW Salary Level

Figure 2. 2006 Salary levels (Respondents: n=194, Central University Administration n=12,362) Note: a. General staff outside award, generally junior, trainee or apprentice staff whose remuneration package is below HEW level 1. b. Exceeds level 10 – general staff outside award, generally senior executives whose remuneration package exceeds HEW level 10. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

The profile of university research services staff, Darlene Sebalj & Allyson Holbrook

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Table 3. Length of time working in current university, universities and research services (n=194) Length of time worked in current university

Length of time worked in research services

Length of time worked in universities

<1 year

8.2

7.7

3.0

1-3 years

23.2

34.5

11.9

4-5 years

18.6

22.2

15.5

6-10 years

25.3

18.6

28.4

11-15 years

10.3

10.8

15.5

16-20 years

7.2

4.6

10.8

20+ years

7.2

1.6

14.9

194

100.0

194

100.0

194

100.0

Total

From the data it would appear that research service areas have been rapidly expanding in recent years with 64.4 per cent of respondents having worked in research services for five or fewer years. Of these, a large proportion of respondents appear to have transferred across from another university to take up a position in a research services area indicating a relatively recent level of staff churn within the sector. Responses to a related question on length of service indicate that 80.9 per cent of respondents have been in their current position for five or fewer years.

An analysis of salary levels by gender, controlled for length of service in universities, was conducted. It was found that a greater proportion of male respondents were employed at higher HEW levels regardless of the length of time they worked in universities compared to female respondents. Male respondents were initially appointed at higher salary levels moving through each HEW level faster than female respondents with only 10 per cent of male respondents on a HEW 4/5 salary level within the first five years of service compared to 46.2 per cent of females. No male respondents remained at a HEW 4/5 or below after five years of

90% 80%

Percentage of Population

70% 60% 50%

Male Female

40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 0â&#x20AC;&#x201C;5 years

6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;10 years

10+ years

Length of Service

Figure 3. Respondents at HEW 8/9 or above by Length of service in universities (n=194) Note: Percentages are based on the proportion (per gender) of respondents within each length of service period. e.g. 50% of all male respondents who had worked in universities for five of fewer years were at HEW 8/9 or above (and therefore 50% of male respondents in this service period were at HEW 7 or below).

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university service compared to 20.5 per cent of female respondents at the 6-10 year period reducing to 10 per cent at the 10+ year period. Figure 3 illustrates the gendered differences in HEW 8/9 and above salary levels at three time periods of service in universities. Tests of significance were not performed here given the large number of small cell counts <5.

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per cent of respondents. The inference here is that the remaining 70 per cent were currently employed in their first position within a university research services section at the time of this study, a finding consistent with the information provided on length of service. Almost a third of male respondents had not worked outside a research services section during their employment at a university whilst over 90 per cent of female respondents had. This is in part related to an overall finding of gendered difference in respondent employment histories within a university setting. A further example of this is that 41.3 per cent of female respondents had worked in three or more separately definable university areas external to research services compared to 13.7 per cent of males. Figure 5 indicates that just under one third of respondents had experience in one or more government departments prior to working in a university with the next largest area of previous employment being in education. In both cases the proportion for male and female respondents is very similar. The responses also indicate that over 90 per cent of respondents had previous employment experience external to the university sector.

Employment history Respondents were asked about previous employment both within and external to the university sector. The responses are described in Figures 4 and 5. In both instances multiple selections were possible and responses under the original response category of ‘Other’ were coded to the most appropriate category where possible and many such responses indicated previous ‘academic’ experience. Response categories have been reordered to reflect highest to lowest for the combined responses of males and females. As Figure 4 illustrates, 34.5 per cent of respondents previously worked in academic support areas such as faculties, colleges and schools. The next highest response area was in Research Services with almost 30

Academic Support Research Services Executive Support Finance/Capital Works Student Administration Academic/Research Assistant No Other Experience Prizes/Awards/Scholarships Secretariat Human Resources

Male

Graduations/Foundation /Fundraising

Female

Library/IT

Total

Marketing/International Office Records Management Student Services/Student Assoc Other 0%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Percentage of Population

Figure 4. Previous employment within universities (n=194). Note: The employment category of ‘Academic/Research Assistant’ was derived from coding of questionnaire responses received to the original response category of ‘Other’. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

The profile of university research services staff, Darlene Sebalj & Allyson Holbrook

At the time of writing no comparable data had been found in relation to previous employment trends of university general staff. Participants were asked if they had previous experience as an academic and/or previous research experience. Just under one third of respondents had previously been employed as an academic with half of all respondents having undertaken some form of research. For all those reporting previous research experience (n=98), their responses (a total of 110) were analysed and grouped under five separate headings ordered to reflect highest to lowest: 1. ‘Undertaking research higher degree’ (41 per cent of responses). 2. ‘Discipline specific research’. This category can be illustrated by the example: ‘I undertook medical research’. (33 per cent of responses). 3. ‘Research Officer/Assistant’ (16 per cent of responses). 4. ‘Research consultancy’. This category can be illustrated by the example: ‘I undertook contract research’ (6 per cent of responses). 5. Did not specify research activity undertaken (4 per cent of responses).

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Discussion and conclusions This paper set out to describe as completely as possible, the profile of research administrative staff in Australian universities. This group is expected to work in close concert with academic staff to develop and support research across a spectrum of grant, research higher degree and training activities. The profile is predominantly female, aged between 40 and 49 years, degree qualified or above with a median salary range of HEW 6/7. It is a representative sample by gender of the identified population of university research services staff. In comparison to the wider population of university general staff, respondents had a higher median salary and a higher female-to-male ratio with a similar age demographic. The profile further indicates that despite being almost three quarters of the identified population female respondents were significantly underrepresented at the higher salary levels and had significantly lower levels of education compared to male respondents. Male respondents were appointed at levels higher than female respondents with equivalent or higher levels of education. Similarly, male respondents with no university qualifications were

Govt Administration & Defence Education Retail Trade Health & Community Services Finance & Insurance Accom, Cafes & Restaurants Communication Services/IT Other (incl Legal/Utilities/Transport) Manufacturing/Wholesale Trade

Male

Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing

Female

Mining/Construction

Total

Not Employed outside Uni Sector Property & Business Services Research 0%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Percentage of Population

Figure 5. Previous employment external to the university sector (n=194). Note: Employment categories used here were largely drawn from ABS occupational categories (ABS, 2001). The employment category of ‘Research’ (external to a university) was added to the above list following coding of questionnaire responses received to the original response category of ‘Other’.

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vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

more likely to be paid at higher HEW levels than were female respondents of the same educational level. When length of service in universities was taken into account, it was found that 90 per cent of male respondents would be on a HEW 6/7 or above compared to 53.8 per cent of female respondents within five years of initial appointment. Half of the respondents reported previous research experience with just under one third of all participants having previously been employed as an academic. This would indicate a high proportion of respondents with ‘mixed identities’ having crossed over the traditional binary divide of academic and administrative domains as described by Whitchurch (2008). It would appear that this area of university administration is an expanding one with just under two-thirds of respondents having worked in research services for five or fewer years. A majority of respondents have held their current position for five or fewer years. There is also prima facie evidence of a relatively recent level of staff churn as a number of respondents have moved within the sector to their current university to take up a position in research services. The profile map provided here was initially designed to be a fundamental building block for developing a dialogue about the contribution of university research administration and by extension, university administration as a whole. However, it is clear that such a dialogue can not be had without due regard to the underlying gender inequities affecting female general staff. It was not the original intention of this research to examine gender based issues. Indeed none of the guiding research questions which informed the study’s design included gender as an area of investigation. However, the findings of significant gendered differences in this demographic and career profile of university research services staff have emerged as the predominant feature. Such findings support an earlier observation by Allen & Castleman (1995) in their ARC funded study into the employment positions of both academic and general staff that time and increased participation rates of female staff in universities did not translate into equity of pay and increased access to the more senior positions. The authors found that ‘…there are factors operating in higher education employment which systematically and pervasively favour male employees and operate as barriers to female employees…’ (Allen & Castleman, 1995, p. 24) it would appear from the results of this profile study that the vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

’

same or similar factors remain in the workplace more than a decade later. This is underscored by a recent submission of the National Tertiary Education Industry Union (NTEU) to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations inquiry into gender pay equity (Allport, May, & Roberts, 2008) where a number of features that were creating greater pay inequities in the current work environment were raised. Key recommendations of the submission were that a ‘gender pay equity principle’ be inserted into any new Federal Workplace Relations legislation (Allport et al., 2008) and further that increased reporting in the higher education sector for both academic and general staff occur to highlight expected gender pay equity gaps in particular. Wieneke (1995) in her work on female general staff in Australian universities wrote that ‘…the importance accorded to women in this arena may be gauged by the virtual absence of information about their numbers, positions and experiences in higher education…’ (p. 6). Given this, Wieneke, a strong advocate for this group of university staff, raised the importance of published research on female general staff in order to: ‘…increase their visibility within and start to place value on their contribution to, the higher education sector…’ (1995, p. 7). Analogously, more research is needed on all aspects of university administration, including gender based studies, to raise the profile and increase the visibility of a group of staff whom collectively make up over half of today’s universities in Australia, but of which so little is known.

Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge the constructive comments and advice of Hedy Fairbairn, Professor Sid Bourke and Dr Ian R Dobson which considerably contributed to the development of this article. The usual caveat applies. Darlene Sebalj is currently enrolled as a PhD student in the School of Education, University of Newcastle. Allyson Holbrook is Director of the Centre for the Study of Research Training and Impact, University of Newcastle.

The profile of university research services staff, Darlene Sebalj & Allyson Holbrook

References ABS 2001, Census Population and Housing. Selected Education and Labour Force Characteristics. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra. Allen, M & Castleman, T 1995, Gender Privilege in Higher Education: Examining its Dimensions and Dynamics. Paper presented at the Women Culture and Universities: A Chilly Climate? National conference on the effect of organisational culture on women in universities, University of Technology, Sydney, 19-21 April.

’

DEST 2006, Staff 2006: Selected Higher Education Statistics. Retrieved 4 August 2008, from <www.dest.gov.au/sectors/higher_education/publications_resources/ statistics/publications_higher_education-statistics_collections.htm#> DEST 2007, Publications - Higher Education Statistics Collections. Retrieved 4 August 2008 from <www.dest.gov.au/sectors/higher_education/publications_ resources/statistics/publications_higher_education-statistics_collections.htm#> Dobson, I R 2000, ‘‘Them and Us’ – General and Non-General Staff in Higher Education’. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 22(2), 203-210.

Allport, C, May, R & Roberts, S 2008, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations. Inquiry into Pay Equity and Associated Issues Related to Increasing Female Participation in the Workforce. Submission of the National Tertiary Education Industry Union: NTEU.

Dobson, I R 2006, ‘Broken Down by Sex and Age: Australian University Staffing Patterns 1994-2003’. Higher Education Management and Policy, 18(1), 71-85.

Castleman, T & Allen, M 1995, ‘The Forgotten Workforce: Female General Staff in Higher Education’. Australian Universities’ Review, 38(2), 65-69.

Gornall, L 1999, ‘New Professionals: Change and Occupational Roles in Higher Education’. Perspectives, 3(2), 44-49.

Coaldrake, P & Stedman, L 1999, Academic Work in the Twenty-First Century. Retrieved 27 April 2005 from <www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/occpaper/99H/ academic.pdf>

McInnis, C 1998, ‘Academics and Professional Administrators in Australian Universities: Dissolving Boundaries and New Tensions’. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 20(2), 1998.

Collinson, J A 2006, ‘Just ‘non-academics’? Research Administrators and Contested Occupational Identity’. Work, Employment and Society, 20(2), 267-288.

Szekeres, J 2004, ‘The Invisible Workers’. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 26(1), 7-22.

Conway, M 1998, ‘Academics and Administrators: Competitive Collaborators?’ Journal of Institutional Research in Australia, 7(2), 26-35.

Whitchurch, C 2004, ‘Administrative Managers – A Critical Link’. Higher Education Quarterly, 58(4), 280-298.

Conway, M 1999, ‘The Role of Administrators: Where have we come from? Where are we going?’ Paper presented at the ATEM/AAPA Joint Conference, Victoria University of Wellington.

Whitchurch, C 2006, ‘Who Do They Think They Are? The Changing Identities of Professional Administrators and Managers in UK Higher Education’. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 28(2), 159-171.

Conway, M 2000a, ‘Defining Administrators and New Professionals’. Perspectives, 4(1), 14-15.

Whitchurch, C 2008, ‘Shifting Identities and Blurring Boundaries: the Emergence of Third Space Professionals in UK Higher Education’. Higher Education Quarterly, 62(4), 377-396.

Conway, M 2000b, ‘What’s in a Name? Issues for ATEM and Administrators’. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 22(2), 199-201. DEEWR 2008, Staff, Selected Higher Education Statistics (2001-2007) (No. 08-312): University Statistics Unit, Policy & Analysis Branch, Department of Education, Employment & Workplace Relations (DEEWR).

Dobson, I R 2008, ‘Fat Cat and Friends’. Australian Universities’ Review, 50(1), 40-46.

Wieneke, C 1995, ‘Managing Women: Positioning General Staff Women in Australian Universities’. Journal of Tertiary Education Administration, 17(1), 5-19.

The profile of university research services staff, Darlene Sebalj & Allyson Holbrook

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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Hey Big Spender! An analysis of Australian universities and how much they pay their general staff Ian R Dobson Monash University

Analysis of aggregated data files on staff sent by all Australian universities to DEST in 2007 and of salary schedules posted on university websites reveals a considerable variation between salaries paid to general staff at each salary level and the relative seniority of those staff. This paper outlines the differences in staffing structures and identifies the higher-paying (and therefore the lower-paying) universities in a sector that is otherwise notable for its convergence rather than its diversity.

Introduction There is a perception that there is little variation in the salaries Australian universities paid their staff at any given rank. What did vary in some instances was the salary range considered to be appropriate for undertaking a particular function. It is likely that this is still the case. Some universities might place a higher weight on a given function than other universities, or perhaps larger universities pay higher salaries than smaller ones for some functions, on the grounds of size and/or complexity. Rather than there being sector-wide determinations of salary levels, institutions and workers strike their own bargain for salary levels and the date from which those salaries become effective. Over time, this has led to disparities between universities.

Methodology Two sources of data were employed for this study. Staff statistics were obtained from the DEEWR website (DEEWR 2008). Staff numbers expressed in full time equivalents were used.The focus of the study was general staff, but only those reported by their institutions of having a ‘function’ described as ‘Other’. ‘Function’ is a defined term universities must follow when subvol. 51, no. 1, 2009

mitting staff statistics. ‘Other’ staff are those that are not ‘Teaching Only’ or ‘Teaching and Research’, both of which are the preserve of ‘academic’ staff. General staff CAN be classified as having a ‘Research Only’ function, but many universities include all their general staff as ‘Other’. In order to consider a homogeneous staff population, some categories of staff were excluded. General staff described by their university as fulfilling a ‘ResearchOnly’ function were not included, because many universities do not attribute the ‘Research-Only’ function to any of their general staff. Staff working for universities but not in the higher education sector (such as in dual-sector universities) were also excluded, as were staff working in Cooperative Research Centres and ‘controlled entities’. These staff groups aren’t present in all universities, and were excluded with the intention of analysing a predominantly homogenous general staff population. Salaries information was obtained from university websites, and this was a straightforward matter for most universities. In many cases, typing ‘salary’ into the university’s internal search engine yielded the required information within a few key-strokes. However, a couple of universities seemed disinclined to provide this most basic piece of information. In a Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

Table 1: University Staff 2007 by Function (FTE) Staff Type Teaching Only Academic

863

General Total

Research Only

Teaching & Research

9188

25122

2552 863

11740

25122

Other

35806

Below HEW 2

43825

46377

44458

Some background statistics Table 1 shows the number of full-time and fractional full-time staff reported by universities in 2007 and identifies the population examined for this paper. The highlighted number represents over 53 per cent of the total university workforce. As noted earlier, certain categories of staff have been excluded in the interests of homogenising the staff population. Table 2 shows the distribution of general staff by rank. Most staff are ranked at HEW levels 4, 5, and 6. The median point (that is, the rank which represents the halfway point the within the sector) falls within HEW 6. Some universities appear to deal differently with the most junior and the most senior staff, so staff ranked at Below HEW 1 and HEW 1 have been added together, as have staff at HEW 10 and Above HEW 10. The focus of this paper is the differences in general staffing profiles and salaries at different universities.

’

Table 2: General Staff (Excl. Research Only) 2007 by HEW Level (FTE)

633

couple of cases, a laborious search for well-hidden enterprise agreements was necessary. The salary information used below reflects the second point of the scale for each level, and where relevant, the salaries paid to staff working 35 hours per week were used. Where necessary, recent job advertisements were used to confirm the salaries paid to staff of different general staff ranks. Most universities use the term ‘higher education worker’ (HEW) to describe the levels at which general staff are remunerated.This mostly common terminology suggests a level of consistency that isn’t there. In general, staff are ranked from ‘Below HEW 1’ (apprentices and the like) to ‘Above HEW 10’ (senior management). One of the causes of some variations between universities of salaries paid is the date at which wage determinations become effective. However, even allowing for this, there are still considerable gaps between universities. The salaries referred to in this paper are those that had been formally agreed to at the time it was going to press.

Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

Level

Source: DEEWR. Aggregated Data Set ‘Stag2007’

Total

No.

Accumulated %

381

HEW 2

875

HEW 3

3619

11%

HEW 4

7262

17%

28%

HEW 5

9003

21%

48%

HEW 6

7671

18%

66%

HEW 7

6012

14%

79%

HEW 8

4199

10%

89%

HEW 9

2232

94%

Above HEW 9

2569

100%

43825

100%

Total

Source: DEEWR. Aggregated Data Set ‘Stag2007’.

Appendix 1 contains detailed tables that show the distribution of general staff by each HEW level and university. Table 3, a summarised version of Appendix 1, shows that there is a considerable difference between universities as to the relative seniority of their staff. At Charles Sturt University for instance, 47 per cent of staff are ranked lower than HEW 5, and only 17 per cent are ranked at levels above HEW 6. This is in stark contrast with the situation at UTS, where only 13 per cent of general staff are ranked below HEW 5, and 47 per cent above HEW 6. Several other universities also have relatively low proportions of staff in the junior ranks. The national average proportion of general staff below HEW 5 was 28 per cent. Looking at those universities with a propensity toward junior-ranked staff, six of the ten institutions at the top of Table 3 are regional universities. Eighteen universities had at least one-third of their general staff classified at above HEW 6. Many of these also had a low proportion of junior-ranked staff.Among Group of Eight universities, only the Universities of Queensland and Western Australia had fewer than 33 per cent of their general staff classified in ranks above HEW 6. Melbourne and Monash have similar staff distribution patterns according to Table 3, and so do the Universities of Sydney and New South Wales. Swinburne had relatively few staff in junior ranks, but also fewer staff than the Australian average in senior ranks. Over half of Swinburne’s general staff were classified in the majority HEW levels 5 and 6. Given these large variations between universities, perhaps classification vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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Table 3: General Staff (Excl. Research Only) 2007 by HEW Level and University: Ranked by Proportion of General Staff Below HEW 5 (FTE) University

Total Staff (FTE)

Below HEW 5

HEW 5–6

Above HEW 6

Charles Sturt University (CSU)

1015

47%

36%

17%

University of Ballarat

346

40%

33%

27%

University of New England (UNE)

657

40%

38%

23%

Flinders University

846

39%

32%

29%

Charles Darwin University (CDU)

235

39%

33%

28%

University of Southern Queensland (USQ)

705

39%

36%

26%

University of Tasmania

975

39%

37%

24%

University of South Australia (UniSA)

1220

36%

34%

30%

Southern Cross University (SCU)

437

36%

39%

26%

Griffith University

1709

36%

35%

29%

Central Queensland University (CQU)

704

33%

35%

32%

University of Queensland (UQ)

2797

33%

38%

29%

James Cook University (JCU)

810

33%

38%

29%

University of Western Australia (UWA)

1593

33%

38%

29%

Murdoch University

711

32%

33%

35%

University of Adelaide

1115

32%

35%

33%

University of Wollongong

782

31%

34%

University of Canberra

477

31%

38%

Edith Cowan University (ECU)

877

31%

36%

33%

Queensland University of Technology (QUT)

1827

29%

34%

36%

University of the Sunshine Coast (USC)

280

29%

42%

29%

La Trobe University

1296

28%

40%

31%

Curtin University

1460

28%

41%

31%

Australian National University (ANU)

1625

28%

32%

40%

Australia

43825

28%

38%

34%

University of Newcastle

1115

27%

39%

33%

Australian Catholic University (ACU)

510

26%

41%

34%

Deakin University

1287

26%

42%

33%

Victoria University

577

23%

43%

34%

Monash University

2873

22%

40%

38%

University of Melbourne

3189

22%

40%

39%

University of Sydney

2785

20%

40%

University of New South Wales (UNSW)

2150

19%

39%

42%

Swinburne University

477

17%

52%

31%

University of Western Sydney (UWS)

1045

16%

42%

RMIT University

1331

15%

42%

43%

Macquarie University

877

15%

39%

46%

University of Technology, Sydney (UTS)

1112

13%

40%

47%

Source: DEEWR. Aggregated Data Set ‘Stag2007’ Note: Rounding errors apply

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Table 4: Salaries paid to General Staff @ January 2009 (2nd point of scale). Ranked according to salary paid at HEW 6. Rank

University

Effective Date

HEW 1

HEW 2

HEW 3

HEW 4

HEW 5

HEW 6

HEW 7

HEW 8

HEW 9

HEW 10

UNSW

12-Dec-08

35657

40567

42991

49254

54008

63252

68992

77434

89908

95148

Sydney

1-Sep-08

38493

41649

43613

49527

53861

61737

68039

76310

88127

91675

Melbourne

4-Oct-08

36310

39400

41212

47642

51513

59757

65937

74179

86538

90904

SCU

1-Oct-08

34915

37949

41742

46291

51979

59567

67151

75031

82316

89902

UTS

1-Nov-08

35890

38683

41275

46659

51046

59422

65402

73779

85742

89729

Macquarie

1-Nov-08

36214

38990

41071

47144

51480

59290

67270

74299

88092

95204

UWA

3-Mar-08

36179

38785

41215

47578

51693

58805

65541

73026

83505

88747

Newcastle

1-Mar-09

35376

38182

40348

46342

50534

58743

64617

72137

84199

88113

UWS

31-Mar-08

36738

39382

42940

46862

51145

58164

63909

72116

83240

85972

Curtin

1-Apr-08

35320

38068

40423

45916

50626

58085

64637

72214

83989

92626

Monash

31-Mar-08

35187

37970

39968

45964

49962

57952

63954

71942

82291

88169

Adelaide

7-Jun-08

34412

37507

40017

45816

51811

57612

63603

71531

83902

92831

Tasmania

30-Jun-08

35745

38925

40608

46032

50433

57449

63499

71271

81224

85746

CSU

30-Sep-08

34646

37696

39652

45428

49661

57359

63519

71605

83154

86618

Wollongong

1-Mar-08

34306

38817

40024

47648

49552

57176

64799

72421

81950

ECU

11-Jan-08

34897

37756

40230

46055

50949

57157

62841

72742

82855

94351

ANU

15-Nov-07

35672

38411

40783

47085

50549

57127

62882

71095

81324

85336

UNE

4-Jul-08

34830

38125

41953

45695

50019

56968

62978

71314

81589

85243

QUT

1-Nov-08

34923

36695

39523

45064

49277

56914

63019

71033

82116

85933

Griffith

1-Jul-08

34734

37239

39164

44797

48833

56788

63093

70981

82338

85228

Canberra

31-Jan-08

34623

37448

39888

46382

49951

56729

62653

71118

81582

87154

UniSA

30-Jun-08

34240

37093

39471

44702

49459

56594

62776

71335

82938

84425

RMIT

6-Jul-08

34296

37021

38974

44820

48718

56513

62360

70154

81847

85971

1-Jan-08

35277

37961

40147

44969

49754

56379

62536

71550

82084

Deakin

1-Mar-08

34168

36883

38826

44652

48533

56291

62119

69888

84533

85646

Swinburne

1-Sep-08

35206

37628

39358

44718

48572

56276

62053

69754

81312

85389

La Trobe

5-Jul-08

34065

36774

38711

44518

48388

56132

61938

69678

81294

85391

JCU

1-Nov-08

34405

37146

39521

44453

49384

55962

62174

70577

79711

83730

Victoria

23-Jun-08

33946

36645

38571

44360

48216

55930

61714

69427

80999

85085

Flinders

21-Jun-08

34260

36753

40741

44722

50329

55841

61256

70782

81240

89281

USC

31-Mar-08

33084

35653

37484

44137

48253

55734

61717

69573

80422

84157

Murdoch

21-Jun-08

34225

36705

39011

44166

49682

55724

62126

69595

79199

82399

CQU

1-Oct-08

34277

36971

38948

44516

48433

55680

61756

70175

80465

84169

ACU

20-Sep-08

33847

37222

39416

44496

48297

55343

61372

69239

79877

USQ

11-Jun-08

34285

36913

39104

43971

47994

55145

60509

67659

78387

84197

Ballarat

4-Jan-09

32863

35478

37341

42944

46677

54147

59748

67215

78422

82373

CDU

12-Jul-07

31057

32965

35938

40186

44416

51472

56089

63612

72846

76952

Source: University websites # This table was prepared using data available on 1 November 2008. In some instances, a new enterprise bargain will have increased salaries to be paid in January 2009 by some universities.

Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

’

Table 5: Salaries paid to General Staff @ January 2009 (Second point of scale): UNSW c.f. The ten lowest paying universities. (Based on HEW 6 Salary). Rank

University

Effective Date

HEW 2

HEW 3

HEW 4

HEW 5

HEW 6

HEW 7

HEW 8

HEW 9

UNSW

12-Dec-08 40567

42991

49254

54008

63252

68992

77434

89908

JCU

1-Nov-08

37146

39521

44453

49384

55962

62174

70577

79711

Victoria

23-Jun-08

36645

38571

44360

48216

55930

61714

69427

80999

Flinders

21-Jun-08

36753

40741

44722

50329

55841

61256

70782

81240

USC

31-Mar-08

35653

37484

44137

48253

55734

61717

69573

80422

Murdoch

21-Jun-08

36705

39011

44166

49682

55724

62126

69595

79199

CQU

1-Oct-08

36971

38948

44516

48433

55680

61756

70175

80465

ACU

20-Sep-08

37222

39416

44496

48297

55343

61372

69239

79877

USQ

11-Jun-08

36913

39104

43971

47994

55145

60509

67659

78387

Ballarat

4-Jan-09

35478

37341

42944

46677

54147

59748

67215

78422

CDU

12-Jul-07

32965

35938

40186

44416

51472

56089

63612

72846

JCU

1-Nov-08

-3421

-3470

-4801

-4624

-7290

-6818

-6857

-10197

Victoria

23-Jun-08

-3922

-4420

-4894

-5792

-7322

-7278

-8007

-8909

Flinders

21-Jun-08

-3814

-2250

-4532

-3679

-7411

-7736

-6652

-8668

USC

31-Mar-08

-4914

-5507

-5117

-5755

-7518

-7275

-7861

-9486

Murdoch

21-Jun-08

-3862

-3980

-5088

-4326

-7528

-6866

-7839

-10709

CQU

1-Oct-08

-3596

-4043

-4738

-5575

-7572

-7236

-7259

-9443

ACU

20-Sep-08

-3345

-3575

-4758

-5711

-7909

-7620

-8195

-10031

USQ

11-Jun-08

-3654

-3887

-5283

-6014

-8107

-8483

-9775

-11521

Ballarat

4-Jan-09

-5089

-5650

-6310

-7331

-9105

-9244

-10219

-11486

CDU

12-Jul-07

-7602

-7053

-9068

-9592

-11780

-12903

-13822

-17062

JCU

1-Nov-08

-8%

-10%

-9%

-12%

-10%

-9%

-11%

Victoria

23-Jun-08

-10%

-11%

-12%

-11%

-10%

Flinders

21-Jun-08

-9%

-5%

-9%

-7%

-12%

-11%

-9%

-10%

USC

31-Mar-08

-12%

-13%

-10%

-11%

-12%

-11%

-10%

-11%

Murdoch

21-Jun-08

-10%

-9%

-10%

-8%

-12%

-10%

-12%

CQU

1-Oct-08

-9%

-10%

-12%

-10%

-9%

-11%

ACU

20-Sep-08

-8%

-10%

-11%

-13%

-11%

USQ

11-Jun-08

-9%

-11%

-13%

-12%

-13%

Ballarat

4-Jan-09

-13%

-14%

-13%

CDU

12-Jul-07

-19%

-16%

-18%

-19%

-18%

-19%

Variation c.f. UNSW – $

Variation c.f. UNSW – %

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

and reclassification procedures also vary. Is it harder to reclassify positions at the universities at the top of Table 3?

Big Spender! Who pays what? Do the universities with a distribution of predominantly junior general staff pay their staff more than the others? Table 4 provides a summary of salary information on universities’ websites. Some universities don’t include salaries for posts above HEW 9 on their websites. Others show a salary for HEW 10, but not for the senior positions classified as Above HEW 10.An earlier paper, examining staff salaries reported by universities, indicated that the highest-paid general staff member classified as Above HEW 10 was paid a salary of $400,000 (Dobson, 2008). As noted earlier, the actual distribution of general staff in Australian universities places the median point at HEW Level 6 (see Table 2). Table 4 has been ranked accordingly, and it can be seen that the University of New South Wales (UNSW) is Australia’s toppaying university at HEW Level 5 and above. In most instances however, the relative rankings hold at all HEW levels. What is particularly interesting is the difference between the salaries paid by the top- and the bottompaying universities. In the case of the median level, HEW Level 6, the difference between the UNSW salary and the Charles Darwin University (CDU) salary is nearly $12,000. At HEW Level 9, the difference is close to $17,000. Even if CDU staff members receive six weeks’ annual leave (rather than the four weeks typical across most of the sector), perhaps none of them will

’

be able to afford a longer holiday! An additional two weeks’ annual leave decreases the gap between CDU and other universities by about 3.8 per cent. This still leaves CDU well behind most universities but rather closer to the University of Ballarat. Non-salary benefits such as additional annual leave would usually be seen as a recompense for trying working conditions rather than a mechanism to close the salary gap between universities. Perhaps some staff would prefer to have the 3.8 per cent in their pocket. James Cook University (JCU) also finds itself nearer the bottom than the top of Table 4.According to its website, JCU staff members are eligible for five weeks’ leave, equating to an increase of 1.9 per cent on the salaries shown in Tables 4 and 5. Table 5 considers the salaries difference between the top-paying and the ten lowest payers, and in particular, the actual salary difference and the percentage difference. Variations are in the range of 5 per cent to 19 per cent, the latter being a big difference in anyone’s books. Table 4 and Table 5 also indicate the effective date of the salaries shown. It is likely that institutions at the lower end of the pay scale would seek to explain their situation by pointing out that a pay rise for their staff is imminent. However, even if the figures in Table 5 were to be adjusted by adding say, a 4 per cent pay increase to the salaries shown, it would still leave Charles Darwin University staff well shy of the salaries paid at the Universities of New South Wales and Sydney. Of course, in the fullness of time, the higher paying universities will restore the salary differential again when it became time for their next increases.

Ma UT cq S ua ri RM e IT Sw UW inb S ur n UN e SW S Me ydn lbo ey u Mo rne na Vic sh to De ria ak in Ne ACU wc as tle AN Cu U La rtin Tr ob e US C QU T Ca ECU Wo nbe llo rra ng Ad ong e Mu laide rd oc h UW A Qu J ee CU ns lan d CQ U Gr iffi th SC Un U Ta iSA sm an ia US Q C Fli DU nd er s UN Ba E lla ra t CS U

Per Cent

Figure 1: Relative Seniority ( Percentage of general staff < Hew 5 c.f. Salary (Hew 6)

University

Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

Seniority Rank

Salary Rank vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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Why is it so?

Conclusion

Is it the case that some universities pay lower salaries, but have a more senior general staff structure than other universities? Figure 1 suggests that there is little if any correlation between universities’ rankings in terms of seniority and salary paid. In the Figure, the line ascending from the origin indicates universities’ rank according to the proportion of general staff below HEW Level 5 each employs. Institutions with a higher proportion of their staff employed below HEW Level 5 appear to the right. The blocks represent the same university’s ranking in terms of the salary paid to HEW Level 6 staff. For instance, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) has the lowest proportion of juniorlevel staff (13 per cent) and therefore is the top-ranked university because of this. UTS ranks 5th according to the salaries it pays. In those cases where the block lies on the line, it means that a university’s rank in seniority is the same as its rank in the salaries it pays. The University of Ballarat, for example, is in this situation in 36th place for both salaries and seniority. Where the block is below the line, that university is ranked higher in salary terms than in seniority. The opposite is the case for universities where the block is above the line. It must be remembered that these observations refer to relative rankings, and sometimes an apparent gap in rank between two universities might represent only a small difference in nominal values. The pattern overall is random, but Figure 1 shows that Ballarat both has a staffing structure that emphasises relatively junior staff, and that it doesn’t pay them as much as most other universities. Charles Darwin University also has a relatively junior staff structure, and they are also not well paid. Flinders University would appear to be in a similar position. The Universities of Tasmania and Western Australia, and perhaps Southern Cross University and the University of New England might argue that despite having a relatively junior general staff structure, the salaries they pay are relatively high.

Many perceive the university ‘industry’ as being homogeneous, but this is not the case where general staff salaries are concerned. General staff salaries are one area of diversity in the Australian higher education sector. The gap between the higher and lower-paying universities is considerable, up to 17 per cent in some cases. Is there any reason for this state of affairs? Is it based on income? Some universities generate higher income streams via research income (particularly in the case of the Group of Eight universities, for example), but not all the Go8 institutions are among the best payers. Some universities generate more income from overseas students than others, but again, there is no obvious pattern to indicate that this is a significant variable. Presumably the more research-active universities, and those with large numbers of overseas feepaying students, also require a much higher staffing complement. This paper has identified the considerable differences in general staff salaries across Australian Universities, but it hasn’t explained why. The universities themselves would need to do that. Perhaps a topic for future research could be an analysis of universities’ annual financial reports, to work out the sources of their income and its disbursement. Which universities spend the highest proportion of the funds available on their staff? However, that still won’t explain why. Ian Dobson is an honorary research fellow with Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research and is the Australasian representative of the Education Policy Institute. For his sins, he is also is editor of the Australian Universities’ Review.

References DEEWR (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations). STAG2007 aggregated data file. Accessed 20 September 2008 at <www.dest.gov. au/sectors/higher_education/publications_resources/statistics/higher_education_statistics_collection.htm#Data_from_the_Staff_Collection> Dobson, I R 2008, ‘Fat Cat and Friends’. Australian Universities’ Review V50 (1). Note: This paper is an updated version of a paper originally presented at the 2008 TEM Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand.

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

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Appendix 1 General Staff (Excl. Research Only) 2007 by HEW Level and University – No. University Below HEW 2 HEW 3 HEW 4 HEW 5 HEW 6 HEW 7 HEW 2

HEW 8

HEW 9

Above HEW 9

Total

ACU

114

510

Adelaide

108

197

214

174

145

120

1115

ANU

163

231

308

209

200

173

1625

Ballarat

346

Canberra

477

CDU

235

CQU

143

118

130

704

CSU

174

243

198

166

1015

Curtin

127

245

327

264

163

127

1460

Deakin

249

265

271

167

104

1287

ECU

186

200

120

128

877

Flinders

146

150

161

110

121

846

Griffith

168

357

334

270

219

131

1709

JCU

136

184

124

810

La Trobe

240

283

237

158

102

1296

Macquarie

150

193

164

877

Melbourne

196

460

662

605

494

306

224

211

3189

Monash

176

418

672

483

472

248

160

202

2873

Murdoch

167

111

121

711

Newcastle

101

178

235

204

152

117

1115

Queensland

327

512

605

463

372

235

2797

QUT

148

346

329

299

233

224

146

1827

RMIT

174

320

237

207

147

102

111

1331

SCU

112

107

437

USC

280

Swinburne

118

131

477

Sydney

125

151

273

507

605

400

375

176

154

2785

Tasmania

120

216

194

167

109

975

UNE

155

140

109

657

UniSA

137

293

213

197

165

108

1220

UNSW

106

266

427

413

322

283

156

138

2150

USQ

167

163

705

UTS

223

225

192

150

1112

UWA

191

256

345

269

210

107

1593

UWS

209

229

142

158

1045

Victoria

137

110

577

Wollongong

128

165

104

147

782

Total

381

875

3619

7262

9003

7671

6012

4199

2232

2569

43825

Source: DEEWR. Aggregated Data Set ‘Stag2007’

Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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General Staff (Excl. Research Only) 2007 by HEW Level and University – Per Cent University

Below HEW 2

HEW 2

HEW 3

HEW 4

HEW 5

HEW 6

HEW 7

HEW 8

HEW 9

Above HEW 9

Total

ACU

0.0%

2.2%

6.9%

16.7%

22.4%

18.3%

11.6%

12.9%

4.2%

5.0%

100%

Adelaide

0.0%

4.5%

9.7%

17.6%

19.2%

15.6%

13.0%

10.7%

5.5%

4.2%

100%

ANU

2.3%

1.6%

10.1%

14.2%

19.0%

12.9%

12.3%

4.2%

10.6%

100%

Ballarat

1.9%

6.2%

14.4%

17.5%

20.0%

12.7%

10.0%

9.4%

3.2%

4.8%

100%

Canberra

0.4%

3.1%

9.8%

17.7%

19.9%

11.0%

13.2%

10.6%

6.3%

7.8%

100%

CDU

1.9%

10.5%

24.5%

19.0%

13.9%

11.7%

7.4%

4.0%

5.2%

100%

CQU

0.0%

3.3%

9.8%

20.3%

16.7%

18.4%

13.0%

7.3%

5.6%

100%

CSU

3.1%

2.7%

17.2%

24.0%

19.5%

16.4%

6.9%

4.4%

2.7%

3.1%

100%

Curtin

0.4%

2.6%

8.7%

16.8%

22.4%

18.1%

11.1%

8.7%

6.0%

5.2%

100%

Deakin

0.0%

0.7%

5.6%

19.3%

20.6%

21.1%

13.0%

8.0%

5.1%

6.6%

100%

ECU

0.3%

0.4%

9.1%

21.2%

22.8%

13.6%

14.6%

9.6%

4.0%

4.5%

100%

Flinders

0.0%

4.4%

17.2%

17.7%

19.0%

13.0%

14.3%

9.6%

2.0%

2.8%

100%

Griffith

3.0%

2.0%

9.8%

20.9%

19.5%

15.8%

12.8%

7.7%

3.3%

5.2%

100%

JCU

2.5%

5.1%

8.2%

16.8%

22.7%

15.3%

10.6%

7.7%

5.4%

5.6%

100%

La Trobe

0.9%

2.4%

6.6%

18.5%

21.8%

18.3%

12.2%

7.9%

5.6%

5.8%

100%

Macquarie

0.1%

4.0%

3.0%

8.2%

17.1%

22.0%

18.7%

11.0%

7.9%

8.0%

100%

Melbourne

0.0%

0.9%

6.1%

14.4%

20.7%

19.0%

15.5%

9.6%

7.0%

6.6%

100%

Monash

0.1%

1.3%

6.1%

14.5%

23.4%

16.8%

16.4%

8.6%

5.6%

7.0%

100%

Murdoch

0.4%

0.3%

8.2%

23.5%

15.7%

17.0%

13.1%

6.5%

4.7%

10.6%

100%

Newcastle

0.4%

1.9%

9.1%

16.0%

21.1%

18.3%

13.6%

10.5%

5.3%

3.8%

100%

Queensland

1.1%

2.1%

11.7%

18.3%

21.6%

16.6%

13.3%

8.4%

3.5%

3.4%

100%

QUT

0.7%

1.3%

8.1%

19.0%

18.0%

16.4%

12.7%

12.3%

3.4%

8.0%

100%

RMIT

0.5%

0.0%

1.9%

13.1%

24.1%

17.8%

15.6%

11.0%

7.7%

8.4%

100%

SCU

0.3%

0.5%

9.5%

25.5%

24.5%

14.1%

13.6%

5.0%

3.1%

3.8%

100%

USC

0.0%

1.4%

8.5%

18.8%

20.6%

21.5%

15.5%

7.0%

2.4%

4.3%

100%

Swinburne

0.3%

0.0%

2.3%

14.5%

24.7%

27.4%

14.1%

6.9%

5.6%

4.1%

100%

Sydney

0.7%

4.5%

5.4%

9.8%

18.2%

21.7%

14.4%

13.5%

6.3%

5.5%

100%

Tasmania

2.4%

1.9%

12.3%

22.2%

19.9%

17.2%

11.2%

7.6%

2.3%

3.2%

100%

UNE

3.0%

3.6%

9.4%

23.5%

21.3%

16.6%

9.2%

7.9%

1.9%

3.5%

100%

UniSA

0.6%

0.5%

11.3%

24.0%

17.4%

16.2%

13.5%

8.8%

4.6%

3.0%

100%

UNSW

1.0%

0.8%

4.9%

12.4%

19.9%

19.2%

15.0%

13.2%

7.2%

6.4%

100%

USQ

0.0%

2.5%

12.5%

23.8%

23.1%

12.4%

10.9%

6.3%

3.1%

5.4%

100%

UTS

0.2%

0.6%

3.2%

8.6%

20.1%

20.2%

17.3%

13.5%

8.1%

8.3%

100%

UWA

1.9%

2.6%

12.0%

16.1%

21.6%

16.9%

13.2%

6.7%

4.2%

4.9%

100%

UWS

0.0%

0.2%

7.3%

8.8%

20.0%

21.9%

13.6%

15.1%

5.8%

7.3%

100%

Victoria

0.0%

2.4%

3.9%

16.5%

23.7%

19.1%

15.2%

8.4%

6.4%

4.4%

100%

Wollongong

2.6%

1.9%

10.5%

16.4%

21.1%

13.3%

18.8%

4.3%

3.7%

7.3%

100%

Total

0.9%

2.0%

8.3%

16.6%

20.5%

17.5%

13.7%

9.6%

5.1%

5.9%

100%

Source: DEEWR. Aggregated Data Set ‘Stag2007’

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Hey Big Spender! , Ian R Dobson

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Not quite like a honeymoon Charting the first 24 months of Sino-foreign educational programmes

Mike Willis & Rowan Kennedy University of Ballarat & Monash University

There is now a large range of studies that have considered various aspects and issues of Sino-foreign university collaboration – which remains a vexed and contentious issue. The aim of the present study is to identify the specific steps a group of Sino-foreign educational alliances took over their first two years – as viewed by Chinese and foreign university managers – as they struggled to develop a mature basis for ongoing alliance activity. The paper notes that the initial formative years were ones of stress and strain. A total of sixteen (16), sequential steps have been identified in this study, which also notes that, at times, these steps could be taken out of sequence. It was only by the latter steps that the two sides had really formed the basis for longer-term activity. (In short it took about two years to achieve some sense of viable and realistic understanding of the realities of setting up and managing an educational joint venture in China). The paper provides a basic “roadmap” for university managers wishing to enter the China alliance market – and, at the same time, also makes some comments about some of the issues, problems and tensions which may arise within this crucial formative period.

Introduction ‘Foreigners always worry about the big banquet and the money. Who worries about how to make it all work…?’ (Chinese education manager) One of the largest areas of Sino-foreign collaboration remains the area of education where over 10,000 alliances have been formed between Chinese and foreign universities since 1978. Research has tended to focus on issues of culture, organisation, management and even the funding of alliances – and the focus has tended to be on alliance behaviour over a three to five year period. What has not been researched in as much detail is how alliance partner managers (Chinese and

Not quite like a honeymoon, Mike Willis & Rowan Kennedy

foreign) behave over a shorter period of time, particularly during the crucial start up phase of an alliance. This study identifies a series of 16 stages alliances went through and it was not an easy process.

Literature review The topic of higher education alliances between Chinese and foreign universities has been studied in detail by a variety of authors since the late 1970s, when the pace and rate of alliance began to speed up. Hayhoe’s studies (1989, 1996) remain perhaps the best known. She considered alliances from the perspective of comparative education and evaluated some of the issues, vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

challenges and benefits of alliances for the two sides. She did not look at any given period of time, however, focussing instead on the alliances as a whole. At that time, the focus was still rather generic and focussed on frameworks and key, overriding issues and associated factors. Alliances were divided into four categories by Willis (2001), who also considered other aspects of their structure, role, focus and rationale (2001 a,b,c; 2002 a,b,c ). Again, however, this research took a ‘whole of alliance view’. A different perspective was undertaken by Street (1992), Johnston (1996), Ross (1993), and Ross and Liu (1998), who considered some of the complexities of delivering courses and programmes in China (often emphasising issues of culture and the tensions faced by a foreigner in China), while Pepper (1996), considered university change and restructure in China, both noting, in passing, that this restructure provided a degree of impetus for international collaboration. Again, the focus was on the larger picture rather than issues of detail. A number of Chinese authors (Deng, 1994; Jiang, 1995; Jing, 1995; Fang, 1996; Kok, 1996; Cui, 1997; Guo, 1997 and 1998; Huang, 1997; Dai, 2001), considered various aspects of collaboration and education change and restructure in China – but few (apart from Hayhoe’s seminal studies), were able to chart trends in alliance activities, structure, and behaviour, across the short term. Others tended to focus on the macro and micro trends which helped to shape the environment in which educational activities were undertaken over time in China. Studies, for example by Baird, Lyles, Li and Wharton (1991), Child (1994), Carey and Zou (1995), Canyon (1997), Fuxin and Gronin (1997), Benewick and Wingrove (1998), and Bray (1998) – help to set the framework and indeed background for the present study, by considering a range of factors and issues relevant to the formation and management of joint ventures in a Sino foreign context. Studies by Yau (1988), Xin (1996), Wong (1998), Wong and Leung (2001), Wong and Slater (2002), and Molinsky (2007) tended to consider specific cultural aspects and issues considered to be germane to ‘doing business in China’, and these studies together with some others which consider similar issues in specific industry situations (such as Wong, Luk and Li, 2005) help to provide some of the background for possible cultural issues which seem to impact on foreign activity in China. By the mid part of the current decade, a number of studies had appeared (i.e. Willis, 2006) which tended vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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to focus on more specific aspects and issues of collaboration. These studies remain somewhat holistic in their viewpoint and aim.

Method Using a depth interview qualitative process as the basis for this study, research was undertaken in the following locations: Nanjing,Tianjin, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Beijing, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai. In each city, a university joint venture involving a Chinese and foreign partner was investigated. NonChinese partners came from the USA,Australia, Canada, and countries in Europe. Each alliance had been operating for a minimum of four years. The process used was to ask each manager (individually and never in a group) to discuss, in an open, nondirected, and unstructured manner, how the first two years of the alliance had gone, from their own perspective and view. This process was used to avoid ‘leading’ respondents and to enable them to reflect on the first two years of the alliance in their own way, according to their own ideas and in their own time. The term ‘First two years’ was explained to be from the time they held their first significant meeting with the foreign (or Chinese) partner. Issues explored were as identified by respondents and they included issues of culture, structure, organisation, perception and distance. These issues gradually started to merge into an integrated series of steps. Data were collected over three years.

Findings These were the steps. Step 1: Testing the water on both sides. During this stage the two sides behaved in a tentative, formalised, and almost ritualistic manner. They talked in general terms, did not commit themselves to much at all, and often sat in formal meetings talking around topics and issues in a somewhat guarded and formal manner. This was a stage where the two sides would sound each other out – but in a very careful and tentative manner. It was almost ritualised. Each side would speak from its own objectives and position. Each would state its own ideas and views but in a general and unspecific manner. The Chinese would wonder, ‘can the foreigners be trusted at all?’ and ‘do they have any real level Not quite like a honeymoon, Mike Willis & Rowan Kennedy

of interest sincerity, commitment and honesty?’, while the foreigners tended to wonder whether there was any real business opportunity or substantial chance of developing and delivering programmes. The Chinese tended to worry about more holistic issues than the foreigners who tended to be rather more concerned about options and opportunities for possible collaboration in a structured business sense. This was a stage of initial attitude formation – only. Step 2: Taking the first tentative steps During this stage the two sides would take the first very tentative steps towards collaboration. These steps could include some social activities (perhaps a dinner, a cultural performance or a visit), or possible activities where there could be some initial discussion about potential programmes and activities and other initiatives. Discussions would be rather general at this stage but some ideas would start to emerge which were of a more specific nature than in the first step. For example, people might talk about the idea of an exchange or study abroad programme. They might talk about their experiences with certain programmes and activities. The ideas would certainly be rather vague at this stage but there would be a sense that the discussion table, if one can put it this way, now had something tangible on it. A perception of ‘would, could, possibly, actually do something together’ would start to emerge. However, any ideas (and associated feelings and perceptions) would be somewhat circumspect, carefully worded and one would not ‘give away anything of value’ to the other side at this very tentative stage. This was a time of suggesting and waiting: listening and responding, talking about ideas and committing some small aspects of oneself or one’s organisation. However, there was also a sense of gathering momentum. But it was very early days. The view was: ‘we feel that we have something of value to offer each other but we are not sure...’ Step 3: Thinking and acting about each other Respondents noted that it was around this stage that they would start to think rather more assertively or actively about each other than they had done in the first two steps of the developing alliance. They would wonder: could we really do business together, would this work? Could I see this being a successful partnership? What do I actually think about this? Is there potential here or not? A sense of affective and cogni-

Not quite like a honeymoon, Mike Willis & Rowan Kennedy

’

tive reflection would take place at this juncture and people would start to consider various aspects of a possible alliance in terms of people, emotions and possible programmes. It was a time for initial reflection, testing views and perceptions and thinking in terms of resources and structure. These thoughts were undertaken in private with one’s peers, and quite often away from the negotiating venue, such as a Chinese or foreign university campus. One also had to consider how to act in future (which could be tomorrow or in a few minutes) and what one wanted from the alliance (if it could be developed) and the associated relationships. Suddenly, one felt drawn into a higher level of both introspection and discernible commitment. As one said, ‘I felt that there was a certain sense of pace and action, but it was still rather unclear where we were going!’ Step 4: Setting up some initial activities – testing the water. It was only now that the two sides would start to consider undertaking a few initial and fairly basic activities. These initial activities would usually be small, short term, basic and not particularly demanding, yet in a symbolic manner they were actually very important. They would test the ability of the two sides to work together at a human and affective level and would also determine whether they were able to collaborate on an activity or range of activities which had some discernible benefit. A small core group would now emerge to be the champions of the alliance.This group had to be formed to progress any further. Step 5: Worrying to ourselves about the programme and about each side The very act of setting up a few trial projects and forming an integrated core group tended to raise problems, tensions and issues because people on both sides now had to start to commit – money, time and themselves. The alliance would now go through a period of – almost – rethinking, reconfiguration, worry and tension. Some might not have expected this situation at this time: but it was there. Step 6: Taking stronger steps: bolder programmes and new initiatives By now, it had been decided to take a few bold steps and develop and implement some more expansive allivol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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ance activities and programmes which could be of a organisational complexity in developing and deliverrange of types: ing a programme in China. • Larger activities of a single type (such as a bigger • Where there were problems with expectations on exchange programme, perhaps based on an initial one or both sides (often where programmes had exploratory programme). been rolled out too slowly or even too fast). • A range of activities and programmes which them• Where there was concern about how to balance (or selves could be divided into two types: activities even identify) programme delivery in China vis á vis undertaken just in China or activities undertaken back in the home university (i.e. in Canada or Ausboth in China and abroad. tralia) and on what basis and criteria. • Activities which had a defined time period and activ• Where key people started to argue amongst themities which were perceived to be possibly ongoing. selves (on one side or the other or on both sides), • Programmes which were of varying levels of scale – and with stakeholders in parent universities and so ranging from small to large. on (often on the basis of problems with activities, In regard to these options, programmes, and expectaa range of approaches was tions or simply the level [We] needed to be realistic: an alliance also possible for implemenof complexity required to was something of a volatile creature. It tation: activities could be deliver projects in China. would never quite settle. expanded and built up over • Where initial enthusitime or started at a large asm started to wane to be scale initially (this tended to depend on the level of replaced by a sense that the delivery of activities empathy, and confidence expressed by the two sides). and the project itself was simply going to be hard Large scale projects were often too hard to handle, a work not always enhanced by positive cross cultural staggered step-by-step approach was usually better. encounters. One needed to be patient – this was not easy. By now one needed to be realistic: an alliance was something of a volatile creature. It would never quite Step 7: Taking stock settle. By now (and this could be part way through step six Step 9: Time to develop systems and processes if the activities or projects were staggered) there was a need for a period of ‘taking stock’ in the alliance. Perhaps some programmes and activities had been underway for a reasonable period of time – and it was now time to review the programmes, activities and indeed relationships amongst core staff within the alliance. The views of key staff from each side needed to be evaluated and considered as did the views and ideas of outer core staff. Programmes were often changed and reconfigured at this juncture. New programmes were sometimes added to supplement those already planned and some programmes might be discontinued. Step 8: Early problems and hiccups During the roll out of programmes (if a staggered process was used as discussed in step six) or at any time in the conduct of a major set of projects and activities, problems would occur constantly: and some were: • Where initial programmes and activities had met with teething problems (this happened in almost all cases, respondents noted) – usually it was an issue of the two sides simply underestimating the level of vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

By now (and, again this could be part way through step six or at the end – or at any point of time within a defined period of a programme) there was a significant recognition that behind the various programmes and activities was a need for the establishment of far more elaborate systems and processes which would provide the real frameworks for activities and projects which had often been delivered, thus far, in a relatively haphazard manner, partly on the basis of enthusiasm and trust and partly because the two sides tended to underestimate the level of detailed planning required to manage and deliver a programme successfully in China. Both sides now needed (and wanted) structure, processes, organisation. These needed somehow to wed home-based processes (e.g. in Australia) with Chinese reality, and this was hard. Step 10: New initiatives – the start of a true and multifaceted alliance After the first round of initiatives and programmes discussed from step six, alliances tended to develop (and this could be as early as in the second year of Not quite like a honeymoon, Mike Willis & Rowan Kennedy

the alliance) a range of revised, consolidated or new programmes which usually grew out of earlier programmes which were more basic and initial in orientation, design and implementation. These new programmes tended to form the real backbone of a successful alliance. Whereas an initial programme might have been, for example, to send some students to Australia, almost as a trial or a test, now, the two sides would start to develop a more complex study abroad programme with more depth and rigour. These programmes would have far more complexity, detail and even commitment behind them. If the various initial programmes discussed in step six had been implemented in a sequential manner it was not unusual, in a larger alliance (where there were a range of programmes and activities) to observe new, often consolidated activities, being implemented side by side with the gradual roll out of initial programmes as follows: Figure 1: Staggered approach

Staggered initial run programmes and activities – implemented over time.

New initiative (either brand new or emerging out of initial activities).

Often in an alliance new initial, trial activities could therefore be observed over a course of time while consolidated, new and more solid activities were also launched at key points in the alliance. On the other hand in some alliances the situation was more like this – a time based approach:

Initial run of activities and programmes - introduced in a group.

New programmes (say in year two) emerging out of initial run programmes or separate.

Time Orientation

Figure 2: Time based approach

(And so on).

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Either way, the point is that over time, successful alliances would gradually develop more complete, complex, sustainable and time proven programmes and activities which would provide the basis for a more mature and fully developed alliance. This sense of initial and longer-term orientation and design was a key aspect of alliances in China. Step 11: Stepping forwards and backwards – taking the slow dance towards integration… By now, the alliance had reached the stage whereby a range of activities had been underway for some period of time. Some programmes were still usually being trialled while others had been consolidated and established as core offerings of the alliance. If all was going well, there was now a sense on both sides that the alliance could actually work in the longer term. As one said: ‘we had – perhaps for the first time – a sense of depth, of real commitment and of tangibility in terms of our activities and projects’. In a sense, the two sides could now take stock, rethink their respective and integrated positions and think about the future. It was as if the core business was now underway to the point where issues of strategy and longer-term orientation could now be considered. It was by about this time that the two sides would often reflect on the complexities and stresses of establishing and operationalising a joint venture programme.There was a sense of maturation. Step 12: Melding ideas, actions, plans and practicalities Now, at last, it was time to ‘get serious’ about the longer term strategic objectives of the alliance, and during this stage new and often larger plans were laid down by the two sides for the longer term. A number of options now emerged: • To maintain the alliance in its original format and focus (perhaps sharp, small, limited and strategic) – but to now deepen this sharp, narrow focus. • To extend the alliance into additional areas of activity as a process of diversity. • To expand the alliance into new locations (often replicating programmes across various locations to secure additional income). • To reconfigure the alliance into various streams of activities (i.e. basic programmes, high value activities, brand development initiatives) and so on to develop a greater sense of maturity and complexity using any or a combination of the above strategies. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

It was time to consider all of these approaches in order to move the alliance from an initial and rather basic structure encompassing a range of initial and core activities, to a new plane of solidity, depth and strength. If this review and consolidation did not take place, all respondents agreed that the alliance would fail – it would remain somehow tentative, elusive, basic and lacking in real integrity and strength. There had to be this period of real strategic consolidation and long term planning. It was now that the mists and clouds cleared: and if they did not the alliance would falter. Step 13: Our first big problems Increased commitment, however, tends to come at a price.The more the two sides, and particularly the Chinese, developed, expanded and strengthened the alliance (in terms of activities and programmes but also at the human relationship level), the greater the level of commitment and sense that there was much to gain but also much to lose. When the alliance was simply testing a few programmes or running a basic exchange or similar programme, in a sense no one was too worried. But now the situation was rather different; now there were real feelings or perceptions that the stakes were higher, the issue of face was more critical and people had now started to commit at a far more personal and organisational level. Now quite serious tensions developed because the alliance was more serious. It was a difficult time. One had to be careful. As one said:‘it was kind of strange – we had come this far and then we felt that it was all in danger. It was almost as if the more serious we got, the more we worried about it all!’ Step 14: Do we have an alliance yet? By now, the two sides (or at least the core inner staff with well-developed relationships and a sense of genuine commitment to the alliance) could start to reflect and ponder whether they did, at last, have a well-developed, mature and established alliance. Now they could think that there could be a serious long term future for their alliance, if all had gone well. This includes the negotiation about the problems and issues, and the stresses associated with an alliance are part of the maturing process. What they now also could start to think about was the observation that an alliance would always be about change, problems, tensions, resolution, and innovation and would probably never be particularly stable or easy. This was the start of a real alliance. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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Step 15: Growing pains – at home, abroad, with work, and with colleagues By about now it had become evident to respondents that an alliance was always a thing of change, stress, strain and tension. These strains were structural in nature but also cross-cultural and, in addition, a result of the range and scope of stakeholders. There were always (daily) problems of culture, organisation, activities, processes, confusion and money. Things never settled: this was one of the secrets of success: to realise this fact, even if one had by now developed a range of viable activities and indeed relationships. As the alliance grew, matured, developed and waxed and waned there were always problems, tensions and issues. This was reality. And this was part of success. Step 16: We can’t see over the mountain but at least we can climb it together By about the end of the second year, respondents in this cohort felt that they had developed the basis for a true, longer term alliance. In a way, this was the true start of something longer, real and tangible. By now, there was an expectation that: • The two sides had developed a reasonably mature and empathetic set of relationships amongst core staff which would provide the basis for ongoing and continued alliance success. • Organisational details including plans, processes, staffing, roles, expectations and objectives had been put into place to provide the alliance with a kind of fundamental structural basis for ongoing activity. • Expectations had started to mature in the sense that the two sides now had an understanding of how complex it was to manage a cross cultural alliance, and they had also trialled, developed and implemented a range of activities and projects which would start to form the core of an alliance over the longer term. • There was now some history between the two sides (albeit only over a period of up to two years), but this did help to provide a sense of the past, the present and the future. That is, there was a growing sense of commitment to the longer term based on the fact that the alliance had now lasted for up to two years or so. • There was a growing sense of being able to treat the alliance as a genuine and real entity of its own rather than just a convenient linking of forces from two very different sides for the sake of a few programmes, activities and trials. Not quite like a honeymoon, Mike Willis & Rowan Kennedy

Use of the steps and the associated issues and findings The paper indicated that there were many steps to forge an alliance over the first two years and managers on both sides (Chinese and foreign) need to recognise that each step is part of the process of building a valuable and genuine alliance. There was no quick and easy way to shortcut the process. It was only by the end of year two that the alliance had reached a stage of some kind of viability.This is a process which requires time, patience, negotiation, trial and error, and above all – commitment. The idea that one can sign an alliance, settle it in and then expect no problems is a myth.This study shows that even in the first two years the process is at once volatile and sequential. This is a volatile world.There is no escaping this. In essence, and to sum up, it is possible to glean from the various stages a sense of four major periods within the formation of an alliance: 1. Tentative beginnings: formal, home based (where the two sides tended to view issues and options almost solely from their home base world – that is from a Chinese or foreign perspective), uncommitted, tentative and naïve. 2. Early steps: a few activities undertaken, enthusiastic, committed (to a degree) – but naïve. This was a stage of enthusiastic but somewhat superficial engagement on both sides. It was rather like a ‘fools gold’ alliance stage – far from the real thing! 3. Reassessment: where the two sides tended to start to realise that an alliance was a complex activity involving a range of aspects and dimensions. This was a period of introspection, and what tended to emerge was a new and deeper level of recognition, understanding and, indeed, affective and cognitive awareness of what it was really going to take to make an alliance work. 4. Realism: where the two sides showed a new level of recognition about the issues, problems, challenges and opportunities embodied in an educational alliance. It was at this stage, and only at this stage, that the two sides could start to move their alliance to a new and higher level of engagement. What had changed, in a word, was commitment: a sense of what it would really take to make an alliance viable and successful in a world of cross cultural and organisational complexity – let alone, in regard to the specific aspects of educational delivery. What had also changed (to a degree) was a sense of ‘us’ rather than ‘us and them’ – that is: a recognition that

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the whole of the alliance was indeed rather more than just the sum of the individual parts for two very different partners. It was now, and only now, that the alliance had a platform which could start to provide the basis for some kind of longer-term success. What was sad was that so many alliances never even reached this platform. Mike Willis is Postgraduate Course Coordinator in the School of Business, University of Ballarat. Rowan Kennedy is a lecturer in the School of Business and Economics. Monash University.

References Baird, I, Lyles, M, Li, S & Wharton, R 1991, ‘Joint ventures: a Sino-US perspective,’ in Shenkar, O (ed.), Organization and Management in China, 19791990. M.E. Sharpe, Inc. Armonk, New York. Benewick, R & Wingrove, P (eds) 1995, China in the l990s, McMillan Press Ltd, London. Bray, M 1998, ‘Financing higher education in Asia: Patterns, trends and policies’, International Higher Education Journal, Fall, 1998. Canyon, A (ed.) 1997, Assessment of China into the 21st Century, Nova Science Publishers, New York. Carey, S & Zou, R 1995, ‘From the outline to the outcome: Challenges for Chinese education,’ Pacific Asian Education, Vol. 7, No’s 1 and 2, pp. 17-30. Child, J 1994, Management in China during the age of reform, Cambridge University Press, England. Cui, N 1997, ‘Overseas education exchanges encouraged,’ China Daily, 21 August 1997. Dai, X 2001, ‘Modern education from a strategic viewpoint and optimism of the assessment system’, Current Issues in Chinese Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France, pp. 118-125. Deng, H 1994, ‘The megatrend towards the labour market: An analysis of the job market for 1993 college and university Graduates,’ Chinese Education and Society, Vol 27. No. 3, pp. 15-30. Fang, Z 1996, ‘Diversification of the funding base: A critical analysis of current patterns of financing higher education in China,’ The Journal of the Pacific Circle Consortium for Education, Vol. 8, No. 1,University of Western Sydney Nepean, Sydney. Fuxin, L & Gronin, P 1997, ‘Decentralisation: A trend of curriculum reform in the People’s Republic of China,’ Pacific-Asian Education, Vol. 9, No. 1, University of Canberra, ACT. Guo, N 1997, ‘Education input rises in 1996,’ China Daily, 13 October 1997. Guo, Y 1998, ‘Features, issues, and future expansion of Chinese graduate education,’ International Higher Education, Fall, 1998. Hayhoe, R 1989, China’s Universities and the Open Door, M.E. Sharpe Inc., Armonk NY, and London. Hayhoe, R 1996, China’s Universities, 1895-1995, A Century of Cultural Conflict, Garland Publishing, New York and London. Huang, Y 1997, ‘Study abroad to support reforms,’ China Daily, October 7, p.2. Jiang, N 1995, ‘Promote the reforms and the growth of higher education fully,’ vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Chinese Education and Society, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 37-44. Jing, Y 1995, ‘Who will be teaching our students tomorrow?’ Chinese Education and Society, Vol. 28, No. 5, pp. 9-27. Johnston, B 1996, Boxing with Shadows, Travels in China. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Kok, K H 1996, ‘Privatization and quasi marketisation: Educational development in post Mao China,’ Paper presented at the 9th World Congress of Comparative Education, University of Sydney Australia. Molinsky, A 2007, ‘Cross-cultural code-switching: The psychological challenges of adapting behaviour in foreign cultural interactions,’ Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 622–640. Pepper, S 1996, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-Century China, the Search for an ideal Development Model, Cambridge University Press, Ross, H 1993, China learns English, Yale University Press. Ross, H & J Liu 1998, The Ethnographic Eye, Ethnographic Research on Education in the People’s Republic of China, Garland Publishing. Street, N L 1992, In Search of Red Buddha, Peter Lang, New York. Willis, M K 2001a, ‘The identification, application and use of four distinct levels of Sino-foreign cooperation in the state higher education sector.’ Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, Haworth Press, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 73–95. Willis, M K 2001b, ‘An identification of the types and forms of strategic alliances undertaken between Hong Kong and foreign higher education institutions compared to the rest of China,’ Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Vol 11, No. 3, pp. 39–64.

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Willis, M K 2002b,, ‘Looking east - looking west. Exploring the views of Hong Kong University students about traditional Chinese cultural values and how these impact on studying for a foreign degree programme in Hong Kong.’ Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Vol. 13, No. 2/3, pp. 159–178. Willis, M K & Kennedy, R E 2002c, ‘An evaluation of how student expectations are formed in a higher education context: The case of Hong Kong.’ Journal of Marketing for Higher Education. Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 1-21. Willis, M K 2006, ‘Why do Chinese universities seek foreign university partners: An investigation of the motivating factors.’ Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Vol. 16, No.1, pp. 115–143. Wong, Y H 1998, ‘The dynamics of Guanxi in China’, Singapore Management Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 25–42. Wong, Y H & Leung, T 2001, Guanxi: Relationship marketing in a Chinese context, Haworth Press, New York. Wong, M C S, Luk, S T K & Li, S C Y 2005, ‘Equity ownership and management control in Sino-foreign joint venture hotels’, The Services Industries Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 117–33. Wong, A L Y & Slater, J R 2002, ‘Executive development in China: Is there any in a Western sense?’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 338–60. Xin, K R & Pearce, J L 1996, ‘Guanxi: Connections as substitutes for formal institutional support’, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39, No. 6, pp. 1641–59. Yau, O H M 1988, ‘Chinese cultural values: Their dimensions and marketing implications’, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 22, No. 5, pp. 44–57.

Willis, M K 2001c, ‘Strategic alliances between Chinese and foreign universities: was a staggered form of entry used?’ Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Vol 11, No. 3, pp. 39–65. Willis, M K 2002a, ‘The application of the Chinese sense of ‘balance’ to agreements and alliances undertaken between Chinese and foreign institutions in the Chinese higher education sector: Adding depth to a popular cultural concept.’ Journal of Marketing for Higher Education.

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Recent developments in relation to professional staff in UK higher education Celia Whitchurch University of London, UK

Maureen Skinner Association of University Administrators, UK

John Lauwerys Formerly University of Southampton, UK

This paper reviews three developments relating to professional staff in UK higher education. The first of these is a major report undertaken for the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LFHE), which has re-conceptualised the activities of professional staff within a theoretical framework of identity (Whitchurch, 2008a). The other two projects seek practical ways forward for this group of staff, the first via a Continuing Professional Development Framework developed by the Association of University Administrators (AUA); and the second via the publication of case material on career pathways, prepared on behalf of the Association of Heads of University Administration (AHUA) and the LFHE.

Introduction This paper provides a round up of recent developments in relation to professional staff in UK higher education, in the context of the implementation of the Framework Agreement negotiated between employers and trade unions in 2006 (Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), 2003).The Framework Agreement provided guidance within which pay and conditions were determined locally for all groups of staff. In the case of professional staff, role analysis and job evaluation were used to place individuals on the national pay

spine that had been established. The objectives of the Agreement were to improve recruitment and retention of talented staff, to achieve greater local flexibility, and to recognise and reward the contribution of individuals. It had been triggered by the Bett Report (1999), which had recommended that national collective bargaining arrangements be reformed against a background of the expansion of the higher education system, the introduction of tuition fees, and increased segmentation of institutional missions. For the purpose of this paper, the term ‘professional staff’ represents those groups defined by the Higher

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Education Statistics Agency (HESA) as ‘managers; non-academic professionals; student welfare workers, careers advisors, personnel and planning officers; and public relations and marketing professionals’. In 2006/2007 they represented 7.5 per cent of the UK higher education workforce (HESA, 2007). The paper describes three current initiatives in the sector, and some of the issues surrounding them: • A major report undertaken by Celia Whitchurch for the LFHE entitled Professional Staff in UK Higher Education: Preparing for Complex Futures (Whitchurch, 2008a) (available at www.lfhe.ac.uk/ publications/research). • A project running from 2007-2009, jointly funded by the Association of University Administrators (AUA), the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE), the LFHE and the Higher Education Academy (HEA), to develop a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Framework for Higher Education Administrators and Managers (AUA, 2008). • A project undertaken by John Lauwerys on behalf of the Association of Heads of University Administration (AHUA) and the LFHE to develop case material illustrating professional career paths. Changing roles and relationships The Whitchurch study was one of a series of reports funded by the LFHE that drew attention to the changing roles of pro-vice-chancellors (Smith, Adams and Mount, 2007), the impact of distributed management and leadership arrangements (Bolden, Petrov and Gosling, 2008), and top management teams (Kennie and Woodfield, 2008). Whitchurch demonstrated that the identity movements of a diversifying body of professional staff in higher education had received less attention than those of their academic colleagues, and that employment categories such as ‘academic’ and ‘nonacademic’ belied a blurring of the boundaries between staff groupings, which were becoming less clear-cut. Nor had there been exploration of, for instance, the impact of more project- and portfolio-oriented working on the processes of professionalisation described by Skinner (2001), or of the tensions created between increasingly specialised functional ‘silos’ and the crossboundary collaboration that is essential for contemporary institutions, internally and externally. Whitchurch also pointed to the emergence of ‘third space’ between the activities of professional and academic staff, creating new understandings in relation to universities as organisations. These understandings vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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have implications for the concepts of ‘management’ and ‘leadership’ in universities, how these are perceived by multi-professional teams, and how professional development might be delivered to such staff (Whitchurch, 2008a and b). Furthermore, career trajectories are becoming less linear in that, at the same time as pursuing formal career paths, individuals are extending their experience through, for instance, project work, outreach and partnership, and development activity ranging from coaching and mentoring to formal programmes that use case material from the workplace (Whitchurch, 2009, forthcoming). Pursuing such opportunities, however, can engender risks for individuals if they take time out from the ‘mainstream’, with no guarantees as to their next move. While Whitchurch reconceptualises the activities of professional staff within a theoretical framework of identity, paralleling work that has taken place in relation to academic identities (for instance, Henkel, 2000), the other two ongoing projects seek practical ways forward in relation to professional and career development. It is intended that these projects will assist institutions in maximising the potential of their staff for the future. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Framework The CPD Framework project arose out of recognition that institutions would benefit from building a pool of talent both for themselves and for the system as a whole (AUA, 2008), and that the expansion of higher education would be likely to require an additional 25,000 professional and support staff by 2010-11 (HEFCE, 2006). Building on its mission to promote ‘excellence in higher education management through a professional development scheme …’, the Association of University Administrators (AUA) has a long history of providing developmental opportunities for its members, and the project aims to draw on a body of existing good practice as well as the aspirations of managers and administrators across the sector. A number of sector-wide issues influenced the design of the project. Commentators such as Barnett (2000) and Bauman (2000) have noted the growth of both complexity and uncertainty in higher education, and their impact on those who work in the sector. Demands from government, funding bodies, quality agencies, the student body, and other stakeholders are not only increasing, but can also be conflicting and

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ambiguous.The aim of the project is to develop a CPD Framework that will: • Enhance institutional performance through high quality staff. • Develop management and leadership capability. • Enable succession planning. • Support career planning. • Foster equality and diversity of development opportunities across the sector. • Be sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of staff in a range of roles in a variety of institutions. The project involved a period of consultation, desk research and a series of workshops. This work was undertaken by a consultant, with oversight by a Steering Group. The consultation achieved a 42 per cent response rate from those surveyed in an on-line survey. Although the concept of an overarching Framework had general support, some concern was expressed by higher education institutions that the Framework should not undermine existing CPD requirements, particularly for staff in specialist roles, and questions were raised about whether it was possible, or indeed desirable, to develop a meaningful generic framework. Professional bodies reported that they all had programmes of CPD activities, including one which had its own CPD framework in place. Key themes which emerged from the consultation included: • Equality of opportunity:many respondents highlighted what they perceived as a current inequity of opportunity between academic and professional staff. • Consistency across the sector: a common approach was seen as enhancing the ability of professional staff to move between institutions, and as providing a benchmark for recruitment and selection across the sector. • Professionalisation of support roles: there was strong support for the opportunity provided by the project to recognise professional staff in higher education as a discrete professional grouping. Components under development for the Framework include: • Exemplars of professional activity and approaches to it. • Templates for development initiatives such as personal development plans, learning logs and selfassessment. • Links between development that is dedicated to professional staff in higher education and external provision, such as professional qualifications and master’s degrees.

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• Coordination of professional development with institutional processes such as staff review and equal opportunities. The CPD framework is at an advanced stage of development and is likely to consist of a set of core ‘professional behaviours’. Many existing CPD frameworks use the term ‘competencies’, but the Project Steering Group felt that this implied an overly skills-oriented approach, as opposed to higher order, strategic abilities. Furthermore, the project seeks to dispense with the term ‘non-academic’ staff, opting instead for the term ‘professional services’. The model will apply to all levels of staff and consist of core professional behaviours, which are further subdivided into application to self, application to others, and application at institutional level.The initial outcomes of the work can be found on the AUA website (http://www.aua.ac.uk/ LGM/), and the final report will be published in 2009. The Director and Board of Trustees of AUA intend that this project should act as a springboard for further work. Working with the LFHE and other partners, it aims to raise the profile of the profession and to create a sector-wide induction process, building on a variety of pre-existing niche offerings, for both early entrants to higher education and for recruits from outside the sector. It takes the view that the promotion of higher education management as a career of choice would enable the sector to develop a more visible profile as a significant player in the graduate recruitment market, aligned with the ‘employability’ and ‘professionalisation’ agendas. On completion of the CPD project, AUA intends to work with individual institutions to map existing staff development activities against the emerging Framework. This work could be of particular benefit to smaller institutions, which lack the resources to develop their own CPD structures.

Facilitating professional careers The profiles of the careers of nearly 40 professional staff developed by Lauwerys demonstrate that not only does higher education management tend to be ‘invisible’ as a profession, but that those who choose it as a career are likely to do so more by accident than design. This confirms Whitchurch’s findings that the early stages of such a career was likely to result from: • Part-time or vacation work at a higher education institution while a student. • A desire to stay in an academic environment after graduating.

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• A desire to work in a particular locality where the university is a major employer. • Contact with someone who works in a university. • A belief that experience gained from another sector could be usefully extended by a move into higher education (Whitchurch, 2008a). The fact that choice of a professional career in higher education tends to be serendipitous rather than the result of active planning raises issues about how careers and career development might be promoted so that they are attractive to talented individuals. Although a substantial proportion of professional staff appear to stay in higher education, the extent to which this is as a result of inertia or opportunity is not clear. It is notable that rotational trainee schemes, where individuals gain experience of a range of functions and areas of responsibility, do not exist in the same way as they do in other public and private sector environments. Such schemes may be formally recognised where new recruits automatically move between nominated posts after, say, a two-year period, or be less formally constituted whereby vacancies are filled through internal transfers, in consultation with line managers and the individuals concerned. In the latter case, the advertised post is not necessarily the one that has become vacant. Some institutions, such as the University of Warwick, have used job rotation effectively to equip individuals for senior posts either in their own institution or elsewhere, although internal transfers are not always popular in that they can cause shortterm dislocation. Furthermore, there may be tensions if such schemes are not reconciled with job evaluation and grading, or with equal opportunities practices that require all posts to be subject to advertisement and open competition. Although these issues create challenges and dilemmas at a practical level, such schemes, nevertheless, are likely to increase the institutional pool of talent for the future.

Discussion It is in the interests of the sector, and institutions within it, to establish understandings about professional pathways in higher education, and to offer career and professional development that will be satisfying to talented individuals (Lauwerys, 2002; 2008). However, a diversification of the backgrounds and career routes of individuals (Whitchurch, 2008a and b; 2009, forthcoming) means that in future such career paths are likely vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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to become more flexible in order to accommodate entry and exit points for a significant number of staff who move in and out of higher education, but who nevertheless bring with them a mix of experience that is both valuable and enriching. Career patterns are increasingly likely to resemble the ‘climbing frame’ described by Strike (2009, forthcoming), with multiple strands and opportunities for crossovers to occur. Key issues arising for the higher education sector, therefore, are: • Reconciling the impact of ‘portfolio’ careers, and greater traffic of staff in and out of the sector, with hierarchical career structures and functional ‘silos’, both of which may constrain the mobility of individuals. • Using job descriptions and specifications so that they are enabling rather than prescriptive, and so that they enhance the contribution that individuals are able to make, taking account of fluctuating contexts and circumstances. • Creating opportunities for those entering higher education early in their careers, while making space for individuals who enter the sector later on from other spheres. • Recognising that individuals who do not remain in higher education for the whole of their career may nevertheless make a worthwhile contribution for the period that they are there. • Enabling appropriate opportunities for management and leadership development in ways that integrate learning with day-to-day practice, including formal programmes, mentoring, coaching and ‘just-in-time’ provision. New understandings are emerging about the roles and identities of professional staff and their interface with academic colleagues, and also about universities as organisations and their relationships with external partners. While traditional frameworks provide a starting point for thinking about professional careers, Whitchurch (2008a and b) suggested that younger staff are increasingly likely to take responsibility for their own futures, and to be self-reliant about interpreting the roles and structures in which they find themselves. This was particularly the case in Australia. Such trends reflect wider changes in the workplace, as reported by Middlehurst (2009, forthcoming), who draws on reports by the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) (DTI, 1998) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (2007), to suggest that ‘Millennials’‘are used to exercising individual choice’, and regard ‘individual lifestyles [as] important’. Furthermore, they will expect employ-

Recent developments in relation to professional staff in UK higher education, Celia Whitchurch et al

ers to meet them half way and respond to individual preferences, in a world in which ‘…technology makes it far more feasible to design work contexts around the choices of individuals’. As Middlehurst goes on to say, ‘This will pose significant challenges for Human Resource Departments as they exist in institutions today, but may make the difference between institutional survival or decline in the future.’ Thus, the introduction of the national Framework Agreement may provide the opportunity for institutions to design and customise their employment structures and give greater latitude for rewarding individuals who extend their roles outside the precise parameters of their job description (Strike, 2005), provided that job evaluation does not restrict individuals in interpreting and developing their roles. Institutions will be obliged to address these issues in order to accommodate an increasing diversity of professional backgrounds and differentiation of roles, and more extended ways of working. Raising awareness of the attractiveness of professional higher education management as a career, providing opportunities for these careers to be developed and individual capabilities to be enhanced, are strategies that might be adopted more conspicuously by senior management teams in ‘raising the game’ of their institutions. At the same time, the ‘Millennial’ generation are likely to ‘vote with their feet’ and create their own opportunities. Achieving an enabling dialogue between individuals, institutions and sectoral agencies is, therefore, likely to be critical to maximising both career opportunities and career satisfaction, and to assist in overcoming what could otherwise be a dislocation of effort in capturing an emerging ‘creative class’ of professionals who want to ‘feel [that] they can express themselves and validate their identities’ (Florida, 2002: 11). Celia Whitchurch is a Lecturer in the Centre for Higher Education Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.

’

Barnett, R 2000, Realizing the University in an Age of Supercomplexity. Buckingham, Open University/SRHE. Bauman, Z 2000, Liquid Modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge. Bett, M 1999, Independent Review of Higher Education Pay and Conditions. London, The Stationery Office. Bolden, R, Petrov, G and Gosling, J 2008, Developing Collective Leadership in Higher Education. London, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education: <www.lfhe.ac.uk/publications/research.html> Accessed 30 September 2008. Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Work in the Knowledge-Driven Economy. DTI, London. Florida, R 2002, The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, New York. HEFCE 2006, The Higher Education Workforce in England: A Framework for the Future. Higher Education Funding Council for England, Bristol. HESA 2007, HESA Staff Collection 2006/2007. <www.hesa.ac.uk> Accessed 30 September 2008. Henkel, M 2000, Academic Identities and Policy Change in Higher Education. Jessica Kingsley, London. Kennie, T & Woodfield, S 2008, Top Team Structures in UK Higher Education Institutions: Composition, Challenges and Changes. London, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education: <www.lfhe.ac.uk/publications/research.html> Accessed 30 September 2008. Lauwerys, J 2002, ‘The future of the profession of university administration and management.’ perspectives: policy and practice in higher education 6(4): 93-97. Lauwerys, J 2008, ‘Changing structures of leadership and management in higher education.’ perspectives: policy and practice in higher education 12(1): 2-10. Middlehurst, R 2009, forthcoming, ‘Developing Higher Education Professionals: Challenges and Possibilities. Academic and Professional Identities’, in Higher Education: The Challenges of a Diversifying Workforce. Gordon, G & Whitchurch, C (eds). Routledge, New York. PriceWaterhouseCoopers 2007, Managing Tomorrow’s People: The Future of Work 2020. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, London. Skinner, M 2001, ‘The AUA code of professional standards.’ perspectives: policy and practice in higher education 5(3): 63-67. Smith, D, Adams, J & Mount, D 2007, UK Universities and their Executive Officers: the Changing Role of Pro-Vice-Chancellors. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, , London.: <www.lfhe.ac.uk/publications/research.html> Accessed 30 September 2008. Strike, T 2005, Evolution of Academic Career Structures in English Universities. OECD Conference on Trends in the Management of Human Resources, Paris. Strike, T 2009, forthcoming, ‘Evolving English Academic Career Pathways. Academic and Professional Identities’, in Higher Education: The Challenges of a Diversifying Workforce. Gordon, G & Whitchurch, C (eds). Routledge, New York. Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA) 2003, Framework Agreement for the Modernisation of Pay Structures. <www.ucea.ac.uk/en/ New_JNCHES/Framework_Agreement_.cfm> Accessed 6 November 2008.

Maureen Skinner is Chair of the UK’s Association of University Administrators.

Whitchurch, C 2008a, Professional Managers in UK Higher Education: Preparing for Complex Futures. Final Report. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, London: <www.lfhe.ac.uk/publications/research.html>

John Lauwerys is the former Registrar and Secretary at the University of Southampton, UK.

Whitchurch, C 2008b, ‘Shifting Identities and Blurring Boundaries: The Emergence of Third Space Professionals in UK Higher Education’. Higher Education Quarterly 62(4): 377-396.

References

Whitchurch, C 2009, ‘Progressing Professional Careers in UK Higher Education’. perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education (forthcoming).

Association of University Administrators (AUA) 2008, HEFCE LGM Project: CPD Framework for Higher Education Administrators and Managers.

Recent developments in relation to professional staff in UK higher education, Celia Whitchurch et al

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

’

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance Daniel Edwards Australian Council for Educational Research

The university attendance habits of Australians, in a geographic sense, are different from those in the United States, the United Kingdom and many other western countries. Australian university students are less likely to move between major cities to study. This paper finds that in addition to this, within a large metropolitan area, university campuses attract a substantial share of the university-attending population who completed their schooling nearby. Essentially, Australian university students like to ‘keep it local’. The findings discussed here also illustrate that the location of academically accessible university campuses in outer suburban areas can help to improve opportunities for university entrance. This paper highlights the need for universities to develop networks with schools in their local areas in order to ensure that course provision is tailored to the needs of local communities and also to educate local students about the opportunities that a university education can provide.

Introduction Many social and economic characteristics of individuals are now measured by the proxy of postcode (Burrows & Gane, 2006). A person’s ‘location’ is used to make inferences about health, income and educational wellbeing, and indices of socioeconomic status are concocted at every level of aggregation – from street to continent.The use of geodemographics has become an increasingly important tool for marketing firms, but is also of crucial importance to social scientists and others interested in understanding the dynamics of contemporary society. Therefore, for universities, as large institutions with an important role in facilitating educational and social mobility, it is a worthwhile exercise to monitor the links between residential location and attendance at particular universities. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

In this paper, university attendance patterns of Melbourne government school Year 12 completers in 2004 are presented. The paper examines the link between location of school and location of university attended among this cohort. In doing so, this analysis focuses not on overall university participation rates of Year 12 government school completers, but instead on the attendance patterns of those students who were accepted and enrolled in a university course in the year following school completion. The analysis shows that there are strong spatial patterns in university attendance within the suburban landscape of Melbourne. In all major areas of the city in which there are university campuses, the data show that individual university campuses attract a substantial share of the university-attending government school population who completed their schooling nearby.

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance, Daniel Edwards

’

Background

reason for this is that these studies have, quite rightly, had as their focus, broader issues of equity. This paper University attendance patterns in Australia are starkly considers the equity issues raised in previous research, different from those in countries such as the United but focuses more specifically on examining the attendStates and the United Kingdom. There is a strong ance dynamics at a spatial level across metropolitan emphasis in these other countries on leaving home to Melbourne. This is essentially an additional (but cerattend university and live at ‘college’, but in Australia, tainly not mutually exclusive) dynamic of the access while a residential college system exists, there is suband equity debate in Australian higher education. stantially less intra-country movement of students to This paper examines the pattern of attendance attend university; students (in particular metropolitan among the government school Year 12 completers in dwellers) are more likely to attend university in their Melbourne in 2004 who enrolled at a Victorian unihome city. One key reason for this is that the Australian versity in 2005. The location of the student’s school university sector is more homogenous than those in has been used as a proxy for their residential locathe UK and US. As such, each state capital in Australia tion. Therefore, the discussion relies on the assumpcontains universities and campuses which offer a full tion that the majority of government school students range of courses, therefore meaning that there is less attend their neighbourhood school. The enrolment need for students to travel policies of the Victorian widely in pursuit of speDepartment of Education ... among students who have the ambition cific courses. and Training (DET) (as it and aptitude for university, residential University attendance in was then known), and Viclocation and proximity to university Australia is closely linked torian Tertiary Admissions campuses do have an influence on choice to residential location. A Centre (VTAC) data both of university, but that the impact of this number of studies into support this assumption. factor overall is relatively small, especially access and equity in AusPolicy documents from the when compared with preferences by field tralian higher education four metropolitan regions have touched on the issue of the department stipulate of study. of residential proximity to that most students beginuniversities as a determining year 7 in a government nant of aspiration and attendance (Dobson & Rapson, school ‘will be attending their neighbourhood school’ 2003; Harvey-Beavis & Elsworth, 1998; James, 2002; (Department of Education and Training, 2004) and James, Baldwin, & McInnis, 1999; James, Wyn et al., that it is a principle of the DET ‘to provide each child 1999; Stevenson, Evans, Maclachlan, Karmel, & Blakers, with the right to a place in the designated neighbour2000). Two of these studies in particular have shown hood school’ (Department of Education and Training, that among students who have the ambition and apti2006). According to these documents, ‘the designated tude for university, residential location and proximity neighbourhood school is defined as the secondary to university campuses do have an influence on choice college which is nearest in a straight line distance to of university, but that the impact of this factor overall is the student’s permanent residential address’ (Departrelatively small, especially when compared with prefment of Education and Training, 2004). The VTAC data erences by field of study (Harvey-Beavis & Elsworth, confirm the impact of these policy directives. There 1998; James et al., 1999). These findings are important is a strong correlation (0.79) between the postcode and have helped to inform policy in the area of higher of each government school year 12 completer’s pereducation provision. manent residential postcode and the postcode of the In contrast with previous studies, this paper does school they attend. not focus on aspirations and ambition for university, While this research focuses on the situation within but instead it concentrates on the members of the Melbourne, it is likely that some of the issues explored cohort of government school Year 12 completers once here are replicated in other capital cities in Australia they have gained access to university. where there are multiple universities and campuses. Research examining geographic patterns of univerFuture use of a national collection of state tertiary sity attendance in Australia has generally been limited admission centre data (Department of Education to regional versus metropolitan comparisons. The Employment and Workplace Relations, 2008) could

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance, Daniel Edwards

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Number of offers to school applicants, 2003 Size of university 42,000 21,000 4,200 VU Sunbury

RMIT Bundoora VU Melton La Trobe

VU St Albans VU Footscray VU City RMIT City

Melbourne Swinburne Hawthorn ACU

VU Werribee Monash Caulfield

Swinburne Lilydale

Deakin Burwood Monash Clayton

Monash Berwick

Monash Peninsula

20 km

Figure 1: Location and size of the main metropolitan university campuses in Melbourne, 2003 Source: VTAC 2003/04, unpublished

help to explore these issues across Australian capital cities. There are eight publicly funded universities and numerous university campuses spread across metropolitan Melbourne. Campuses vary in size, types of course provided, the tertiary entrance rank required for their courses and the background of students they enrol.The location and relative size of these campuses is displayed in Figure 1. As the map shows, a number of campuses are based in the centre of Melbourne, while satellite campuses for various universities exist in the outer suburbs. Of those campuses not located in the city and inner suburbs, Victoria University (VU) is primarily based in the west, La Trobe (Bundoora) is the largest provider in the north, Monash, Deakin and Swinburne have campuses in the east, and Monash is the only university presence vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

in the south east.The finer lines in Map 1 represent the boundaries of the Statistical Subdivisions (SSDs) that divide the metropolitan area and are used in the subsequent tables. The data used in this analysis relate to the university applications and enrolment information for government school Year 12 completers in 2004 who applied through the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre for a university place, were offered a place and enrolled in the university in 2005. For each student, the location of their school (by SSD) has been coded. The enrolment rate of these students in Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main university campuses has been calculated and the share of students from each area enrolled in each of these campuses is displayed in the tables that follow. The data in the following tables highlight the strong prevalence among these school completers to enrol at

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance, Daniel Edwards

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Total university enrolments

18.0

2.0

0.4

100

782

Other^

42.5

Rest of Victorian Campus

9.2

Other Uni Metro Melb

2.7

RMIT City

University enrolments (%)

University of Melbourne

Swinburne Hawthorn/ Prahran

16.6

Monash Clayton

3.6

Monash Caulfield

School location

Deakin Burwood

City, Inner and Middle Southern and Eastern university campuses (% of all university enrolments among government school applicants)

Inner region Inner Melbourne

5.0

Northern and Western regions Inner/Middle Western Melbourne

3.1

2.5

4.4

16.0

19.7

44.7

6.7

0.3

100

638

Moreland City

2.2

4.3

21.5

15.1

50.5

2.2

0.0

100

Northern Middle Melbourne 4.9

1.7

2.7

2.2

17.0

18.7

49.0

3.7

0.0

100

406

Outer Melton-Wyndham

0.0

0.8

2.4

1.6

8.0

17.6

44.0

25.6

0.0

100

125

Hume City

2.4

0.0

0.6

4.2

19.4

10.9

55.2

7.3

0.0

100

165

Northern Outer Melbourne

2.6

0.0

1.1

3.0

21.8

12.0

54.9

4.1

0.4

100

266

Eastern and Southern regions Inner/Middle Boroondara City

11.7

7.8

13.2

8.1

7.0

26.2

23.5

2.3

0.2

100

554

Eastern Middle Melbourne

16.5

5.4

21.2

5.8

6.7

18.3

23.2

2.6

0.2

100

1,248

Southern Melbourne

15.3

7.4

21.7

4.3

10.3

13.8

23.9

3.3

0.0

100

419

Greater Dandenong

14.3

7.4

17.5

4.1

13.4

10.1

31.3

1.8

0.0

100

217

Eastern Outer Melbourne

20.9

2.4

12.1

8.0

7.8

11.0

30.8

6.4

0.5

100

373

Yarra Ranges A

20.5

1.3

3.8

7.7

8.3

22.4

28.8

7.1

0.0

100

156

South East Outer

12.2

3.6

13.6

5.0

6.8

9.5

34.4

14.9

0.0

100

221

Frankston City

10.1

5.4

16.9

1.4

12.2

10.1

33.8

10.1

0.0

100

148

Mornington Peninsula

12.5

4.5

9.1

5.7

11.4

27.3

18.2

2.3

100

Total Metro Melb

10.5

4.1

12.7

4.9

10.8

20.3

31.5

5.0

0.2

100

5,899

Total Year 12 VTAC enrolments

621

242

747

287

638

1,195

1,861

294

5,899

Median ENTER for VTAC offer

79.55

84.85

91.43

81.65

79.65

94.45

84.95*

68.85

87.18

82.65

Outer

82.65

Table 1: Year 12 government school applicant university enrolments by school SSD for selected campuses located in CBD, inner/middle southern and eastern suburbs, 2005 Source: VTAC unpublished 2004/05 ^Interstate or overseas university campuses applied for through VTAC *median for all Metro Melbourne university campuses

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance, Daniel Edwards

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

a university in the same region as the school that they attended. There are three separate tables representing three distinct geographic areas of the city. These tables display the distribution of university enrolees in each of Melbourne’s Statistical Subdistricts (SSDs) by university campus. Table 1 highlights attendance rates within those universities located in the inner city, the eastern and the southern suburbs of Melbourne. Table 2 focuses on universities located in the northern and western areas of Melbourne. The final table in this series (Table 3) highlights the university campuses in the outer east and south east of the metropolitan area. In these tables the three areas with the highest proportion of enrolments at the campus are shaded in grey. While this analysis controls for school sector, by focusing on government school completers, there are of course other inter-related factors influencing university choice and attendance patterns. Such factors include tertiary entrance rankings and socioeconomic status. These factors are explored briefly towards the end of this paper.

Patterns in university attendance Universities in the centre and to the east of Melbourne As displayed in Figure 1, a number of campuses are located in the centre of Melbourne. The campuses examined here that are located in the inner area of Melbourne are the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus, and the city campus of RMIT. Table 1 also shows the share of enrolments within a number of campuses located in the eastern suburbs of the city. In Table 1 the pattern of enrolment by students from the eastern suburbs of the city at local university campuses is strong. The rates of attendance across the metropolitan SSDs of Melbourne at the two major campuses located in the east – Deakin Burwood and Monash Clayton – are largest among those who attended school in the eastern and southern suburbs and are considerably lower among those from the northern and western areas of Melbourne. For example, in the SSD of Eastern Middle Melbourne, where Monash Clayton is located, 21.2 per cent of government school leavers who enrolled in a university course were attending the Monash Clayton campus. By comparison, Monash Clayton’s share of all Melbourne university attendees was much smaller (12.7 per cent). Of further interest is the fact that the proportion of university enrolled students from Western Melbourne vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

’

who were enrolled at Monash Clayton was miniscule, at 2.5 per cent. In addition, the enrolment rate at Deakin University among students from the east (especially Eastern Outer Melbourne and the Yarra Ranges) was considerably higher than the university’s overall share of students. Table 1 shows that only a very small proportion of school completers made the journey from the northern and western SSDs to attend the Deakin Burwood campus. Similar imbalances in enrolment were also noticeable for Monash’s Caulfield campus, located in the inner south and Swinburne’s Hawthorn and Prahran campuses in the inner east. The university campuses located in the inner city shown in Table 1 (RMIT City and the University of Melbourne) attract students from a wider range of areas. One of the main reasons for this is their central location and therefore easy accessibility by public transport.The table shows that students from the north and west were slightly more likely to attend RMIT than those from the east and south.Attendance rates for the University of Melbourne were very high among students who attended school in the Inner Melbourne SSD, above average in some parts of the east and south, closer to average in the inner/middle west and northern suburbs and tended to be lowest in the outer areas (except the Yarra Ranges SSD). It is worth noting that the attendance rates among students enrolled at a government school in the inner city are particularly high due to the fact that Melbourne’s two large academically selective government schools are located in the Inner Melbourne SSD. Unlike other government schools in Melbourne, students at the selective schools do not predominantly reside close to their school. Most students commute to the school from other areas of Melbourne, so therefore the link between residential and university location is not accurately portrayed in these figures for this group. Universities in the north and west of Melbourne Table 2 is arranged in the same way as Table 1, but this time examines university campuses located in the north and west. Again, the geographic match between the location of university and school attended is prevalent. A large proportion of students who enrolled at university and attended government schools in the Northern Middle and Northern Outer Melbourne SSDs went to either La Trobe Bundoora or RMIT Bundoora, both located close to the border between these two SSDs. Of the students from these areas who enrolled

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance, Daniel Edwards

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Total university enrolments

University enrolments (%)

Other^

Rest of Vic Campus

Other Uni Metro Melb

Victoria University (All)

School location

RMIT Bundoora

La Trobe Bundoora

North and Western university campuses (% of all university enrolments among government school applicants)

Inner region Inner Melbourne

7.7

2.6

1.9

85.4

2.0

0.4

100

782

Northern and Western regions Inner/Middle Western Melbourne

10.7

4.9

26.6

50.8

6.7

0.3

100

638

Moreland City

21.5

14.0

10.8

51.6

2.2

0.0

100

Northern Middle Melbourne

26.1

13.1

5.9

51.2

3.7

0.0

100

406

Melton-Wyndham

6.4

2.4

35.2

30.4

25.6

0.0

100

125

Hume City

13.9

18.8

21.8

38.2

7.3

0.0

100

165

Northern Outer Melbourne

25.2

21.4

4.9

44.0

4.1

0.4

100

266

Outer

Eastern and Southern regions Inner/Middle Boroondara City

8.8

3.8

2.2

82.7

2.3

0.2

100

554

Eastern Middle Melbourne

6.8

3.3

2.6

84.4

2.6

0.2

100

1,248

Southern Melbourne

1.4

2.9

6.9

85.4

3.3

0.0

100

419

Greater Dandenong City

2.8

2.3

9.2

83.9

1.8

0.0

100

217

Eastern Outer Melbourne

9.7

3.2

2.4

77.7

6.4

0.5

100

373

Yarra Ranges Shire Part A

6.4

1.9

5.8

78.8

7.1

0.0

100

156

South Eastern Outer Melb.

2.7

2.3

5.4

74.7

14.9

0.0

100

221

Frankston City

4.7

1.4

9.5

74.3

10.1

0.0

100

148

Mornington Peninsula Shire

4.5

1.1

2.3

71.6

18.2

2.3

100

Total Metropolitan Melbourne

9.5

5.3

7.7

72.4

5.0

0.2

100

5,899

Total Yr 12 VTAC enrolments

561

310

452

4,268

294

5,899

Median ENTER for VTAC offer

80.35

75.35

71.05

84.95*

68.85

87.18

82.65

Outer

82.65

Table 2: Year 12 government school applicant university enrolments by school SSD for selected campuses located in northern and western suburbs, 2005 Source: VTAC unpublished 2004/05 ^Interstate or overseas university campuses applied for through VTAC *median for all Metro Melbourne university campuses

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance, Daniel Edwards

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Total university enrolments

University enrolments (%)

Other^

Rest of Vic Campus

Other Uni Metro Melb

Monash Peninsula

Monash Berwick

School location

Swinburne Lilydale

Outer Eastern and Southern university campuses (% of all university enrolments among government school applicants)

Inner region Inner Melbourne

0.8

0.5

0.4

95.9

2.0

0.4

100

782

Northern and Western regions Inner/Middle Western Melbourne

0.0

0.5

92.5

6.7

0.3

100

638

Moreland City

0.0

1.1

96.8

2.2

0.0

100

Northern Middle Melbourne

0.0

0.7

1.5

94.1

3.7

0.0

100

406

Melton-Wyndham

0.0

74.4

25.6

0.0

100

125

Hume City

0.0

92.7

7.3

0.0

100

165

Northern Outer Melbourne

0.0

0.8

94.7

4.1

0.4

100

266

Outer

Eastern and Southern regions Inner/Middle Boroondara City

0.9

0.2

3.4

93.0

2.3

0.2

100

554

Eastern Middle Melbourne

2.0

0.3

4.6

90.1

2.6

0.2

100

1,248

Southern Melbourne

2.6

4.1

1.7

88.3

3.3

0.0

100

419

Greater Dandenong City

5.5

0.9

8.8

82.9

1.8

0.0

100

217

Eastern Outer Melbourne

2.7

0.5

10.2

79.6

6.4

0.5

100

373

Yarra Ranges Shire Part A

0.6

0.0

12.2

80.1

7.1

0.0

100

156

South Eastern Outer Melbourne

11.3

3.2

5.4

65.2

14.9

0.0

100

221

Frankston City

2.7

10.1

2.0

75.0

10.1

0.0

100

148

Mornington Peninsula Shire

2.3

12.5

1.1

63.6

18.2

2.3

100

Total Metropolitan Melbourne

1.7

1.1

3.2

88.7

5.0

0.2

100

5,899

Total Yr 12 VTAC enrolments

101

191

5,233

294

5,899

Median ENTER for VTAC offer

78.15

81.70

64.50

84.95*

68.85

87.18

82.65

Outer

82.65

Table 3: Year 12 government school applicant university enrolments by school SSD for selected campuses located in outer eastern and southern suburbs, 2005 Source: VTAC unpublished 2004/05 ^Interstate or overseas university campuses applied for through VTAC *median for all Metro Melbourne university campuses

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Keeping it local: geographic patterns of university attendance, Daniel Edwards

at university in 2005, 46.6 per cent from Northern Outer and 39.2 per cent from Northern Middle Melbourne were enrolled at one of these two campuses. Compared with the overall market share of enrolments held by these university campuses (14.8 per cent), the local loyalty to these campuses is substantial. Victoria University has campuses spread throughout the western suburbs of Melbourne, from inner suburban campuses such as Footscray to outer suburban satellite campuses in Melton and Sunbury (Figure 1). Table 2 shows a large proportion of students from the western SSDs in Melbourne enrolled at Victoria University. Thirty-five per cent of government school students from Melton-Wyndham who enrolled at a university in 2005 did so at Victoria University. Similarly, the figures for Western Melbourne (26.6 per cent) and Hume (21.8 per cent) were particularly high given that Victoria University held only a 7.7 per cent share of all Melbourne government school university enrolees in 2005. By contrast, Victoria University had very few enrolments from among government school students who attended school in Inner Melbourne (1.9 per cent), Boroondara (2.2 per cent) and Eastern Middle Melbourne (2.6 per cent). Among the SSDs in the west of Melbourne, it is also interesting to note that more than one-quarter of all university enrolments by students from the MeltonWyndham SSD in 2005 were at university campuses in regional Victoria. One of the reasons for this is that the

Hume City

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Melton-Wyndham SSD is relatively close to the provincial centres of Geelong and Ballarat, both of which are home to large regional university campuses. Universities in the outer east and south of Melbourne Among the small university campuses located in the outer eastern and southern suburbs, the pattern of local enrolment is also noticeable (Table 3). Swinburne’s Lilydale campus, situated in the foothills of the Yarra Ranges, attracted 12.2 per cent of enrolments of Yarra Ranges students and 10.2 per cent of university enrolments of Eastern Outer Melbourne government school students, despite accounting for only 3.2 per cent of all metropolitan enrolments. Monash University’s Berwick campus, a small campus in the outer south east of Melbourne comprising only 1.7 per cent of all enrolments in Melbourne by government school students in 2005, attracted 11.3 per cent of all university enrolments from students who attended a government school in the South Eastern Outer Melbourne SSD. A similar situation is apparent for Monash’s Peninsula campus, located in Frankston and nearby the Mornington Peninsula. Among government school completers from Frankston who enrolled at university, 10.1 per cent attended the Monash Peninsula campus and for Mornington Peninsula students, the figure was 12.5 per cent. This figure, in the context of the small total market share of this campus (1.1

South Eastern Outer Melbourne

Total Melbourne

Socioeconomic characteristics Professional head of family (%)

7.2

7.9

13.1

Weekly family income above $2,000 (%)

3.4

4.2

6.8

Schools with high EMA/Youth Allowance (%)

50.0

11.1

30.5

SEIFA Education Occupation Index (score)

927

944

1026

Year 12 outcomes (government school students) Median ENTER

46.00

53.20

61.45

University offers (%)

37.0

31.8

46.8

Enrolment rate of those with university offer (%)

86.6

76.2

83.1

University enrolment rate of all VTAC applicants (%)

32.7

24.6

38.8

Table 4: Socioeconomic profile (2001) and Year 12 university outcomes (2004) for government school students in Hume City and South Eastern Outer Melbourne Source: Australian Census of Population and Housing 2001, customised matrix, ABS (2001) Socioeconomic Indexes For Areas, V1.5.32 and VTAC 2004/05 unpublished

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per cent), highlights its strong local patronage. Further evidence in support of the hypothesis that universities attract local students is that in 2005 there were no enrolments by students from schools in any of the northern or western SSDs at Monash Berwick and only 3 enrolments at Monash Peninsula.

Other influences on attendance While proximity to university campuses appears to be an important factor, there are clearly many related issues that underpin the university attendance patterns shown in the tables above. Attendance is shaped by university academic entrance requirements (Edwards, 2008b), cultural capital (Teese & Polesel, 2003), economic capital and other factors. Cultural and economic resources are generally concentrated within geographic pockets of large cities, and therefore overall university attendance rates differ substantially between suburbs (Birrell, Rapson, Dobson, Edwards, & Smith, 2002; Edwards, Birrell, & Smith, 2005). These resources are also linked to Year 12 academic outcomes, which have a substantial bearing on the post-school destinations of school completers. For young people in their final years of schooling, initial choice of university is determined by subject interest (Harvey-Beavis & Elsworth, 1998). However, when it comes to applying for a university place, other practical considerations become important. One of the most crucial of these considerations for individuals is whether they can achieve the academic entry requirements for their preferred course. While the tables above examine only those students who did manage to gain access to university courses, there are vast differences in university participation rates among Year 12 completers between the regions of Melbourne (Birrell et al., 2002; Edwards, 2005). Across Melbourne, the entrance levels set by institutions and campuses vary substantially (Edwards, 2008b). This means that there are both academic and geographic accessibility issues for some students. For students who live near university campuses that have low entry levels, university attendance rates can be higher than in other areas with similar Year 12 achievement levels that are not in close proximity to academically accessible campuses. This added dimension of the geographic link with university attendance is explored below using the example of two areas of Melbourne. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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The combined pressures of geographic and academic accessibility Numerous factors influence university attendance, among them, geographical location and academic achievement have been highlighted in this paper as being important. A close comparison of two areas of Melbourne – Hume City in the outer north-west and South Eastern Outer Melbourne – helps to emphasise the role that a local ‘academically accessible’ university can play in providing a university pathway for disadvantaged students. Table 4 outlines some key socioeconomic characteristics and Year 12 outcomes for government school students who attended schools in Hume and South Eastern Outer Melbourne. Both of these areas have relatively low socioeconomic status when compared with Melbourne averages. Comparing these two SSDs, South Eastern Outer Melbourne has a slightly higher proportion of families with a professional head and a larger proportion of families with incomes of $2,000 or more per week. In Hume, half the secondary schools are ranked as particularly needy, with large concentrations of students receiving the Education Maintenance Allowance or Youth Allowance, whereas the figure for ‘needy’ schools is only 11 per cent in South Eastern Outer Melbourne. The Australian Bureau of Statistics index of education and occupation score (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001) for these areas is also slightly lower in Hume. In terms of Year 12 academic achievement, the median Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank (ENTER) for students from these two areas is low in comparison to the median for all Melbourne government school students – slightly lower in Hume than in South Eastern Outer Melbourne. These results are consistent with the established positive relationship between higher academic outcomes and higher socioeconomic status. However, the link between socioeconomic status and educational achievement changes when university offer and enrolment rates are taken into account. As shown in Table 4, government school students from Hume were more likely than their peers on the other side of the city to gain a university offer and were much more likely to enrol at university if they did receive an offer. Of all 2004 Year 12 VTAC applicants, nearly one-third of Hume students were enrolled at university in 2005, while less than a quarter of those from South Eastern Outer Melbourne were in the same

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position. This is despite the fact that students from South Eastern Outer Melbourne came from slightly more affluent families and had slightly higher tertiary entrance scores. The key difference between these two areas is that Hume students live relatively close to campuses of Victoria University that offer a wide range of disciplines and have relatively low entrance requirements (Edwards, 2008a), whereas there are no university campuses in the south east of Melbourne that are both academically and geographically accessible for students in the area. The lack of a comparable local option for students in the outer south east suggests that fewer students are in a position to enrol at university.

Daniel Edwards is a senior research fellow with the Aus¬tralian Council for Education Research and an honorary research fellow with Monash’s Centre for Population and Urban Research.

Conclusion

Department of Education and Training 2006, Memorandum: 2007 Year 7 Placement, Northern Metropolitan Region. Department of Education and Training, Melbourne.

This paper has explored one dimension of the university entrance pathway that Year 12 students can take at the end of each school year. It has built on prior research relating to university entrance by focussing specifically on the link between university location and student location, using Melbourne as a case study. The results of this analysis have shown that there is a clear pattern of enrolment at local universities among Year 12 government school students in 2004. The paper has also shown that within Melbourne, living in close proximity to academically accessible university campuses can also help raise the likelihood of attending university. These findings highlight the need for universities in large suburban settings to understand and pay particular attention to students and schools in their geographic catchment areas. By identifying and understanding their core geographic catchments, universities have the ability to engage more closely with schools, so as to help foster good academic programs, and to connect with students before they enter the university setting thus helping them to make more informed choices regarding courses and form realistic expectations of their university experiences. This paper also provides a reference for government and university policy-makers when allocating new university places or perhaps identifying areas for new university campuses. The findings suggest that if new places and campuses are situated in high growth areas of the outer suburbs of large metropolitan areas, they have the potential to increase participation in these areas.

Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations 2008, Undergraduate Applications, Offers and Acceptances, 2008. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra.

References Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001, Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas, Information Paper (No. (Cat no. 2039.0)) Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra. Birrell, B, Rapson, V, Dobson, I, Edwards, D & Smith, T F 2002,. From Place to Place. Centre for Population and Urban Research, Melbourne. Burrows, R & Gane, N 2006, ‘Geodemographics, Software and Class’, Sociology, 40(5), 793-812. Department of Education and Training 2004, Memorandum: Placement Year 7 2004/05, Eastern Metropolitan Region. Department of Education and Training, Melbourne.

Dobson, I & Rapson, V 2003, The Provision of Higher Education for Regional Victorians. Centre for Population and Urban Research, Melbourne. Edwards, D 2005, December 5-8, Change, competition and specialisation: the demise of the comprehensive secondary school and its implications. Paper presented at the The Australian Sociological Association annual Conference, Hobart. Edwards, D 2008a,. ‘Increasing competition for university and the challenge of access for Government school students – a case study’, Australian Journal of Education, 52(3), 287-300. Edwards, D 2008b, ‘What happens when supply lags behind demand? Disadvantaged students and the ever increasing competition for university places’, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 30(1), 3-13. Edwards, D, Birrell, B & Smith, T F 2005, Unequal Access to University. Revisiting entry to tertiary education in Victoria. Centre for Population and Urban Research, Melbourne. Harvey-Beavis, A & Elsworth, G 1998, Individual demand for tertiary education: Interests and fields of study. Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Higher Education Division, Evaluations and Investigations Program, Canberra. James, R 2002, Socioeconomic background and higher education participation: An analysis of school students’ aspirations and expectations. Department of Education, Science and Training, Higher Education Group, Canberra. James, R, Baldwin, G & McInnis, C 1999, Which university? The factors influencing the choices of prospective undergraduates. Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Canberra. James, R, Wyn, J, Baldwin, G, Hepworth, G, McInnis, C & Stephanou, A 1999, Rural and Isolated School Students and their Higher Education Choices, commissioned report no. 62. National Board of Employment, Education and Training, Higher Education Council, Canberra. Stevenson, S, Evans, C, Maclachlan, M, Karmel, T & Blakers, R 2000, Access: Effect of campus proximity and socio-economic status on university participation rates in regions. Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Occasional Paper Series, Canberra. Teese, R & Polesel, J 2003, Undemocratic Schooling. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

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REVIEWS

Theatre of the classroom Improving Student Retention in Higher Education: The Role of Teaching and Learning by Glenda Crosling, Liz Thomas and Margaret Heagney (eds) ISBN: 0415399211 (pbk.) 0415399203 (hardback), Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon; New York 2008. Review by Maree Conway The sub-title of this book about student retention is ing of retention in higher education have influenced ‘the role of teaching and learning’ and that provides this review. the context for the work of the editors. While providThe book is well written and easy to read. It is clear ing this context allows the scope of the book to be in its intent: kept within feasible limits, I found myself wondering to stimulate readers’ thinking about their students if the book had missed an opportunity to encourage a and their learning in the current higher education setting, and to present a range of approaches and more holistic consideration of what influences student strategies as food for thought, and as models for the retention in higher education today. As I worked my way forward. (p. 5) way through the book, I kept thinking that the editors needed to place their work in the even broader conThis intent is underpinned by the belief of the editext of the ‘student experience’ and how that is being tors that ‘if students are to continue with their studies, defined and explored. institutions need to recognise their needs and provide My reaction stems, perhaps not surprisingly, from my them with a reasonable chance of succeeding’ (p. 4). background in tertiary education institutions. I am not The editors explore student retention strategies by an academic; I worked until focusing on curriculum recently in a range of unichange and development It is clear in its intent – ‘to stimulate versity management roles in three areas – student readers’ thinking about their students across both faculty and cendiversity, modes of teachand their learning in the current higher tral positions. Much of my ing and learning and education setting, and to present a range work in faculties and in studisciplines – which also of approaches and strategies as food dent administration offices provide the structure of for thought, and as models for the way over the years was with the book. Each area has an forward’. students facing the types overview chapter written of engagement difficulby one of the editors, folties described in this book lowed by five international (although we didn’t call it that until recent times), but case studies (15 in all), which broadly use an action I saw it from a different perspective to that of the ediresearch approach. tors. It is now – or should be – recognised that the The overview chapters provide the context for the quality of the student experience is not determined case studies, as well as highlighting the major issues solely by the teaching and learning experience; rather, and challenges faced in each area.The case studies deal it is constructed through the totality of the interacwith curriculum change to build inclusive approaches tions students have with staff across a range of areas – for local and international students from diverse and both academic and administrative. So, it is important to non-traditional backgrounds, building awareness of state up front that my worldview and my understandcultural differences in student groups and with indivol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Theatre of the classroom, Review by Maree Conway

vidual students, designing curriculum to give ‘real world’ practical experiences for students, internationalising learning outcomes, providing induction to students at home prior to starting at universities, using culinary analogies to teach quantitative research methods, re-designing assessment, varying teaching delivery to build engagement, strengthening written and oral communication, providing learning support in first year and visiting a brewery to develop an understanding of macro-economic concepts. At the core of all the case studies is an orientation of the ‘teacher’ towards the ‘student’, and a recognition that one size does not fit all when it comes to curriculum design and teaching delivery. The case studies also demonstrate how being open to changing the curriculum can be a rewarding, if sometimes frustrating and challenging, experience for staff. The book is designed to be read by just about everybody except administrative staff (p. 6), although not mentioning this group specifically does not, of course, preclude them from reading the book. It is an example of how student retention has been identified as an ‘academic’ issue by the editors, rather than as an issue of concern to everyone who works with students in higher education institutions. There are a number of core assumptions that emerge and reinforce each other throughout the book, all of which reflect the context within which the book was written. The need to be student centred is omnipresent, as is structuring learning to incorporate the interests and experiences of all students (p. 17) and helping non-traditional students to cope with higher education (p. 21), and academic culture shock (p. 70). That it is in group learning contexts ‘that students are most able to engage with the learning process’ (p. 72) may be an assumption worth testing, although it would depend on how ‘group’ is defined, that is, whether online communities are regarded as learning groups. Each mode of delivery has advantages and disadvantages depending on the student cohort. Another assumption seemed to be implicit in these statements (my bolding): ‘Students need to engage and identify on a personal level with their universities, and opportunities to develop friendships and networks with their fellow students assist in this process’ (p. 167) ‘…students needed to move from a transmissive to a transformative understanding of teaching and learning’ (p. 58)

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‘…how students from non-traditional backgrounds can be transformed into active and engaged learners’ (p. 168). It may be semantics, but the terms ‘need’ and ‘transform’ suggest an assumption that teacher still knows best – we know what’s best for you, and you need to … engage on a personal level, move from transmissive to transformative, be transformed. In the future, when students are likely be the determiners of what they need, this assumption may well be challenged. I particularly like the discussion on disciplines in the third section of the book – Facilitating Student Success, Disciplines and Curriculum Development (pp. 119–125) and think that this description of how disciplines create and maintain their own cultures and particular forms of teaching and learning practices would be very useful reading for administrative staff. It provides a clear description of what is perhaps one of the fundamental tenets of academic work, which is often not well understood or appreciated by those who have not been trained in the academic way of doing things. In the concluding section, the editors note that they have ‘…presented and discussed curriculum based approaches as the optimum and most feasible way to improve retention of students in higher education’ (p. 166). Given that curriculum change is the focus of the book, this is an accurate and not surprising statement. Curriculum based approaches may be the optimum and most feasible approach for academic staff, however, but not for administrative and other professional staff. Indeed, while the editors themselves point out, ‘an integrated approach which benefits all students is required, and thus curriculum change is essential’ (p. 182), this integration refers to academic work, and not integration with activity in administrative areas. To be fair to the editors, this broader interpretation of integration is not what the editors were concerned with, and the book does what it sets out to do, providing clear case studies, strategies and a set of reflective questions (p. 181) to help staff reflect on their teaching and learning practice. One of the biggest issues I have with the book is that it is focused very much on the here and now. To again be fair to the editors, this is a book about things academic staff can do now to improve student retention, but it would have been useful to broaden out the context to take into account emerging trends in this area. The strategies identified are good, and they emphasise the imperative for change, but the focus is vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

on change today, not on what will need to continue to change into the future – as the factors influencing student retention shift and change. There is much made of the need to understand the diversity of the student cohort to be able to provide flexible and responsive curriculum today, and the book acknowledges the impact of shifting and diverse student preferences and styles around how they learn, when they learn and what they learn, depending on their backgrounds. However, emerging and strengthening trends such as the shifting role of the academic from content development to facilitation, modularisation of content, the decline of the qualification as we know it today and the subsequent emerging need for accreditation services, the rise of educational gaming, and the increasing convergence of delivery on the mobile phone and other personal digital devices, suggests a not too far distant future that may render obsolete some of the strategies discussed in the book. I found myself thinking that if ‘teacher-centred and student-centred approaches place teachers and students in radically different roles’ (p. 72) today, what comes next? If we have moved, or are moving, from teacher centred (in the past), to student centred (today), what does the future hold? Student owned curriculum? Perhaps a question or two could be added to that excellent list of reflective questions (p. 181) that provide an opportunity to focus thinking on what is coming over the horizon, to balance out the current focus of these questions on what is happening today. As the editors suggest, being student-centred and engagement are keys to improving student retention,

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and this will hold true into the future. But, understanding how these concepts will change over time, and how the needs and values of students will change is not something that can be done once. Staff will need to scan the environment continuously for signals of this change and be ready to adapt their practices accordingly. Right now, the drivers of massification, increasing student diversity, and the focus on quality by governments and funding agencies has surfaced student retention as a critical issue for curriculum developers and deliverers and one to which staff are responding through curriculum change. But, these drivers will shift into the future, and staff will need to be ready to respond to those new drivers with equal gusto. This is a good book – it takes the topical issue of student retention and explores it in an accessible yet detailed way through the use of real-world case studies. It would be a better book, in my view, if its premises and assumptions were tested beyond today. The editors rightly point out that the ‘traditional’ way of doing things is no longer relevant and we therefore need to change how we deliver teaching and learning. That same logic – what was effective in the past is not effective today – needs to be extended out, since what is effective today will not be effective in the future. So what then are the implications for student retention in the future? Perhaps the editors will consider that for their second edition. Maree Conway runs Thinking Futures, a collaborative consulting practice.

Theatre of the classroom, Review by Maree Conway

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Higher education under the rising and midnight suns University Reform in Finland and Japan by Timo Aarevaara & Fumihiro Maruyama (eds) Tampere University Press, Tampere, Finland. ISBN 978-951-44-7305-0 Review by Eric Skuja The idea that a highly educated workforce is necessary for the creation of national wealth and maintaining international competitiveness is well entrenched in political thinking. It acts as a stimulus for government intervention in higher education in nearly every country. University reform is more or less occurring everywhere. Go to any country and you will find a discussion on the political, economic, and social imperatives for reforming higher education in that jurisdiction. In developed countries, reform generally means reduced state funding and less government control, an increased reliance on market mechanisms, an emphasis on quality assurance, and new forms of university governance and management.The international academic community could hardly fail to notice these common themes. In October 2007, experts from Finland and Japan met in Finland for a seminar on university reform in their respective countries. The proceedings of the seminar were recorded in this publication, edited by Timo Aarrevaara from the University of Tampere, and Fumihiro Maruyama from the Center for National University Finance in Japan. Both are active participants in international forums on university reform in Europe and Asia. The eleven articles in the book deal extensively with the key elements of university reform: the manner in which the state relinquishes control to the universities and market forces, quality assurance and changes to governance. The publication serves at least four types of reader extremely well. It is certainly for academics and people with an active scholarly interest in higher education.

University reform is such a rich topic for study in its own right, so anyone undertaking research in this area should include the book in their investigations. This would be a great topic for a multi-disciplinary PhD.The other three audiences for the book are politicians (or more probably, their support staff) looking for inspiration for new legislation, civil servants who develop and implement government policy and university administrators who need to make it all happen. The book begins with a comparative overview of the two higher education systems, especially in relation to reform policy and practice.This was interesting enough but I was looking for answers to four questions: (1) why did the reform occur, (2) how was it implemented, (3) was it well received and (4) did it succeed? The publication provides abundant material on the first two questions with a strong emphasis on the interaction between governments and universities. Apart from a broad discussion of change management in the last chapter, there was little discussion on how well the reforms are being received. No-one asked if the reforms were working. Apart from evaluating university performance against operational plans under the general heading of ‘quality assessment’, formal evaluations of the initiatives underlying the governments’ policy changes were not discussed.

Japan The second chapter presents a particularly good overview of universities in Japan. It provides a real sense of what it is like attending a university in Japan where

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75 per cent of students attend private universities evaluation systems: institutional self-evaluation, evaluaand receive a comparatively high cost, poor quality tion by one of several government-certified evaluation higher education from a sector to which government organisations and evaluation by a national committee. contributes only 12 per cent of the total recurrent While the book sets out the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of uniexpenditure. The best private universities in Japan are versity reform in Japan exceedingly well, I have no undoubtedly the equal of institutions anywhere in the idea how well it is being received in that country or if world but to an outsider it is surprising that higher efforts to date are succeeding. Japanese higher educaeducation reform in Japan is not about improving tion today is evidently faced with serious challenges private universities. It’s about strengthening their 87 that will threaten the existence of some universities. public national universities. A declining birth rate combined with increasing interThat said, all national universities in Japan became national competition will require that universities take ‘independent corporations’ in 2004. Each national a more active approach to marketing and recruitment university became responsible for its own budget, if they are to attract enough students to ensure their staffing, asset control and survival. Is the focus on other matters. In exchange market principles workIt provides a real sense of what it is like for administrative freedom, ing? Is the quality of the attending a university in Japan where universities were required instruction, research and 75 per cent of students attend private to file action plans in which administration improvuniversities and receive a comparatively funding is linked to performing? Are efforts to attract high cost, poor quality higher education ance against these operamore foreign students and tional plans. The underlying adult learners succeeding? from a sector to which government purpose of reform in Japan Is the quality of teaching contributes only 12 per cent of the total is to strengthen the interbecoming a higher priority recurrent expenditure. national competitiveness of among university instructhe national universities. In tors or does more need to practice this meant: be done to attract and retain high quality research and • Spending less government money on higher educateaching staff. Are efforts being made to attract quality tion (reducing block grants by 1 per cent a year) foreign staff if this is seen to be essential to greater while deregulating institutional management. competitiveness in a global educational market? The • Allocating research funds on a more competitive authors would maintain that reform in Japan is a longbasis to core universities in selected disciplines in term matter and it is too soon to tell if any of the initiaorder to foster world-class institutions. tives are having an effect. • Making the shift to a New Public Management (NPM) philosophy of university control which stresses Finland public sector management practices, concentrating authority in the hands of senior management and The third chapter provides an overview of the reform making performance standards more explicit, formal from a Finnish civil service perspective. The author and measurable. Inevitably all of this leads to an spells out some of the reasons underlying the need for emphasis on outputs, quality management and govreform (the impact of globalisation on Finland’s interernment based control through the achievement of national competitiveness, potential threats posed by performance targets. rapidly growing economies such as China, their league Following this lead-in, four subsequent chapters table performance, its ageing population and concerns elegantly describe how university governance, quality about the sustainability of public finance). Readers assessment, capital investment and funding allocation will be intrigued by the Finnish response to these conoccur in Japan’s national universities under an NPM cerns. These include a network of strategic centres of regime. These chapters will be of considerable interexcellence based on five discipline areas, expanding est to the specialist administrative and finance staff in postgraduate education, developing more systematic government and the universities concerned with these policies on research infrastructure and looking at stratmatters. I was particularly interested in their approach egies for increasing the international mobility of stuto quality assessment which consists of three major dents, teachers and researchers. vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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The Finnish Government is planning to submit its efforts, and fierce competition to increase market share proposal for a new Universities Act to its Parliament in of international students. My impression is that Finnthe spring of 2009. The law will extend the autonomy ish universities appear to be approaching these issues of its universities by giving them an independent legal more strategically than Japan in its reform agenda. status, either as public corporations or as foundations The book sets out the ‘why’ of university reform in under private law. At the same time, the universities’ Finland quite well, and some of the ‘how’. Again, I have management and decision-making system will be little sense of how well it is being received in that counrevamped. As in Japan, the reform has a strong focus try or if efforts to date are succeeding. Reforms of this on the international environment and is designed to kind are not warmly received in some countries. For enable the universities to be better able to: instance, a month after this seminar in Finland, about a • React to changes in its operating environment. thousand students from Paris universities took part in • Diversify their funding base. a demonstration to protest against France’s university • Compete for international research funding. reform known as La Loi Pécresse. They marched from • Cooperate with foreign universities and research the Place de la Bastille to the Ministry of Higher Eduinstitutes. cation protesting against the privatisation of higher • Allocate resources to top-level research and strategic education. In my own country (Australia) a media areas. campaign was being waged in late 2008 by the trade • Ensure the quality and effectiveness of their research unions against a government reform agenda affecting and teaching. technical and vocational education in this country. • Strengthen their role within a system of innovation. Other chapters in the book describe how funding More on reform allocation occurs in Finnish universities under its version of an NPM regime. There is an intriguing chapter Despite its academic leanings, none of the contributors on institutional mergers which is part of a strategic to the book offered any critical commentary on educaplan to reduce organisational fragmentation in Finnish tional reform in their countries. First, there is a great higher education. These chapters set out how univerdeal of critical analysis in the public administration litsity reform is being implemented in Finland and will erature that questions the appropriateness of applying appeal to both public administrators and academics NPM practices in some cultures and of the tendency looking for a relatively for NPM to view problems fresh approach to higher largely as managerial ones The Finns have an interesting mix of old education reform. The and solutions as managerial fashioned public service and modern Finns have an interestreforms, whatever the situamanagement values and practices. I may ing mix of old fashioned tion. be reading too much into it, but I also get public service and modern Second, other commentaa sense of reform which tries to maintain management values and tors have noted that governa dual focus on the needs of its local practices. I may be readment policy often puts too population and the need to be competitive ing too much into it, but I much faith in the capacity of also get a sense of reform managers and the effectiveinternationally. which tries to maintain a ness of private sector mandual focus on the needs agement practices, despite of its local population and the need to be competitive little evidence that traditional collegial management internationally. structures are inefficient or less suitable for managThe development of a borderless economy has ing universities, or that top-down and private sector affected universities in all countries.The unification of practices are more efficient. Indeed, there may be conEurope has greatly facilitated cross-border education. siderable costs in adopting new managerial practices Declining birth rates require universities to change in the universities. their focus to one of lifelong learning and international Third, as many academics who have been through education in order to overcome financial difficulties. the reform process in other countries will attest, the What we are seeing now is the development by uniactual independence and autonomy of individual acaversities of global branding strategies and recruiting demics tends to be reduced under centralised manage-

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rial practices that occur in modern universities. If the rhetoric of independence is taken seriously, there may be considerable benefits to be had by increasing the role of scholars in management decisions and making university councils more effective and powerful. Fourth, concerns have been expressed about the extent to which civil servants, through their government departments and stylised quality assessments, are properly equipped to evaluate, approve and fund universities on the basis of medium-term plans and goals. Both Finland and Japan are clearly moving away from the Traditional Public Administration (TPA) approach to funding and managing universities. The TPA approach is rooted in orthodox public administration. It is supposedly politically neutral, centralised and implemented through top-down control mechanisms that effectively limit the discretion of university management. Through the reform process, the New Public

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Management (NPM) doctrine is intruding into higher education in Finland and Japan and relies heavily on market mechanisms to guide public programs. There are critics of both the TPA and NPM approaches to public administration. A third approach, the New Public Service (NPS) doctrine seeks to serve citizens not customers, to value people not just productivity, and value citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship. It follows that perhaps the best strategy for reform is to consolidate the best elements from all three approaches in a manner consistent with a particular culture. I get the impression that Finland is more attuned to this approach than Japan.Time will tell. Erica Skuja currently works in the VET statistics unit of Skills Victoria and spent many years working for universities in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.

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Education Revolution’s little red book Education, Science and Public Policy: Ideas for an Education Revolution, edited by Simon Marginson and Richard James. Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2008.ISBN: 9780522856088 (pbk) 9780522856095 (pdf) Review by Paul Rodan

This small volume had its origins in a series of seminars held at The University of Melbourne prior to the 2007 federal election. While the chapters have been edited to take account of the change of government, there was no chance to factor in either the global financial crisis or the Bradley report. In his introduction, Marginson nails the Howard Government as out of touch with global trends of increased public expenditure in education. His summary of the consequences will probably stand the test of time: ... a society in which advanced education remains the preserve of a minority, evidence-based policy has little standing with the media or the bulk of the people, and politics is confined to an electoral auction over tax cuts and special payments to targeted groups of voters, with little policy discussion. (p 4) Terry Moran’s chapter was written before his translation from head Victorian bureaucrat to Commonwealth equivalent, so a little state cheer-squad commentary has to be accommodated. He stresses the critical role of human capital and sees deficiencies across the whole education spectrum. He concludes with a positive assessment of the capacity of a federal system to cope with policy challenges, but not all would share this optimism, and it would be interesting to know whether he retains this faith in his new location. Maxine McKew stresses that equity is also good policy and that there is an economic cost to Australia’s imperfect performance. Given her subsequent elevation to the role of Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Childcare, her exposé of the 0.1 per cent

Education Revolution’s little red book, Review by Paul Rodan

of Australian GDP devoted to this sector is particular striking, while implying obvious KPIs in the job! This theme is taken up in depth by Collette Taylor who highlights the deficiencies and costs of an attitude which tends to view this sector under headings of voluntary, duty and charity, a philosophy reflected in the uncredentialled standing of many of the staff involved in delivery. The vast variation between states is a poor advertisement for federalism and a reminder that the slogan of ‘diversity’ often cloaks a reality of inequality based on accidents of children’s state locations. Taylor’s call for a rights-based (not needs) approach is compelling, given that a child’s likelihood of aspiring to full educational potential is established long before the regime of years eleven and twelve. The most sobering chapter is possibly Barry McGaw’s, dealing with Australian school education. In crude summary, Australia does OK on quality but less well on equity. Moreover, its relative position has been undermined by other nations (e.g. South Korea) doing better, a salutary reminder that standing still usually means going backwards. The correlation between social background and academic performance is disturbing if not unexpected in a country where egalitarianism was once a boast of some substance, but now seems restricted to the ease with which (mostly) males from diverse origins can call each other ‘mate’. Equally alarming was the revelation that Australia stands alone amongst OECD countries in withholding information which would allow exploration of the link between kind of school attended and outcomes in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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exercise. One presumes that this Stalinism can be overMarginson makes the now mandatory condemnaturned at the stroke of a pen, in which case Minister tion of institutions ‘over-dependent’ on international Gillard should reach for one. student income, and while I cannot claim complete On teachers, McGaw makes good sense, stressing disinterest on this issue, it occurs to me that equally the risk of performance-based pay undermining essenrevealing as tables showing high dependence on this tial team-work in schools. He sees increased salaries as income would be tables showing high institutional sending a message that the vocation is high-status and dependence on government income. On the quality valued, in which context one can only be envious of front, it might be argued that the worst is over, since his example of Finland, where entry to teacher educaeven the notoriously inept souls who devise and tion is more difficult than is entry to medicine. implement immigration policy seem to have almost Shih Choon Fong identifies three main transformaeliminated the species which represented the biggest tive phenomena: shifting centres of gravity (Europe to threat to quality in the higher education sector, viz the America to Asia), increasing cultural complexity and student without an inherent interest in the discipline the rise of China and India. (first IT, then Accounting) He astutely sees limitations but who enrolled purely for The correlation between social background in science and technology the fast-track to permanent and academic performance is disturbing and provides a salutary residency, and whose desif not unexpected in a country where reminder that universities peration generated a range egalitarianism was once a boast of some have ‘both a functional misof problematical behavsubstance, but now seems restricted to sion and a civilising misiours between recruitment the ease with which (mostly) males from sion’ and while we seem and graduation. Marginson permanently immersed in is on sound ground when diverse origins can call each other ‘mate’. the former, his emphasis he chides institutions for on global citizenry and the their failure to redesign quest for shared values is refreshing. He sees univer‘pedagogies to account for the prior preparation of sities in small economies like his own Singapore and students in their home countries’. Australia as needing to focus on niche areas and he Michael Gallagher elaborates on the GO8’s policy provides illustrations of effective bridging activities. paper and possibly protests too much about critics Marginson’s chapter includes detail depressingly who detected self-interest in that document. He asserts familiar to those who have followed his formidable that the strong can (must?) get stronger without weakand authoritative contribution on higher education ening the weak, but in any event, there is no time to policy over the last two decades. But, following the allow the non-GO8 to ‘catch up’. He implies a weakenchange of government, he identifies a probable watering of standards in PhD enrolments, with the admission shed moment for system transformation. In such a of students from low standard countries to, apparently, cause, he makes several suggestions, starting with low standard supervision. Obviously, not in the GO8! the need for government to understand and accept The non-GO8 element is represented by Margaret the concept of the ‘knowledge economy’. Increased Gardner, whose chapter includes the added bonus of public investment and support for basic research are a neat summary of existing funding arrangements. She urged, with the latter necessarily provoking thoughts emphasises the lesson that ‘the public good and private of the now stylised debate between the GO8 and the benefits of research are intermixed’ and stresses the rest. It is not clear how common ground will be found value of collaboration. From outside the GO8 tower, between those who resolutely believe that the GO8 Gardner points to a lack of evidence or logic to supconstitute the nation’s research strength virtually by port the view that concentration of existing research definition and those who see such an approach as a funding will assist international competitiveness. recipe for entrenching the status quo and ignoring In the final chapter, Ian Chubb highlights Australia’s emerging high quality, or more colourfully, between bleak record in spending on research and development. those committed to enhancing world rankings and While eschewing a clear basic/applied dichotomy, he those who see such proponents as borderline obsesis critical of the shift in university funding towards sives deluded into building one or two ‘Harvards of applied research in the past fifteen years. On a range the south’. of other indicators, from international collaboration vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

Education Revolution’s little red book, Review by Paul Rodan

to output of doctorates, Chubb paints a grim picture of weakness and vulnerability, while noting a commendable rise in academic staff research productivity and quality. In familiar pursuit of the case for research funding concentration, he questions why funding for research training does not follow research performance: implicitly, some institutions simply shouldn’t be in the Higher Degree by Research business. Going further (and echoing Gallagher’s point), Chubb suggests that universities with mediocre research records are effectively bulking up numbers (and hence generating funding) with poorer quality international students who presumably would not secure entry into the research-intensive institutions. Even if this is true concerning entry, PhDs are externally examined, so an internal conspiracy would not suffice: examiners would need to be from other ‘low level’ institutions and indifferent to observing minimal doctoral standards.The first aspect is capable of empirical verification, and in my view, the onus of proof lies with the accusers. Maybe, it’s a PhD topic!

Education Revolution’s little red book, Review by Paul Rodan

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Chubb is impatient with the notion of ‘Brand Australia’ for implying common standards and quality, an impossible ideal. Bad policy has encouraged sameness and distortions, and Australia will pay a price if resources are not directed at letting institutions do what they do best. Clearly, this is a debate which will not die quietly. Overall, the volume is a more than useful indicator of where we were in 2008 and how the issues appeared: whether 2009 and beyond will look much different remains to be seen. If I have one criticism, it is that the title is misleading in its inclusion of ‘Science’. The volume includes precious few references to science per se: none of the contributors give it much attention other than as a virtual companion for ‘innovation’. The scientist readership may feel short-changed.

Professor Paul Rodan is the Director of CQUniversity’s Intercultural Education Research Institute, and a board member of the Australian Universities’ Review.

vol. 51, no. 1, 2009

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