INDUSTRY & RESEARCH campusreview . com . au
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Continuity and change
Leading innovation in universities : opinion .
By Martin Betts
Two of the biggest questions facing the sector as it heads into 2023 are central to the new leadership agenda that has arisen over the last 3 years .
Firstly , they concern how we can best fund our research and support a vision for the innovation eco-system that our nation , economy , communities , and society now need .
And secondly , how we can make purposeful lifelong learning equitably accessible in a way that responds to the skills shortages we face and their differential impact on various demographic groups .
They are big questions . And two major review processes that just kicked off will be expected to provide answers before the new year is over . Mary O ’ Kane ’ s leadership of the Universities Accord process , and Margaret Sheil leading the review of the ARC , have these big questions to answer as we all collectively reimagine higher education .
The research funding landscape is particularly challenging with both public budgets , and cross-subsidisation from fee revenue , poorly placed to provide answers . Increasingly the vision of the sector for its research eco-system is one with impact , engagement and commercialisation rising in importance . But there is widespread concern that it must be off the back of secure and independent pipelines of basic research , re-aligned with new national research priorities .
It is a vision illustrated in the recent launch at UTS of the Australian Quantum
Software Network of multiple universities and business partners .
Part of the research funding future agenda undoubtedly involves finding new income streams with external partners increasingly seen as part of the eco-system not consumers of it .
Many universities are facing reduced numbers of domestic applicants as we get ready for 2023 admissions .
This adds to commencing international student numbers that lag recoveries in the US and UK .
We would all like to think these reduced domestic numbers are fully accounted for by cyclical effects . These arise with those finding the ease of employment distracting them from study intensity or signing up for degree education at all .
We might be masking effects within those cycles of the sort of longer-term moves away from full degree enrolment
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