POLICY & REFORM campusreview. com. au
Golden moment
Australian research is full of ideas that will translate into commercial and other benefits – with strong investment right now.
Ian Jacobs interviewed by James Wells
The time is now for government to put significant funds into universities, the vice-chancellor of the University of New South Wales says.
A report from Deloitte Access Economics, The Economic Contributions of Australia’ s Research Universities – the UNSW example, shows universities across Australia deliver $ 160 billion a year to the economy through research and innovation alone. This equates to 10 per cent of GDP – more than mining, which is 7 per cent. The report shows that for every dollar of government investment, universities return $ 5 to $ 10 over time.
The paper was commissioned by UNSW as part of its 10-year plan to break into the world’ s top 50 universities.
The output from universities’ skilled graduates contributes $ 140 billion a year to Australia. UNSW generated $ 15 billion for GDP in 2014 and vice-chancellor professor Ian Jacobs says the institution achieved this with a $ 500 million government investment. But he also says Australia has“ almost sleepwalked” into its $ 160 billion result and if it increased university funding by 1.3 per cent a year – returning to the rate it had over the past decade – it would generate a $ 30 billion increase in GDP over several years. Australia is second last among OECD nations in university funding.
Jacobs said the moment and political climate are right for government to invest; he welcomed the Turnbull Government’ s focus on innovation.
“ Given that we have a new prime minister, that we have a new debate now about higher education, this is very important information to throw into that equation,” he said.
Here, Jacobs explains to Campus Review why he thinks the case for investment in universities is so powerful.
CR: Ian, universities contribute in so many ways, how did Deloitte measure these contributions? IJ: The simple answer is that they looked across the world at the amount of research invested in different economies, and used that as a baseline figure to look at the difference in gross domestic product for those different economies. That’ s a simplistic answer to it. Essentially they were able to calculate from that the contribution that our universities in Australia make, in comparison with other universities around the world.
What is the return the government gets from putting money into universities? A great question. The $ 15 billion that UNSW generated for GDP in 2014 had a basis of half a billion dollars of federal government investment, in the form of grants and other research awards.
When you calculate the return across the country from investment in research in universities, it’ s $ 5 to $ 10 per dollar of investment, over a period of time, of course. That is an astonishing return by the standards of any investment.
Many people have, perhaps understandably, perceived putting money into university research as putting money into boffins sitting in ivory towers – all very nice and intellectually satisfying but doing little to stimulate the Australian economy.
The truth is exactly the opposite. Money invested in university research is not a charitable donation. It’ s not money thrown away. It leads to brilliant discoveries and ideas that are then seamlessly translated into economic benefit as well as social progress.
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