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POLICY & REFORM
If putting government money into universities is a good investment, why is Australia’ s level next to last among the OECD nations? That’ s a question that – armed with this sort of information – we all need to be asking. Particularly when our new prime minister is talking about an innovation economy. I hope this will open people’ s eyes to the contribution that universities can make.
We need to get universities working seamlessly with industry. Where it has happened, it’ s astonishing.
I was just at a memorial ceremony for the late Brien Holden, who is a wonderful example of an academic who delivered great ideas and translated them with vision. His work developing hydrogel as a material for contact lenses is still used in the majority of contacts worldwide. That led to enormous economic benefits for Australia, and there are lots and lots of examples that go back 20 or 30 years.
I think we can make this [ kind of thing ] happen to a much greater extent. I would say that Australia has almost sleepwalked its way into that $ 160 billion contribution to GDP each year.
The benefits to the economy from the productivity of skilled graduates that universities produce was estimated at $ 140 billion a year.
[ We need to ] wake up to it and take advantage of it through carefully constructed university-industry innovation partnerships, where all the right incentives are in place.
Universities have a responsibility to give more incentives to their staff to work with industry and to take risk and to start spin-off companies, and do all the things that drive an economy. Industry must also work more seamlessly with us.
We need government to put in place the incentives, and we need government to be thinking about how it can mobilise more investment in research in universities.
It would be wrong of me not to emphasise the other way in which universities contribute enormously to the economy that Deloitte’ s noted, and that is through education and training of skilled graduates.
This is another extraordinary number. The benefits to the economy through the productivity of skilled graduates that universities push out was estimated at $ 140 billion a year. These are very large sums of money, and I think in terms of the debate about higher education in Australia, they enable us to look at it in a rather different way.
The more universities are supported, and the more universities are encouraged to use the skills they have to bring social progress and economic benefit, the greater the gain for the Australian economy overall.
Would you say the political climate is currently friendly for more investment into unis? Right now, every suggestion for additional government investment in anything requires a powerful case; there are all sorts of competing things in the economy.
I believe the case for investment in universities is extraordinarily powerful, and hasn’ t been considered significantly enough in discussions until now.
But I am not kidding myself or anyone else. Any money that’ s invested needs to be invested in a carefully considered way that makes sure the right incentives and rewards are in place, both on the industry side and on the university side.
Did the intense focus on deregulation from the previous government leave little room for debate about what investment we should be making into unis? It’ s interesting to reflect on the nature of the discussion over the last 18 months, which was very much focused on tuition fees and the deregulation issue.
That’ s one reason the benefits of universities, and what they can do for the economy, has perhaps been a little overlooked.
I would like this sort of information to reframe the dialogue about the funding of universities. We can step back from what perhaps has been a cul de sac of the deregulation issue.
Would more funding get more international students into Australia? Australia makes a wonderful contribution to the world through its training of international students, and, of course, one of the benefits of that is that it helps in funding Australian universities.
One of the fascinating things is that without the funding that’ s come into Australian universities through international students, our research base would have suffered desperately over the last 10 years.
That international student base is important for all sorts of reasons, but not least because at a time when public research funding has been limited for universities, the funding coming in from international students has supplemented it. It’ s incredibly important. I also see great opportunity to increase it, not just by bringing more international students to Australia, but also by Australian universities using the innovative approaches they’ re bringing to online and blended learning to partner with organisations overseas. [ This would allow them ] to get involved in much larger scale international education, in ways that go beyond just bringing students to Australia.
Are there any particular fields of study you believe should receive more funding than others? There is great work going on across the spectrum of activity in our universities, so in some ways I’ m loath to pick out anything.
I do have one particular thing on my mind at the moment for Australia, which is a collaborative effort across many Australian universities. Part of it is led from UNSW – it’ s quantum computing.
Quantum computing is just one example of absolutely brilliant science, which starts with blue-sky discovery and quickly becomes something that can be applied and lead to commercial benefit.
It changes the power of computing, and is likely to become a worldwide industry that changes the way we think about the amount of data we can handle, and the speed with which we can handle it.
Australia at the moment, through various approaches to quantum computing, has a two- to three-year lead on the rest of the world. Taking advantage of that lead requires more investment. Those discussions are ongoing, and I sense that those who control the levers in Australia understand this is a very big opportunity that we should grab, and the investment will be mobilised. The benefits of doing that would be enormous.
There will, I suspect, be a massive new hardware and software industry that comes out of quantum computing, and we’ re poised to deliver on that.
There are many other examples. There are examples in medical technology, there are examples in renewable energy; [ for example ] solar is an area where Australia has led. There are many, many others.
I don’ t think there’ s a lack of great science that could be translated. Making it happen will require further investment. ■
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