news
Funding irony
Government’s regional funding
pledge criticised as duplicitous.
R
egional university students need
more support – but not at the
expense of the base funding of
Australia’s research.
That’s the call from leading universities,
unions and peak bodies following Education
Minister Dan Tehan’s pledge of $135 million
for regional universities, study hubs and
scholarships for students.
Their concern was sparked by reports that
the government will use university research
campusreview.com.au
money to fund the new undergraduate
places.
The National Tertiary Education Union
(NTEU) was “perplexed” to hear the news,
saying it was “very much a case of giving
with one hand while taking with the other”.
National president Dr Alison Barnes
saw irony in the funding announcement.
“The government’s freeze to university
funding has hit hardest on regional
universities, their students and communities,
and is the reason they require urgent
additional support,” Barnes said. “Rather
than admitting to its policy failures and
investing the additional necessary resources
needed to sustain university education in
regional Australia, this government has
instead decided to fund this by cutting
essential research funding.”
Universities Australia chief executive
Catriona Jackson said the five universities
promised money would also be hit by the
cut to research.
“We should be investing strongly in both:
university places to ensure Australians from
all postcodes can have access to this life-
changing opportunity, and research that is
changing lives,” Jackson said.
Copyright Agency takes
universities to tribunal
The agency claims universities
don’t pay enough for copyright.
T
he Copyright Agency has begun legal
action against Australia’s universities.
The text and image licence provider
lodged a claim with the Copyright Tribunal
– administered by the Federal Court – after
negotiations with universities over 2019
licence fees failed.
4
The agency claims the current sum
it’s paid – $32.5 million annually, which
represents about 0.1 per cent of annual
university expenditure – is inadequate.
The universities, represented by peak
body Universities Australia, dispute this.
“Universities pay hundreds of millions
of dollars directly each year to publishers
and copyright owners, and that amount
continues to grow,” UA chief executive
Catriona Jackson said.
The Group of Eight (Go8) described the
package as an attempt to “sandbag regional
seats” and “lure voters to applaud the
Coalition at the ballot box”.
Go8 chief executive Vicki Thomson
said that “under the guise of supporting
regional and remote students – which is
critical policy and strongly supported by
the Go8 – the government has carried
out a blatant targeted funding raid on
base research funding, the depth of which
is unprecedented, self-defeating and
damaging”.
At the time of the funding announcement,
the Regional Universities Network (RUN)
congratulated the government, saying the
package acknowledged the challenges
involved in addressing the gap between
educational achievement in regional and
rural Australia relative to metropolitan
capital cities.
RUN’s Professor Greg Hill said: “A one-
size-fits all policy for higher education does
not meet the needs of regional Australia or
the nation.
“Place-based initiatives, such as those
announced, are needed to make a
difference.” ■
“Copyright Agency’s proposal is akin to
saying that universities should pay twice for
the content they are using.
“Universities are publicly funded
institutions that have an obligation to
ensure that public money is spent wisely.”
Copyright Agency chief executive
Adam Suckling argued that a fee increase
is warranted to ensure publishers are
supported.
“Licence fees support the Australian
educational publishing industry to continue
to produce high-quality educational
material,” he said.
This line of reasoning is often raised
by proponents of closed (paid) access to
knowledge. They claim that unlicensed
content can be of poorer quality.
Yet, proponents of open (free)
access, which include the ARC (which
mandates the research it funds is open
access), point to the vast profits made
by publishers.
For example, according to Paywall, a
documentary about the open-access
movement released this year, publisher
Elsevier makes profit margins of
35–40 per cent. In 2017, its revenue was
£2.5 billion ($4.4 billion). ■