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                 Volume 48, Number 1, 2005

AU
                                             Federal Labor: Did anyone see where it went?

                                               Belittled: The ugly face of university bullying

                                                    Academia’s demographic time-bomb

                                                                 Where did all the jobs go?

AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES REVIEW
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AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES REVIEW
 ARTICLES                                                                               28       Belittled: The state of play on bullying
                                                                                                 Eva Cox and James Goodman
 2    Running on empty                                                                           Abused, ignored, sidelined, belittled. It’s the human face of a systemic prob-
      John Quiggin                                                                               lem. Eva Cox and James Goodman report on a recent studying of workplace
                                                                                                 bullying that highlights its effects on those being bullied, and the rather
      After nine years spent in opposition, it’s still hard to know what Federal
                                                                                                 piecemeal administrative efforts to deal with it so far.
      Labor intends by way of an economic policy platform. Kim Beazley still
      seems to believe that the prime purpose of opposition is to oppose. John
      Quiggin disagrees. Without a coherent and well-understood economic                35       No academic borders?
      direction, he argues, Labor’s sniping will continue to look like unfocussed                A Wendy Russell
      opportunism.
                                                                                                 Transdisciplinarity has been a veritable mantra, especially in the humani-
                                                                                                 ties and social sciences, for twenty years or more. Yet academic structures
 5    Pursuing the Ubiquity Principle                                                            and research application requirements still struggle to come to grips with
      Tom Clark                                                                                  cross-boundary research and teaching. Making universities more trans-dis-
                                                                                                 cipline-friendly is a tricky task, however. As Wendy Russell explains, trans-
      Higher education research stands at a kind of half-way house. At present, it
                                                                                                 disciplines require disciplines, and disciplinary boundaries, too.
      is highly directed by Government research priorities. Yet the Government’s
      ambition is to create a much more deregulated system, with self-created
      winners and losers. Tom Clark suggests a different starting-point. All higher     CORRIDOR OF UNCERTAINTY
      education institutions generate research, and all academic staff should be
      expected to do so, regardless of where they work. It is better policy to foster   Introducing AUR’s new satire column, created in the belief that the contemporary
      the full range of the research resources we have now, rather than allow           academy provides rich resources for wit, irony and humour. Reader contributions
      some research to sink in the pursuit of islands of excellence.                    are welcomed.

 10
  0   Reversing the slide                                                               42
                                                                                         2       QA, RTS & quality of post-graduate theses
      Michael Gallagher                                                                          in Australian universities
      The Government is embarking on a grand market-based vision for the sector                  N O Grants and V B Slim (aka Cameron Grant)
      just at the moment when university enrolments will begin a long and per-
      haps inexorable slide. And according to Michael Gallagher, higher educa-
      tion is becoming a less attractive investment for the private sector even as      REVIEWS
      the Government is pushing the sector towards ever higher proportions of
      non-government funding.                                                           44
                                                                                         4       A spider’s web
                                                                                                 Carter, Paul, Material thinking
 16
  6   Academia’s own demographic time-                                                           Review by Judy Lattas
      bomb
      Graham Hugo
                                                                                        45       Those dismal scientists
      It’s no news that Australian academics, like Australian cricketers, are getting            Davies, Geoff, Economia
      older (and perhaps tireder). But the exact dimensions of the sector’s staff-
      ing crisis haven’t been clear. Graham Hugo has been studying the figures                    Review by Alex Millmow
      in detail, and he suggests that the problem may in fact be worse than has
      been thought. Around a quarter of the academic workforce will retire in           46       Networking niceties
      the next decade, and there’s a ‘lost generation’ where their replacements
      should be.                                                                                 Teather, David C B (ed), Consortia
                                                                                                 Review by Dr Eric Beerkens
 24
  4   Advertising change
      Alec McHoul                                                                       48       Around the Journals
      Everybody has a view about what’s happening to university hiring policies –                Reviews by Maryanne Dever
      and it’s often a bleak one. But it’s generally hard to tie down the facts. Alec            Maryanne Dever kicks off a new rolling column designed to alert AUR read-
      McHoul surveyed all the new job advertisements for the second half of 2004,                ers to recent articles of interest from Australian and international journals.
      and reports on his findings. As you might expect, change is in the air.                     Did you miss these?
A U        S    T        R   A   L   I   A   N     U    N   I      V   E     R     S    I    T    I    E    S           R     E    V     I    E    W

Running on empty
John Quiggin

After nine years spent in opposition, it’s still hard to know
what Federal Labor intends by way of an economic policy
platform. Kim Beazley still seems to believe that the prime
purpose of opposition is to oppose. John Quiggin disagrees.
Without a coherent and well-understood economic direc-
tion, he argues, Labor’s sniping will continue to look like
unfocussed opportunism.

With the Howard Government now in unchallenged control                     Review, have resulted in bitter infighting and few concrete
of the Commonwealth Parliament, the role of the Labor Party                achievements. The Party’s membership has withered and the
must change substantially. Until now, Labor has been able to               selection of candidates has been driven by branch-stacking
influence legislation directly through the Senate, a task that             and factional deals.
required negotiation with Democrats, Greens and independ-                    Now that direct involvement in the policy process is a thing
ents. Barring defections from the Government, the next three               of the past, Labor has little alternative but to spend time devel-
years will see the resumption of the traditional role of opposi-           oping alternative policies. The purpose of this paper is to
tion, able to criticise government policy and propose alterna-             examine options in relation to economic policy.
tives, but with no effective involvement in the policy process.
   The last time Labor was in this position was under the                  Does Labor need an economic policy?
Fraser Government of 1977–80. At that time, the Labor Party
took the opportunity to undertake one of the most successful               The first question that needs to be asked is whether Labor
programs of renewal in the history of Australian politics. A               needs an economic policy, as opposed to a critique of the
committee of inquiry led by John Button was established in                 current Government’s economic performance. The opposite
1978, and undertook a comprehensive review of the Party’s                  viewpoint was the basis of the ‘small target’ strategy pursued
policies and organisational structure.                                     from 1996 to 2001. The key arguments were put forward by
   The results were impressive. The National Conference,                   Kim Beazley in a speech to the National Press Club on 12 April
which had been, at best, a non-event, and at worst a source                2005 (Beazley 2005):
of embarrassment (the ‘thirty-six faceless men’ in 1963 and                  ‘An opposition should be judged, in the first instance, not on a
the Terrigal fiasco of 1975), was expanded and became, for a                 clever alternative policy, but on the effectiveness in which it holds the
short period, a serious venue for policy debate, and a source                government accountable for its policies.’
of extensive media coverage of Labor and its policies. Inno-
vative policies were developed, most importantly, the Prices                  Mr Beazley said an opposition was only regarded as an alter-
and Incomes Accord. The party’s preselection policies were                 native government in the ‘six weeks prior to an election’.
revamped, with the result that the incoming Cabinet in 1983                   In some respects, this position is correct. One of the central
was arguably the strongest of any Australian government, cer-              tasks of government is macroeconomic management, encom-
tainly the strongest for a newly-elected government.                       passing such issues as the use (or non-use) of countercyclical
   By contrast, Labor’s years in opposition since 1996 have                fiscal policy, stimulus to specific sectors of the economy and
been wasted. Policy development has been almost non-exist-                 the ultimate responsibility for monetary policy (even when, as
ent. Attempts to reform the party’s structures, such as those              for the last decade or so, an independent central bank has the
made by Simon Crean after 2001, based on the Hawke–Wran                    immediate responsbility for setting interest rates).

2   vol 48, no 1, 2005                                                                                                            Running on empty
A U      S     T   R    A    L   I    A   N          U    N    I      V   E     R    S    I   T    I   E    S          R    E      V    I    E       W

   In the absence of strong ideological disagreements over                    growth driven by consumption out of capital gains appears as
basic issues like central bank independence, the primary con-                 an unsustainable bubble.
cerns over macroeconomic policy are those related to man-                        The alternative assumption begins with balance sheets in
agement, and the opposition’s task is, as Beazley suggests, to                which assets and liabilities are valued at current market prices.
hold the Government accountable for its management deci-                      Income, net of consumption, can be derived as the change in
sions or non-decisions.                                                       net worth over a given period. In this framework, capital gains
   Clearly the opposition’s task in this respect is more difficult            represent the primary form of income. Production is relevant
in the context of an exceptionally long economic expansion                    only to the extent that it increases capital values, after allow-
than if the economy is performing poorly. While it is possible                ing for capital gains.
to argue that the Howard Government has been lucky, and has                      In the standard, production-based system of national
not made particularly good use of its luck, such arguments                    accounts, the main statistics providing support for the view of
would be much more convincing in the context of an eco-                       the economy as a bubble are those relating to household sav-
nomic downturn.                                                               ings and the balance of payments. According to the Australian
   Such a downturn is certainly a possibility in view of the rapid            Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia has had negative house-
growth in Australia’s current account deficit in recent years, a              hold savings for several years now. The primary mechanism
development that has historically been followed, in most cases,               of negative saving has been the withdrawal of equity from
by a slowdown or recession. But on this score, the Opposition                 housing. Faced with an increase in the market value of their
can do nothing more than watch and wait. (While opposition                    homes, Australian households have increased their borrowing
leaders would scarcely be human if they did not entertain some                through home equity loans or have traded up to more attrac-
desire to see their opponents fail, it’s obviously both inappro-              tive homes by taking on additional debt. Since the ABS does
priate and politically unwise to express such a desire or to let it           not treat capital gains as income, these transactions result in
inform commentary on developments in the economy.)                            negative saving in the national accounts.
   On other issues, however, the lack of an alternative policy                   A focus on balance sheets yields a very different perspec-
creates serious difficulties. One problem is that, in the absence             tive, arguably closer to the viewpoint of the typical household.
of any coherent alternative, the natural tendency of opposi-                  From the household’s viewpoint, a home equity loan drawing
tion is to snipe at the government from every possible angle,                 on capital gains is merely a partial offset against an increase
without regard to consistency. So, the government may be                      in wealth. As long as the household’s net wealth is increasing,
attacked on one day for being ‘high-taxing’, the next day for                 it appears from this perspective that saving is positive. The
heartless cuts in vital public expenditure programs, and the                  way to make this consistent with the income account is to
day after that for allowing the budget deficit to blow out.                   treat capital gains as a component of income. If capital gains
                                                                              are treated as part of income, the decline in aggregate house-
Capital gains, wealth, aspiration and income                                  hold savings appears much less significant. Despite negative
redistribution                                                                savings in the traditional sense, households have experienced
                                                                              rising wealth thanks to capital gains.
   In formulating an approach to economic policy, Labor faces                    Politically speaking, it is hard to see how Labor can win an eco-
a fundamental problem. Australians have always had a pen-                     nomic policy debate if the capital-gains view of the economy is
chant for speculation in real estate, and this has been reflected             accepted. Not only has the Liberal Party traditionally been more
in periodic housing booms and busts. There is, however, no                    friendly to house owners (including speculative investors), but
historical parallel for the extent to which the Australian econ-              the current Government has presided over a boom in housing
omy is currently dominated by the pursuit of capital gains.                   prices that is almost without parallel in our history.
Depending on how capital gains are interpreted, the steady                       Nevertheless, there has been considerable pressure for
growth in output and consumption over the past fourteen                       Labor to compete on precisely this ground, commonly dis-
years may be seen either as an unsustainable bubble or as a                   cussed in terms of ‘aspirational’ voters. In the discussion of
sign of even better things to come.                                           this issue, the focus is almost invariably on aspirations for
   The economic statistics on which analysis of the economy is                bigger and better houses, rather than for better jobs, let alone
based are, in general, computed as part of a system of national               for an improvement in the general quality of life.
accounting based on production, and on a concept of income                       The debate over aspirational voters is closely tied to the ques-
as the share of production flowing to owners of factors of pro-               tion of income redistribution. One consequence of an econ-
duction (labour, land and capital). In this framework, changes                omy based on housing speculation is that even households with
in the stock of capital assets arise from investment, net of                  high incomes are heavily indebted. It’s not surprising that, as
depreciation. It follows that capital gains are transitory asset              Hamilton (2002) observes, large proportions of upper income
price movements, of little economic significance. Hence, rapid                earners regard themselves as battlers, struggling to get by.

John Quiggin                                                                                                                    vol 48, no 1, 2005   3
A U        S    T        R   A   L   I   A   N        U    N    I      V   E     R     S   I    T   I    E    S         R    E    V    I    E    W

Tax and public spending                                                        Industrial relations and unions

Labor is on stronger ground when it comes to debates about                     The question of industrial relations is critical in determin-
taxation and public spending. The idea that the share of national              ing Labor’s political and economic strategy. This is one area
income allocated to public expenditure should be constrained                   where the developments of the past twenty-five years have
or reduced has been a standard assumption in Australian poli-                  been unequivocally adverse, at least from a traditional Labor
tics for decades, dating back at least as far as the Hawke Govern-             viewpoint. Union membership has declined drastically and
ment’s ‘Trilogy’ commitments, made in 1984, to reduce taxes,                   the protections of the award system have been stripped away.
expenditure and the deficit relative to national income.                       The adverse impacts of all this have been obscured by the
   An analysis based on structural change suggests the oppo-                   absence of any serious macroeconomic shocks, but will be
site conclusion, namely that the public share of national                      clearly apparent next time there is a recession.
income and expenditure should be increased. The sectors of                        By the time the Howard Government’s proposed industrial
the economy that are, or should be, growing in relative terms                  relations reforms are in place, very little will be left of the Arbi-
as we move from an economy based on physical goods to one                      tration system, and, except for a small minority of workers pro-
based on services and information, include health, education                   tected by powerful unions, or with highly marketable skills,
and various forms of risk management, including retirement                     conditions will de determined either by employer-imposed
income and social insurance. These are the areas that domi-                    contracts or by increasingly threadbare award minimums.
nate the expenditure side of the Government’s budget.                             Labor has the choice of accommodating the new realities, or
   Demographic change will play some role in increasing health                 seeking an alternative direction. One important effect of the
expenditure. In particular, people with dementia are surviving                 Howard Government’s proposals to expand Commonwealth
longer than in the past, and caring for them is expensive. But                 power over industrial relations is that a future Labor federal
the major source of growth in health expenditure is the devel-                 government will have more power than in the past. And with
opment of new treatments. We could ‘control’ health expendi-                   a clearly anti-worker system in place, few unions will be likely,
ture by forgoing new treatments, but why would we want to?                     as they have in the past, to defend the status quo.
   Similarly sooner or later, we will need to face the fact that, in              Labor has already committed itself to reversing many of the
a modern economy, we need to aim for universal completion                      Government’s proposed changes, but it is important to avoid
of secondary school, and progression to post-secondary edu-                    a purely reactive policy. It is not clear, for example, that Labor
cation, whether this is academic, technical or vocational. This                should seek to reverse Howard’s moves to a single national
will not come cheap, and it is unlikely that much more of the                  system, or the replacement of the quasi-judicial Australian
cost can be shifted on to students.                                            Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) by the administrative
   While political actors and commentators have been reluc-                    Fair Pay Commission (FPC). With the right appointments and
tant to recognise this, public opinion has moved ahead of                      powers, an FPC might be a more effective device for protect-
them. Opinion polls in the 1970s and 1980s generally found                     ing and enhancing pay and conditions than the AIRC.
that most respondents regarded tax cuts as a higher priority                      The crucial requirement for industrial relations policy is
than improvements in public services. The balance of opin-                     the removal of the disabilities that have been piled on unions
ion on these issues has been reversed in recent years.                         over the past few decades. These have included the revival of
   A crucial requirement for policy in these areas is effective                anti-union common law actions derived from the 19th century
co-operation between federal and state governments. The                        doctrine of master and servant, the application of trade prac-
Howard Government has adopted a somewhat incoherent                            tices legislation, and the imposition of specifically anti-union
form of centralism, seeking to micro-manage state policies on                  regulation including emergency services laws and require-
a range of issues, while shying away from accepting responsi-                  ments for secret ballots to start strikes. (Note that no such
bility for basic services. The result is that resources of money               requirement is ever imposed for the end of a strike).
and attention are diverted from core responsibilities to politi-                  While some restrictions on strike activity are justified, they
cal point-scoring by federal ministers.                                        should be matched by a restoration of the protected status of
   In political terms, Labor has a big potential advantage. It is              legitimate union activity, including rights to organise in work-
reasonable to expect that Labor will still hold government in                  places and to negotiate union-only workplace agreements
most states at the time of the next election, due in 2007. An                  with employers.
agreement for effective co-operation, something the present
Government has not delivered and cannot, would go a long                       Concluding thoughts
way to negate the appearance of impotence usually associated
with being in opposition, much as did the proposal for the                     Although the Howard Government may appear unassailable,
Prices and Incomes Accord in 1983.                                             its electoral support is built, in large measure, on the unstable

4   vol 48, no 1, 2005                                                                                             Running on empty, John Quiggin
A U       S    T    R     A    L    I    A   N     U    N    I     V   E      R    S    I    T    I    E     S          R     E      V    I    E       W

foundations of a housing boom, financed by massive overseas                Professor John Quiggin is a Federation Fellow in Economics
borrowing. Sooner or later, the boom will end, and economic                and Political Science at the University of Queensland. He is
conditions will be less favourable. It is unlikely, however,               prominent both as a research economist and as a commen-
that Labor can regain office simply by waiting for the gov-                tator on Australian economic policy.
ernment’s luck to run out, without offering any alternative
strategy. This paper has offered some suggestions, but what is             References
needed is a comprehensive review similar to that undertaken
                                                                           Beazley 2005, Address to the National Press Club, http://www.news.
in the late 1970s.                                                         com.au/story/0,10117,12841269-421,00.html
                                                                           Hamilton, C. (2002), Overconsumption in Australia: the rise of the
                                                                           middle-class battler, Australia Institute Discussion Paper 49, Canberra.

Pursuing the Ubiquity
Principle
Tom Clark

Higher education research stands at a kind of half-way
house. At present, it is highly directed by Government
research priorities. Yet the Government’s ambition is to
create a much more deregulated system, with self-created
winners and losers. Tom Clark suggests a different starting-
point. All higher education institutions generate research,
and all academic staff should be expected to do so, regard-
less of where they work. It is better policy to foster the full
range of the research resources we have now, rather than
allow some research to sink in the pursuit of islands of
excellence.

In a previous article for AUR, I argued that higher education                 We benefit from being as clear as possible about the prescrip-
policy in Australia is at an impasse, which is not exclusive to            tive teleology of our research system, which tends to mean we
this country, and which will only be overcome by developing                should keep it simple. The telos, or original goal, of research
an as-yet-unrealised consensus on the underpinning goals and               within a higher education system is to lead scholarship. Aus-
values of the system.1 In this article, I examine research fund-           tralia’s university research funding framework does not adhere
ing as an area in which the beginnings of a genuinely sustain-             to this precept. It conflates the original role of research in uni-
able framework might be fashioned. In doing so, I deliberately             versities – to lead scholarly teaching and community service –
sidestep debates about the quantum of research funding and                 with macro-economic and other public goals for concentrated
about the public/private mix of funding. They are important                research activity. These latter goals are often important in them-
questions, of course, but I wish to consider a framework for               selves, an importance that may have intensified the conflation.
research funding that could sustain a wide range of answers                Thus, while we have a variety of Commonwealth schemes to
to those questions.                                                        support university research, whose total value now approaches

Pursuing the Ubiquity Principle, Tom Clark                                                                                        vol 48, no 1, 2005   5
A U        S    T        R   A   L   I   A   N       U    N    I      V   E     R    S    I   T    I   E    S          R    E    V    I    E    W

$6,000 million, the current framework is an unsuccessful amal-                It has attacked the foundation disciplines9 most keenly. Post-
gam of perverse and countervailing incentives. The vexation                   graduate research has not grown substantially since 1997.10
they cause sees the so called Research Training Scheme under                  Research higher degree commencements have been stable
litigation. It sees the arbitrary measure of research income used             at around 9,100, despite significant growth elsewhere in the
to gauge research activity in the humanities, social sciences,                system – especially postgraduate coursework. Peter Andrews,
and creative arts. And it caused that bizarre policy-on-the-run               Queensland’s Chief Scientist, has argued Australian universi-
exercise by which the Commonwealth established and then                       ties need to turn out something like 75,000 science higher
recalibrated its national research priorities.                                degree completions by 2010, in order to match OECD compet-
   We can make several pertinent observations about the                       itors.11 Targets for our current system start looking ambitious
policy environment, none of them particularly original, which                 before the 15,000 mark.12 That discrepancy – which, naturally,
have a bearing on the research policy framework’s capacity to                 is feeding the generational crisis – is an extremely strong argu-
serve those teleologies it sets in mutual competition. First is               ment for harnessing the ubiquity principle.
that between a quarter and a third of Australia’s acknowledged                   At the same time, internationalisation of Australia’s higher edu-
research and development investment is made within univer-                    cation system has tended to be prolific, but shallow, and com-
sities – and most Australian university research is carried out               mercially led. 13 Since 1990, institutions in Australia have keenly
by students. These figures are based on economic data, which                  developed their international offerings in fee-returning areas
measure economic investment, not the quantity or quality of                   of coursework degrees and degree-enabling programs, espe-
research work carried out. In 2000, the Australian Bureau of                  cially Business and IT – notwithstanding a recent dropoff in IT
Statistics (ABS) estimated that 70% of Australian universities                enrolments. There has been relatively little flow-through to the
research is carried out by postgraduate students. 2                           foundation disciplines – or student and staff research activity.
   A second observation is that Australia’s higher education                  Internationalisation of enrolments has done nothing to arrest
policy framework is unstable by design, because it has inten-                 Australia’s rapid downwards slide in language enrolments.
tionally been constructed as a set of transitional arrangements                  Conversely, Australia faces a long-term net loss of academic
– a staging post on the way to more radical commodification                   labour. ABS figures show the level of long-term emigration,
of higher education services. That is an argument Michael Gal-                including ‘permanent’ emigration, rose much more rapidly than
lagher has put convincingly on several occasions since he left                comparable immigration rates during the late 1990s. It is note-
the public service. 3                                                         worthy that the qualifications levels of emigrants are generally
   A third is that Australia has been performing below average                higher than those of immigrants.14 Of course this is overstated
in research investment, by OECD standards, at 17th rank out                   somewhat by the tendency of Australian accrediting bodies to
of 29 countries. In 2000–2001, Australia was 18th among 28                    doubt or underestimate the qualifications of immigrants. Still,
countries for Business Expenditure on Research and Develop-                   in the current academic labour market – and again, this is
ment (BERD).4 Australia has developed no effective policy to                  especially true in the foundation disciplines – there is typically
raise BERD. While we are still looking to develop an answer on                more on offer for an Australian to leave than for a foreigner or
that front, our performance continues to fall behind. Austral-                an expatriate Australian to arrive. While it is generally good for
ia’s investment in R&D as a proportion of GDP actually went                   both individuals and the system if scholars spend time working
backwards significantly between 1995 and 1998 – while most                    abroad, the system would like them to come back in greater
OECD countries were heading the other way. 5                                  numbers and at younger ages than they do.
   In a related point, entrepreneurship seems, at best, an unreli-               These starting observations take the form of challenges to a
able contributor to university R&D coffers for the foreseeable                policy approach, insofar as they indicate a lack of coherence,
future. Many Australian universities have pushed to increase                  sustainability, responsiveness, cost-effectiveness, fairness and
the spin-off and commercialisation potential of the research                  equity, transparency, and accountability within the system as
conducted by their students and staff. Still, growth in the com-              currently framed.15 Another way to create challenges for the
mercialisation of publicly funded R&D from 1998 to 20036                      policy approach is to set out axioms or objectives of policy.
was much slower than the growth in domestic undergraduate                     This paper is consciously guided by two.
full fees (‘DUFF’) over the same period.7 Without government-                    First, if our funding system is to encourage research activity
subsidised loans (that is, a ‘HELP effect’), or a similarly radical           generally, which is a socially progressive agenda, the system
circuit-breaker, commercialisation growth will remain slow in                 has to fund research activity wherever it is likely to occur.
the long term.                                                                That requires a form of conservatism – a lack of positivism
   Fourthly, the biggest crisis facing Australian scholarship is              – in judging what kinds of research activity are most benefi-
one of generational renewal.8 University managements and                      cial. It also requires a form of liberalism – a lack of interfer-
supra-institutional funding authorities alike have failed to rec-             ence – with regard to the decisions that scholars and their
ognise or resolve a crisis of staff ageing and resource decay.                publishers make.

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   Secondly, research activity is (or should be) a constant                     A system that supported ubiquitous research as one-third of
of scholars and of higher education institutions across the                  academic staff activity, plus research courses as a set propor-
board.16 A research-led pedagogy is a requirement for any                    tion of the student cohort, would be fairly straightforward to
learning that claims the rather pompous title, ‘higher.’ Not                 fund. At this level, the main policy challenge is to distribute
every university needs to be intensive in its development of                 workloads and higher degree places appropriately. In a public
research infrastructure. But all scholars must be expected to                and private university system with a turnover of $x (not
research – and to share the benefits of their research publicly.             including competitive grants, consultancies, BERD, revenue
Just as the scholarly curriculum is the definitive characteristic            from research commercialisation, or philanthropic research
of a grammar school – a rather successful brand in today’s sec-              funds), the ‘ubiquity research’ component should be a set pro-
ondary education market, especially if we include the academ-                portion. I shall not hazard a stab at a fraction here, but it could
ically selective state schools – so the teaching-research nexus              be done quite finely given sufficient data and modelling.
is definitive for a university. For the present purposes, we can                Now, other goals may be attributed to university research, as
call this axiom the ‘ubiquity principle of university research.’             mentioned, such as the solving of public and/or commercial
   At a macro-policy level, the rationale for ubiquity is quite              problems. If such goals recommend approaches that conflict
strong, if we can get over a certain scepticism about its yearning           with the ubiquity principle, they should be pursued through
quality. The ubiquity principle for university research policy               separate policy and funding frameworks. Currently, these
is sympathetic to academic workforce aspirations (which may                  quite different goals are conflated in a policy framework that
be an optimistic take on the scepticism). At the same time, as               creates perverse incentives and arbitrary outcomes.
we shall see, it does not drain significant resources away from                 So, unlike Gallagher – not to mention Kemp and Nelson – I
the intensive research that is performed in a select group of                do not advocate lifting the whole research funding framework
university departments and centres. Ubiquity is conducive to                 away from the higher education funding framework. Rather,
disciplinary diversity in the research effort, due to the size of            I propose that any separate research framework should focus
the low-capital-cost research system17 it can sustain. And it is a           on intensive research – that is, on research activity above and
superb vehicle for maximising the research productivity of all               beyond the ubiquitous. That accommodates the tendency
universities, because of its efficiency: the capital requirements            for research-only funding systems to be driven by competi-
for ubiquitous research are predominantly met by the capital                 tive performance measures (rewarding success with the
already provided for university teaching, community service,                 means for further success), while ubiquitous research activity
and administration functions.                                                needs to be funded as a core element of university scholar-
   Despite sharing many of my starting points with Gallagher,                ship. Intensive research tends to take place in institutes and
then, I have a rather different sense of how to proceed. This                other non-teaching centres, but all teaching departments of
reveals different understandings of the ‘critical mass’ or ‘inten-           all universities would be expected to maintain a minimum of
sity’ principle – that a concentration of resources intensifies              research activity and postgraduate research education, which
productivity.                                                                requires new investment only to the extent that the university
   Concentration is inevitably mitigated by the axiom of ubiq-               system as a whole does.
uitous scholarship. All universities are research-active insti-                 I envisage a system, then, where the debate about ubiquitous
tutions, if not necessarily research-intensive, because higher               research funding is principally a debate about the size of the
education is research-led. How do we make this ubiquity a                    university system overall. The debate about intensive research
strength, rather than a weakness? How do we set a critical                   funding will at least continue, or preferably progress, the cur-
mass approach that builds, and builds upon, a diverse and                    rent debate about the total value and distribution of competi-
ubiquitous research base, instead of sucking it dry?                         tive grants, BERD, research commercialisation, consultancies,
   We must find a balance between funding for research-                      and philanthropic research funds. That will doubtless con-
intensive centres and funding for research activity across the               tinue to involve national research priorities. The Government
board. This is admittedly a reconfiguration of the distinction               introduced these (bear in mind that the Australian Research
between research-intensive and teaching-only institutions, but               Council’s (ARC) Linkage program is itself effectively a national
we should not overestimate its subtlety. It is an attempt to                 research priority) and the Labor Party has claimed it will make
give practical, rather than romantic, support to the ubiquity                improved and possibly increased use of them if elected. 18 The
principle, while at the same time recognising that research is               main purpose of this ‘ubiquitous/intensive’ distinction is to find
directly geared to achieve other ends in addition to scholar-                a more sustainable formulation for adequately funding both, and
ship — ends that are typically better served by more inten-                  for adequately discriminating between, predominantly curios-
sive investment in researchers and their resources than the                  ity-driven research with a low capital cost on the one hand, and
ubiquity principle should (or, speaking pragmatically, can) be               the more intensively capitalised research which is commanded
used for.                                                                    by its public and/or commercial interest on the other.

Tom Clark                                                                                                                     vol 48, no 1, 2005   7
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   When we consider how to fund it, a great strength of this              2. Time for teaching staff to conduct curiosity-driven research,
approach is its ability to adapt to the contours of different                  including sabbatical leave programs, should receive dedi-
private/public funding mixes. Ubiquitous research would                        cated funding through basic operating funds, since it is
be proportionate to the scale of each university, regardless                   central to scholarship. It should be an explicit compo-
of funding sources. Intensive research would be driven by                      nent both of grant allocations and of university financial
a system-wide target for quantum. Perhaps the most prag-                       reports.
matic virtue of this distinction lies in the clarity with which           3. Basic research infrastructure (eg libraries) should receive
we can focus on intensive research as the dynamic location                     dedicated funding through basic operating funds as well,
for a debate about national research investment. If the coun-                  since it too is central to scholarship. It too should be an
try decided to engage in more research activity, say, then the                 explicit component both of grant allocations and of uni-
intensive research system would become unambiguously the                       versity financial reports.
main vehicle for delivering that.19 By an optimistic reading,                At the same time, guaranteeing the integrity of this proposed
such an increase would combine BERD, revenue from uni-                    framework requires that policy establish and uphold minimum
versity commercialisations, consultancies, and philanthropic              quality requirements for the scholarly system as a whole. Ubiq-
sources with increased national and international competi-                uitous research would perform an acknowledged leadership
tive grants revenues. A pessimistic reading would focus on                function in this framework, meaning that its scholarly integrity
national competitive grants.                                              would be particularly important, and that its relation to the
   The resourcing of this proposed framework requires that                rest of the system would need to be clear. Thus accounting for
policy consolidate a stable funding and reporting framework               the quality and quantity of non-competitive research under-
for ubiquitous research. Universities and funding agencies                taken within a university should be combined with methods
alike should be obliged to demarcate a clear research com-                of accounting for academic quality more broadly.
ponent of higher education funding, separate from research-                  Quality assessment becomes more important, not less so,
only funds, and notionally distinct from funds for teaching and           when the ubiquity principle becomes a policy axiom. We
community service. Outside of special circumstances, this                 know that research productivity is extremely lumpy within
component should remain a fixed proportion of basic operat-               and between Australia’s academic departments, although the
ing funds: Commonwealth grants, fee revenues, and the like.               data only show it imprecisely. This in itself constitutes a major
This implies at least three elements:                                     challenge to the credibility of the ubiquity principle. If the
1. Postgraduate research education – which is much more                   object of policy is to increase research activity, smoothing the
    than the name ‘research training’ implies – should be                 lumpiness requires that departments, faculties, and institu-
    a component of basic operating funds. There is some                   tions make the ubiquity assumption a reality – and that the
    wisdom in maintaining a separate system of funding for                Commonwealth be assured of this.
    the Australian Postgraduate Award and International Post-                We now know that a research assessment exercise in Aus-
    graduate Research Scholarship – especially if it becomes              tralia is imminent. While such a rigorous (but laborious)
    possible to award them nationally, through the Australian             exercise has the potential to measure and validate ubiquitous
    Research Council. There may be value in funding addi-                 research, it would be wiser to extend a peer review quality
    tional postgraduate research places within the research-              process to cover all scholarly activity (including ‘community
    intensive framework – although enabling long-term                     service’), unlike the United Kingdom’s bifurcated quality sys-
    postdoctoral careers, and bringing working conditions                 tems for teaching and research.
    for research-only staff up to the general academic stand-                Guaranteeing the scholarly integrity of ubiquitous research
    ard, looks a more urgently needed use for such funds. If              also requires at least 3 elements:
    there was a criticism of the Labor Party’s 2004 election              1. Research quality appraisals urgently need to reduce their
    platform promise of 300 new research-and-teaching post-                    dependence on lagging measures (simple measures of
    doctoral fellowships, aimed principally at career develop-                 funding inputs and aggregated outputs), instead develop-
    ment,20 it was that the system could do with about five                    ing leading measures (such as cross-referencing research
    times that number. One thousand five hundred fellow-                       achievements against age and seniority profiles). This point
    ships would mean approximately 20–25% of APA holders                       applies equally strongly to the intensive research system.
    could expect to be employed as national postdoctoral                       For example, the ARC’s reliance on measures of individual
    fellows after completing their higher degrees, with some                   track record, especially publications, in allocating its Link-
    room to recruit fellows from other backgrounds as well.                    age and Discovery grants has contributed significantly to
    A well-directed funding system would aim to preserve                       the nationwide logjam in research career development.
    such a proportion, rather than any fixed number of fel-               2. Universities must get serious about developing their
    lowships.                                                                  department and faculty management staff, so that profes-

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                                                                                  2 ABS, Research and Experimental Development, Higher Education
     sional staff leadership is the norm, rather than the excep-                  Organisations Australia, ABS paper 8111.0, ABS, Canberra, 2000, p.6.
     tion, in the places where research work is actually done.                    3 See for example his paper to the Monash 2004 Seminar on Higher
     Smoothing out the lumpiness in academic research pro-                        Education Policy, 3 August 2004: http://www.education.monash.edu.
                                                                                  au/centres/mcrie/Gallagher%20on%20Hi%20Ed%20policy%20040706.
     ductivity – one of the biggest challenges for the ubiquity                   rtf (accessed 20/4/2005), pp.2-3.
     principle – will not be achieved without the skilful and                     4 Taken from ABS figures: http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.
     active participation of those department and faculty man-                    nsf/Lookup/71D620AE73D5660DCA256DEA00053A0D (accessed
     agement staff.                                                               20/4/2005).

3. The push to improve research student supervision across                        5 M. Considine, S. Marginson, and P. Sheehan, The comparative per-
                                                                                  formance of Australian as a knowledge nation, Chifley Research Centre,
     the board must continue and succeed. Some universities                       Canberra, 2001, p.37.
     have advanced much further than others down this path                        6 The Allen Consulting Group, The economic impact of the commer-
     – they show us one of the most welcome consequences                          cialisation of publicly funded R&D in Australia, The Australian Institute
                                                                                  for Commercialisation, Brisbane, 2003, Chapter 4.
     of the RTS emphasis on completions. The ubiquity system
                                                                                  7 This is drawn from DEST statistics: in 1998 Australian universi-
     needs to normalise well trained and properly accredited
                                                                                  ties reported 449 EFTSU in DUFF enrolments. In 2003 the number
     supervision.                                                                 was 10,898: http://www.dest.gov.au/highered/statpubs.htm (accessed
   In conclusion, I would like to return the argument to an                       4/8/2004). Admittedly, the latter number has been (intentionally)
                                                                                  distorted by the University of Melbourne’s practice of reporting its
important paradox mentioned in the introduction to this arti-                     undergraduate scholarship holders as DUFF enrolments.
cle: how can one safeguard or advance the quality of research                     8 This analysis draws on a demographic argument by Graeme Hugo
without safeguarding or advancing the value of research fund-                     has outlined on several occasions, including his presentation to the
                                                                                  3rd Monash seminar on higher education policy: http://www.educa-
ing? There are answers to this question, although none are
                                                                                  tion.monash.edu.au/centres/mcrie/2004policyseminars.htm (accessed
satisfactory as a basis for long-term policy. Indeed, the gen-                    20/4/2005).
erational crisis that Hugo identifies (see above) may mean                        9 ‘Foundation disciplines’ is of course a rather loose phrase. I mean
‘safeguarding’ is no longer an option. Like the NTEU, I believe                   it to indicate those traditional disciplines of the academy which are
                                                                                  taken as a theoretical basis for the more applied scholarship that has
Australia must choose whether to make a major investment in                       flourished in universities around the world since 1945: disciplines such
the scholarship of its universities or continue a steady decline.                 as physics, pure mathematics, languages and literature, and philosophy.
But that is a background dispute: it does not override the cen-                   10 DEST statistics.
tral argument here.                                                               11 Cf. New Scientist, 13 March 2004, 47. The article actually quotes
   The ubiquitous/intensive policy approach I have outlined,                      Andrews as calling for 85,000 extra scientists.

without adequate funding support, would be an ameliorative                        12 DEST statistics.

framework – palliative care for the research effort at Australian                 13 These arguments have been set out by Simon Marginson, among
                                                                                  others. See for example his ‘Nation-building universities in a global
universities. And yet, even that bleak outlook seems preferable                   environment: the case of Australia,’ Higher Education 43, (2002). 409-
to the status quo. On the other hand, as a funding model for                      428.
expansionary reinvestment in Australia’s university research                      14 http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@nsf/
                                                                                  94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/
effort, there is no substitute for developing clear goals, which
                                                                                  74cb84b5a3e3eaa9ca2569de002139c6!OpenDocument (accessed
are sympathetic to the efforts and aspirations of researchers                     20/4/2005).
in universities, and sticking to them. The ubiquitous/intensive                   15 Criteria derived from Gallagher’s presentation to the first seminar in
approach seeks to construct a long-term, recurring choice                         the Monash 2004 series, op. cit., p.1. Their succinctness and breadth as
                                                                                  an exposition of contemporary policy doctrine is memorable.
between investing for healthy new growth and salvaging the
                                                                                  16 This has been a guiding dictum for the Higher Education Research
gentlest of underfunded decays.                                                   and Development Society of Australasia. eg. Angela Brew, ‘Understand-
                                                                                  ing Research-led Teaching,’ HERDSA News 25/1 (April 2003), 1 & 3-5.
Dr Tom Clark is an honorary Research Associate with the                           17 As distinct from a high-capital-cost or ‘intensive’ research system,
Faculty of Education, Monash University. In 2005 he has                           discussed further in this paper.

been mostly unemployed, travelling around the world.                              18 See pp.29f of the ALP policy discussion paper, Research: Engine
                                                                                  Room of the Nation. http://www.alp.org.au/dload/federal/media/sena-
                                                                                  tor_kim_carr_research_paper.pdf (accessed 4/8/2004).
Acknowledgement                                                                   19 By comparison, a move to increase or decrease ubiquitous research
                                                                                  relative to other higher education funding would be principally a debate
This article is based on a presentation given to the 2nd Monash 2004              about the role and nature of university scholarship.
Seminar on Higher Education Policy, 3 August 2004. I am indebted to
Emmaline Bexley, Julie Connolly, and David Burchell for their com-                20 See p.18 of the ALP policy document Aim Higher. http://www.alp.
ments on earlier drafts of the article.                                           org.au/dload/federal/media/education_policy.pdf (accessed 4/8/2004).
                                                                                  21 http://www.naf.org.au/proceedings/researchexcellence/batterham.
                                                                                  htm (accessed 20/4/2005).
Endnotes
1 Tom Clark, ‘Under no circumstances resolve the main problem: the
higher education policy overview in Australia,’ AUR 46/2 (2004), 12-15.

Tom Clark                                                                                                                                vol 48, no 1, 2005   9
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Reversing the slide
Michael Gallagher

The Government is embarking on a grand market-based
vision for the sector just at the moment when university
enrolments will begin a long and perhaps inexorable slide.
And according to Michael Gallagher, higher education is
becoming a less attractive investment for the private sector
even as the Government is pushing the sector towards ever
higher proportions of non-government funding.

My aim in this article is to do two things: first, to analyse the            ing fields, where responsibilities and programs are scattered
present policy position in tertiary education and research; and              across a plethora of portfolios, each with their own rules and
second, to suggest directions for future policy development                  conditions, and application and reporting procedures. And it
– keeping in mind changes in the operating environment.                      has failed to work cooperatively with the states, especially in
   Even though I will mainly discuss higher education here, I                the important area of investment in, and collaborative use of,
choose to use the term ‘tertiary’ education because a coherent               research infrastructure.
policy is needed to cover all forms of post-secondary educa-
tion – vocational education and training, university undergrad-              Higher education after the ‘crossroads’ exercise
uate and graduate education, and professional development,
as well as adult and continuing education. It is inapt for the               In international as well as Australian experience, policies for
Howard Government to talk of, indeed to legislate for so-called              large and complex education systems rarely depart suddenly
‘learning entitlements’ that apply to only one part, the higher              from one direction to another. Rather they shift incrementally
education part, the more elite part of the tertiary education                over a decade or more, and over such a period can take a radical
sector, and that part – undergraduate degree education – that                change of course, depending on particular decisions along the
will possibly grow the least in the future. Even the West Com-               way. At times, such decisions may be taken for other than edu-
mittee in its otherwise inconsequential 1997 report, Learning                cational policy reasons or be the outcome of political compro-
for Life, saw the logic of a universal tertiary education entitle-           mises, yet have profound impacts on the direction of policy.
ment that allowed people multiple points of access for vary-                    When we look back over the last decade in Australian ter-
ing purposes at different times; the only thing they got right               tiary education policy we now see in retrospect a series of
the Government ignored.                                                      incremental shifts since the opening up of places to overseas
   Deliberately too, I distinguish between education and                     students on a fee-paying basis. Among these incremental shifts
research – because we need in Australia urgently to develop a                were such as the persistent tampering with HECS rates and
coherent policy for building research capability. That is lack-              repayment thresholds, the opening up of postgraduate fee-
ing at present, not only through inadequate levels of invest-                paying places, the reduced rate of indexation of operating
ment. The Howard Government has confused its approach                        grants, the ending of triennial block funding, the introduction of
to research with its policies for higher education and we                    fee-paying places for domestic undergraduates, marginal fund-
have a lack of clarity about the respective roles of universi-               ing for enrolments above targets, the differentiation of HECS
ties and public research institutes, a set of conflicting signals            rates by field of study, the separation of funding for research
and perverse incentives, and a dissipation of effort that will               training from university operating grants, the introduction of
cause Australia to slip further off world pace. It has failed to             loans for postgraduate students, and the inclusion of private
integrate approaches to bio-sciences, ICT and other emerg-                   institutions on the higher education funding schedules.

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   When the Crossroads papers were rushed out in 2002 there                   There are three basic policy purposes for opening up
were a couple of ‘core’ policy shifts envisaged: pricing deregu-           sources of growth in income for the supply of education
lation, expansion of fee-paying access and associated exten-               services: to expand the system to accommodate increasing
sion of loans for domestic undergraduates, and the entry of                demand; to substitute private for public expenditure; or to
private providers. Few expected the Higher Education Sup-                  stratify the system. The case for system expansion only makes
port Act of 2003 to have been so prescriptive and narrow in                sense through to around 2011, after which time the demo-
redefining the relationship between universities and the state             graphic trends will go into reverse. The case for substitution is
in ‘purchaser-provider’ terms, and to have been so intrusive               largely an ideological one; empirically the data suggest that the
into areas of longstanding university autonomy in Australia                private rate of return to higher education is falling while costs
– autonomy of governance, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment,                are rising and that the social rate of return exceeds the private
staffing conditions and student admissions.                                rate. That leaves stratification as the surviving rationale. And
   The recent raft of changes to higher education policy, if               that is what the policy shift is basically about – on the demand
implemented, will I believe only be able operate for between               side, creating privileged pathways for the affluent in an other-
two and four years before they implode. They are transitional              wise massified system and, on the supply side, differentiating
policy measures to shift the system radically from a publicly-             institutional types and funding rates.
oriented to a privately-oriented model. Political compromises                 I believe there is a case to revisit the post-Dawkins structure
made in the process of gaining the passage of the legislation              of higher education institutions. But it is a case based on the
through the Senate have ameliorated some of the problems                   emerging need for universities to make more diverse contri-
that would otherwise have been encountered in the transition               butions to research and scholarship, and the cost imperative
through to around 2008–2009. What worries me is that it is a               for concentration and collaborative use, rather than duplica-
transition in the wrong direction for the future beyond 2011,              tion, of expensive research infrastructure. There is no case
when the 15–24 age cohort that has dominated higher edu-                   for system differentiation solely on the basis of undergraduate
cation participation will be declining not growing, when the               student demand.
private rate of return to a Bachelor degree will be diminishing,              With regard to stratifying student access, already the signs
and when the imperative won’t be to expand the size of the                 are ominous. There has been growth of 30% in the number of
system but to encourage people, particularly young people, to              non-overseas students starting a higher education course over
participate.                                                               the period 1993 to 2003 (see Table 1). The largest component
   Raising the amounts and proportions that students have                  of growth (43%) has been Bachelor degree enrolments but the
to pay is an outdated as well as perverse agenda; it is a kind             fastest rate of growth has been in higher degree coursework
of anachronistic flashback to the Dawkins era. In the mid                  enrolments (122%). Interestingly, higher degree research stu-
1980s demand was escalating and higher levels of skills forma-             dent numbers have risen only modestly since 1997. Under-
tion were required. As a result Australia developed the HECS               graduate starts as a share of all starts fell from 70% in 1993
scheme as a fair way of sharing the costs between general                  to 64% in 2003. Non-award commencements almost doubled
taxpayers and private beneficiaries. Yet circumstances have                from 6,028 in 2001 to 11,620 in 2003, as universities cut back
changed radically since then. Further increasing the propor-               intakes to avoid a flow through to higher over-enrolments,
tion of the costs levied onto new entrants to tertiary educa-
tion now, when the system is entering a period of stagnation                 Table 1: Commencing Domestic students by level of course
or contraction of demand, will risk serious under-investment                 from 1993–2003
in the human capital formation that is essential for generating              Course Level                  1993      2003             Change
the productivity growth we need to sustain living standards as               Higher Degree research    8,656        9,130       474 (5.5%)
our population continues to age. Why is it necessary to make                 Higher Degree coursework 14,214       31,565   17,351 (122%)
such a cost shift now? What is the imperative for it? Why have               Other postgraduate       30,818       36,672     5,854 (19%)
we not had a serious investigation and debate of the most                    Sub total postgraduate   53,688       77,367    23,679 (44%)
important questions?
   ● What are the basic purposes of our tertiary education                   Bachelor                  133,373    160 219   26,846 (20%)
       and training systems and research institutions?                       Other undergraduate         7,866      6 280   -1,586 (-20%)
   ● What is the most appropriate scale and shape of the                     Sub total undergraduate   141,239    166 499   25,260 (18%)
       system for meeting future needs?
   ● What is the appropriate balance between public and                      Enabling                    1,560      5,273    3,713 (238%)
       private funding sources for system sustainability?                    Non Award                   4,222     11,620    7,398 (175%)
   ● What is the appropriate balance between market mech-                    Total                     200,709    260,759    60,050 (30%)
       anisms and government regulation for system steering?

Michael Gallagher                                                                                                       vol 48, no 1, 2005     11
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