Keynote address

1
Keynote address The New Context of Higher
Education

• Simon MarginsonAustralian Professorial Fellow
• Griffith University Senior Staff Seminar
• Hyatt Regency Sanctuary Cove
• 14-15 July 2005

2
Keynote coverage

• The global setting 1 teaching
• The global setting 2 research
• System segmentation in higher education
• From Dawkins to Nelson
• The Nelson reforms and mission diversity
• Options and opportunities
• Griffiths strategic setting
• Griffith as a top 10 university?

3
1. The global settingTeaching (cross-border
degrees)
4
Exporters of tertiary education 2002 OECD data
5
Top 10 importers of Australian higher
education2004 DEST data
6
Largest Australian providers
7
Changing patterns of mobility

• In USA in 2003-2004, international students fell
  2.4 (undergraduate 5). Down in Middle East 9,
  Indonesia 15, China 5 (undergraduate 20). One
  third drop in applications for graduate study
  2003-2005. Enrolments from India up 7 but
  undergradautes down 9.
• UK in September-October 2004, decline in one
  third of universities. Largest declines from
  China, Japan, Malaysia. In March 2005 non-EU
  applications down 6.
• In New Zealand 2003-2004, international students
  in all education down 17, largest decline in
  students from China. Higher education enrolments
  slightly up.
• In Australia in 2004 enrolments rose 8.6. China
  up 37, India up 47. Hong Kong, Singapore and
  Indonesia all down 4-5. March 2005 commencements
  up 4 overall. Decline in some universities.

8
Enrolment shifts 2003-2004Australia 2004 DEST
data
9
Possible factors affecting mobility into
English-speaking nations
10
2. The global settingResearch
11
Top 500 research universities 2004 data compiled
by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of
Higher Education
Actually top 502 research universities due to
tied places. Others include Denmark, Finland,
Austria, Hong Kong (each 5), Norway, Brazil,
South Africa (each 4), Taiwan, India, Ireland,
New Zealand, Hungary (each 3), Singapore, Russia,
Poland, Greece (each 2), Argentina, Mexico, Czech
Republic, Chile, Portugal (each 1).
12
Top 100 research universities 2004 data compiled
by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of
Higher Education
Others Netherlands 2, Israel, Finland, Austria,
Norway, Russia, Italy each 1.
13
Top 20 research universities 2004
14
Australian universities in top 502 research
universities, 2004
15
National research performance compared to
economic capacity 1
16
National research capacity compared to economic
capacity 2
17
Proportion of international students enrolled in
research degreesOECD data for 2002
18
3. System segmentation in higher education
19
Typical national segmentation
20
Global segmentation of higher education markets
21
4. From Dawkins to Nelson
22
Logics of Dawkins ( Howard) system 1987 to 2004

• Single comprehensive research university template
• Business functions and acumen the primary driver
  of competitive advantage, not academic capacity
• Strong revenue drivers and quantity incentives,
  though slower HECS funding for domestic access
  after 1996. Tendencies to merge, expand and to
  enter every market. Conglomerate mentality. All
  things to all people
• General staff and non-academic services and
  facilities grew more rapidly than academic
  capacity
• Continued hierarchy, uneven research capacity and
  performance. Eight Go8 universities gained 64 of
  IGS allocations and 74 of all competitive grants
  (2004), 67 of new ARC Discovery Grants (2005)

23
General staff grew more rapidly than academic
staff(with the exception of some institutions)
24
The old research hierarchy was continued in the
Dawkins system New ARC Discovery Grants 2005
25
Differential research capacities in Queensland
universities
26
The Nelson/Treasury reforms

• variable HECS, moving closer to demand-driven
  fees
• full fee places FEE-HELP presto, chango
• FEE-HELP for the private sector presto, chango
• (to come) loosening of barriers to private sector
  entry including definition of university
  presto, chango
• (to come) Research Assessment Exercise funding
  driven by quality not research quantity presto,
  chango
• (starting already) more centripetal resource/
  status distribution due to full fee market and
  RAE. More stratified social access. Higher
  education is cheap and open at the bottom but
  more closed at the high quality top end.

27
5. The Nelson reforms and mission diversity
28
Diversity as the new virtue

• Australia needs a vigorous, diverse and flexible
  higher education sector ... We need a nationally
  consistent, well defined brand to support our
  engagement with the international marketplace. We
  also need a sector with a wide diversity of
  institutions with a flexibility to pursue their
  own distinct missions and develop innovative
  responses to opportunities which arise.
• -- Brendan Nelson, Building Better Foundations
  for Higher Education in Australia, 2005, p. 1

29
Dimensions of diversity

• Changes to the requirements for higher education
  status and university status, so as to admit new
  domestic and foreign private providers
• (enables horizontal diversity based on
  specialist mission, but in the private sector not
  the public sector)
• Policy engineered variation of university
  missions and of the degree and kinds of
  specialisation within the existing public sector
• (creates vertical tiering rather than horizontal
  choices, can inhibit innovation. A few
  institutions might become niche specialists )
• Strategic innovations by university leaders, in
  institutional forms, missions and cultures and
  also innovations by individual academic units
• (potential innovations are inhibited by
  competition and imitating behaviour, and some
  aspects of regulation, but there is scope for
  bold initiatives, IF they succeed!)

30
Lifting the status of teaching?(yeah, right!)

• There are still concerns about the perceived
  status of teaching within universities. It is
  hoped that more diversity in the types of higher
  education institutions permitted in the protocols
  might be one way of doing more to encourage a
  greater focus on teaching
• -- Brendan Nelson, Building University Diversity,
  2005, p. 15
• BUT why would the growth of teaching-only private
  institutions lift the status of teaching in the
  public sector, and in a status market where
  research quality is the main driver?

31
Limits of Nelsonic diversity

• Diversity in the private sector ( academic
  innovation and size variation) is decoupled from
  diversity in the public sector ( tiering of
  status, resources, missions).
• For the foreseeable future teaching-only
  universities in the public sector will have low
  status
• The Nelson system foregrounds research
  performance/ status BUT distributes research
  capacity more narrowly than before. Upward
  institutional mobility, always difficult, might
  now be more difficult to achieve.

32
6. Options and opportunities
33
Nelsonic ground rules

• The polar mission choices are
• (1) status-driven intensive research university,
  or
• (2) expansion-driven efficiency-driven high
  volume provider of standard medium or low
  quality teaching
• Dont be all things to all people. Choose a
  focused mission.
• Why? RQF sorts system on research quality.
  Rankings are known. Student volume undermines
  student scores (i.e. status), reduces full fee
  income, dissipates resources for building
  research capacity, mixed branding doesnt work
• If aspiring to be status driven research
  university, academic capacity becomes decisive
  not business acumen. The imperative is to build
  research capacity from Day 1
• There is scope for specialisation as a research
  university, e.g. fields of study,
  inter-disciplinarity, international research
  orientation, regional research orientation, etc.

34
Penalties of mixing brands

• You get where you niche yourself you get where
  you pay for You can take these student markets
  as naïve, but theyre very smart, so if you are
  going for big undergraduate numbers and accepting
  people with limited secondary graduation
  credentials, you cant turnaround to a government
  or another university and say You know were
  really a top end bio-technology operation The
  market knows which of the universities actually
  has serious research capacity in what areas. The
  best PhD students will go there. The best
  scientists will migrate there. So you cant grab
  bottom market share and then turn around and
  expect to have credibility as a research
  university its pretty pretty tough to send out
  mixed corporate messages about your branding.
• -- Allan Luke, National Institute of Education,
• Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 4
  Corners, ABC 27June 2005

35
8 Nelsonic mission options
36
Post-Nelson hierarchy (highly speculative and
inevitably wrong in places)
37
Ways to modify stratification and avoid creating
too narrow a spread of research capacity

• (1) modify the RQF (2) modify the operation of
  the full fee market (3) develop stronger
  measures of comparable teaching quality to
  foreground good teaching in all institutions ,
  e.g. peer audit not just student survey.
• Site funded major centres of research excellence
  in the pre-1987s outside the Go8, including
  Griffith and/or do this (more selectively) in
  the ATNs
• Allocate 25 of the RQF distribution, on a
  selective basis, to underpin blue sky research
  capacity (including APAs and post-docs) outside
  the Go8

38
7. Griffiths strategic setting
39
Mission profiles Go8 ATN
40
Mission profiles in Queensland
41
Griffith, IRU other missions
42
Griffith and Queensland 2004
43
Griffith, IRUs others 2004
44
8. Griffith as a top 10 university?
45
The top 10 goal The gapNumber of new ARC
Discovery Grants 2005
46
Australian universities in top 502 research
universities, 2004
47
The top 10 goal a gut response from outside
Griffith

• The goal should be specific to research not all
  indicators
• Its a big ask. GU is currently outside the
  worlds top 500
• Perhaps 2010 is too early a time span. Lifting
  research capacity fundamentally is a long term
  task (10-15 years)
• A worst case scenario is the goal would be
  insufficient, e.g. if Australia has just 4-5
  major research universities
• While Griffith needs to build participation
  around the GC campus, in the longer term
  achievement of the top 10 goal is incompatible
  with growth in the volume of numbers and/or
  failure to lift entry standards of international
  and domestic students. Development driven by
  growth per se is a Dawkins era strategy not a
  Nelson era strategy

48
A high demand research university mission means

• The core institution-building strategy is to lift
  prestige and resources via research performance
  and reputation
• To repeat be crystal clear from Day 1. The
  mission is research university! Dual missions
  wont work
• In the medium term move to reduce undergraduate
  share of load while dramatically increasing the
  HDR share
• Lift student selectivity (but use equity
  scholarships)
• The key question is how to build research
  capacity long term. This needs to be funded by
  more than research grants and RQF distributions
  (or research performance is path dependent), e.g.
  full fee surpluses, donations etc.

49
And it might also mean

• Over time jettisoning those activities that add
  little or nothing to university status, and
  research role/ outcomes
• Reconfiguring the democratic mission in terms of
  research university orientation (e.g. equity
  scholarships, indigenous studies, public good
  research) not mass access per se
• Rethinking the teaching-research (T/R) nexus,
  more helpful for teaching than for research
• Closing or consolidating sites not contributing
  to status and/or the high research orientation.
  Multi-campuses were good in the Dawkins system,
  that rewarded the building of volume and market
  share. The Nelson system does not exclude
  multi-sites but volume per se is not helpful
• Rebuilding an existing bounded site as a state of
  the art research university precinct, e.g. Mt
  Gravatt

50
The long haul building research performance and
reputation

• Grow research-only staff and functions alongside
  T/R. This is more important than generalising
  research acitvity
• Postdocs and PhD scholarships are cost effective
  and create vital go to Griffith excitement
  cultures
• Recruit international HDR. Most Australian
  universities neglect this. A key potential for
  comparative advantage
• Dont be spooked by short-term trends in the
  research performance indicators even if they cost
  money. What matters is building medium and long
  term capacity
• Less marketing of the university as an
  institution, more promotion of its research.
  Long-term national and global gains in research
  reputation tend to accumulate over time