Obiter dicta by Professor Gavin Brown AO

International Trends

9 April 2004

Last weekend I flew to Hong Kong for a meeting of 40 presidents of research-intensive universities, from Britain, USA, Australia, Canada, China, Taiwan and of course, Hong Kong itself.

There were remarkable areas of common concern. My own presentation discussed technology transfer and the three cultures involved viz. government, business and universities. Accepting that all sectors have good intentions and fundamentally congruent goals, I explored some of the practical difficulties that arise because we have differing habits of thought and expression. There appeared to be no question that our Australian experience is mirrored in the UK, Canada and, even, the United States.

Governments suspect that universities are more adept at generating new technology than in ensuring that existing intellectual property is mobilised to good effect. While IP arising from government research support is generally given over to universities, there is a growing spirit of "use it or lose it" and an increased tendency to seek matching investment from our institutions for commercialisation initiatives.

The universities feel punished for research success as they must find ways to cross-subsidise partially funded projects and they are acutely aware that they must continue to invest in the next generation of research potential while access to funding depends more and more on the promise of short term outcomes.

Business wants universities to be more commercially realistic except when it comes to negotiating terms of engagement with it! There is an underlying feeling that taxpayer-supported institutions should serve the economy, but not drive bargains which increase their capacity to do so.

It almost goes without saying that there is some justification for the prejudice exhibited by all three camps and so the challenge is to transcend this through interaction and information exchange. It was interesting, however, to learn that there was no doubt in the entire assembly that universities should engage in technology transfer and, indeed, the British, in particular, favoured a model of the modern university with three core activities -– teaching, research and outreach, the latter most certainly having a large component of commercial activity.

Sadly another common theme was the raising of student contributions. Staged riots in Australia were a distant backdrop because the conference itself was moved to the Jockey Club to avoid student protests in Hong Kong. The UK participants, envious that Australian legislation allows optional HECS increases, were in constant touch with their Labour Government at a crucial step in the passage of the bill which provides for top-up fees. In Britain, apparently for political expediency, the right-wing opposition is opposing the socialist plan for greater private contribution. No country has solved the conundrum of how to increase access, cap community cost and maintain quality without costing student benefit and charging for it.

The major opposition to the UK legislation comes from vigorous lobbying by the non-research-intensive universities who argue passionately for a uniform surcharge or nothing. In Asia, on the contrary, there is a simple commitment, led by governments, to foster a group of leading world-class universities. In the US this comes from the private sector; but in Britain, the Russell Group, and in Australia, the Go8, have a much tougher challenge to prevent the entrenchment of an artificially egalitarian system.