Obiter dicta by Professor Gavin Brown AO

While we wait

14 March 2003

Last week I travelled to Melbourne for a meeting of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee and later to Canberra for a meeting of the Group of Eight. In both cases there was a sense of marking time, because it is known that the proposals arising from the Nelson Review have received broad Cabinet approval and have been referred on for expenditure scrutiny.

We have been told that 'leaks' to date are neither inspired nor accurate, but have no firm idea of what constitutes false information.
The AVCC achieved remarkable harmony in arriving at an agreed package of proposals. There is widespread recognition that it is desirable to foster diversity within the higher education sector, that universities should adopt individual missions tailored to their realistic circumstances. This does not, of course, imply that a tiered system should be introduced by stealth. It does mean that key elements of any successful package must support these different aspirations in a positive way. That, in turn, implies that greater investment is needed. Some useful change can occur through structural re-organisation but increased government funding will be necessary to drive improvement.

The most obvious and desirable reform would be a move to effective indexation of operating grants but this is both costly and without vote-catching 'sex-appeal'. I very much hope for understanding of the fundamental role this can play in enabling other initiatives to take place.

I very much hope also that the cooperative spirit within AVCC, and between AVCC and Dr Nelson, will remain robustly resilient as attacks are mounted on isolated components of the final package.

In that regard I am happy that the Go8 is also taking a broad sectoral view, accepting that measures variously adapted to the needs of all universities are essential to healthy differentiation. That said, the research intensive universities have a particular concern over infrastructure. Much more needs to be built on the initiatives of Backing Australia's Ability.

Let me recite some of the problems. Both individual grants and institutional project grants require partial matching funding from the university. Moreover, although our success requires us to accommodate more researchers, students and staff, we find it almost impossible to attract government funds for staple infrastructure. We have to provide the buildings and laboratories from our own resources. This has the paradoxical consequence of forcing the research successful universities and faculties to cross-subsidise from other activities. We must obviously continue to develop new, and refurbish old, teaching facilities and the management challenge is made no easier because an increasing proportion of our funds come dedicated to special purposes. The way to foster good priority setting is to give space for maneouvre and it follows that increased generic block funds for research are sorely needed.

Lest that sounds too feckless, let me repeat that these are largely problems associated with success and we are committed to working vigorously to increase income from other sources.