Obiter dicta by Professor Gavin Brown AO
What's next
15 October 2004
Although this is an international edition of our University News it would be silly to ignore the Australian election which has just taken place. The Coalition government has just been returned for a fourth term after a campaign in which higher education policy was raised as a major issue by the Labor opposition.
Major changes advocated by Labor and now rejected by the electorate were the abolition of the full fee option for Australian students, leaving it available only for overseas students, the removal of a university's choice to set top-up charges of up to 25 per cent for government subsidised places and an end to competitive block grants supporting research training and research infrastructure.
Instead the government's new package, Backing Australia's Future, will be put in place. This has the beneficial effect of encouraging universities to define and pursue different missions tailored to their strengths and particular circumstances. In particular it offers the opportunity and challenge to each university to develop its own future through its own efforts and, in consequence, offers more choice to potential students and research partners.
Not everything is rosy and bright. The failure, to date, to provide effective indexation for government support for universities to protect against inflation means that the value of the reform package will erode over time. Moreover the research package, Backing Australia's Ability, which was warmly welcomed at its launch as an essential first step in moving Australia's support for innovation and research more in line with international norms, has stalled in its second phase. More initiatives and investment are needed before national competitiveness can be ensured.
At the University of Sydney we have decided to embark on a new period of self-improvement measuring our ongoing achievements by international benchmarks. The simple slogan we are using to summarize our commitment is 1:5:40. We intend to be number one in Australia, in the first five in Asia and in the first forty worldwide.
It is fundamental to these goals that we continue to develop international partnerships, in research, in teaching and in student exchange. Some of this can be fostered through formal university networks such as Academic Consortium 21, of which I am now president, or the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, the presidents of whose universities will come together in Sydney in 2006. Real achievement, however, must rest on individual contacts made internationally by staff and students throughout the University and on the support of our alumni dispersed throughout the world.
The election result gives a stable base for our global outreach.