Nobel Laureate Professor Brian Schmidt gave an engaging speech concerning the future of ANU last week at the annual Order of Australia Association–ANU annual lecture. Although ANU continues to do great things, we face some very real challenges. Brian’s diagnosis of the problem is one I share, and one I’ve discussed many times with colleagues around the university.
ANU is different. It was set up with a distinct mission as a small, elite, research-focused university. It was funded to carry out this unique mission and the results were spectacular. As Brian points out, this single small university has produced half of all of Australia’s Nobel Prize winners.
The business model for this country’s top research universities has, however, changed. In Australia today, research-intensive universities are sustained by enrolling large numbers of undergraduate students and using this income to cross-subsidise research. The growth in research funding has been in medical science. Most of Australia’s Go8 universities have driven their research growth by partnering with state-based medical research institutes. This drives growth in National Health and Medical Research Council funding and this growth flows on to research block grant growth.
ANU cannot easily adopt such models, nor should it. This is not why this university was created; it is not consistent with our mission. The National Institutes Grant which provided ANU with the funds to differentiate is, in real terms, 50% of what it was in 1995. The budget challenges we have faced over the last few years is just another symptom of these challenges.
These issues are confronting. The stakes are high and we cannot ignore reality. We need to confront these issues. The solutions will not be easy and I suspect will also require government vision. However, we – the ANU community – must lead and shape this debate. What is our future? How will we deliver on the vision set for ANU in 1946?
I would like to thank Brian for pushing these issues into the public arena. Over the coming months, I plan to facilitate a debate about our future. What type of university do we want to be and how will we achieve this? How do we remain unique and a resource for the nation? I look forward to hearing many voices in this debate as we work out how to make sure ANU remains great for generations to come.
- 1 Comment
Comment by Gregory A. Barton
October 28, 2013 @ 2:26 pm
Having just listened to the VC’s video posted on August 7, 2013 and attended the lecture by Professor Schmidt on funding research at ANU it occurs to me that the VC and Professor Schmidt are very close in the main outline of their ideas. A vigorous debate is indeed needed, and one which will, I hope, confirm the unique role of ANU as a research institution of the highest rank.
This can be accomplished by making a strong differentiation between teaching specialists who have, say, 12 contact hours per week, and research intensive faculty who, as Schmidt points out, can teach a single, small course once a year and produce a high level of research outputs the rest of the year. It would solve many workload controversies across the university if this were adopted. We could then promote each category on the merits of either teaching or research.
This plan would pay for itself by reducing the number of staff who have low or moderate contact hours but do not produce a substantial amount of research. In this way we can continue to be counted among the very best elite universities in the world by supporting and rewarding the specialized roles of our teaching staff and research fellows.
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