Strategic Planning in Australian Universities

Don Anderson
Richard Johnson
Bruce Milligan

99/1

June 1999

Evaluations and Investigations Programme Higher Education Division Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs

©Commonwealth of Australia 1998
ISBN 0 642 23905 3
DETYA No. 6370.HERC99A

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without permission from AusInfo. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Manager, Legislative Services, AusInfo, GPO Box 84, Canberra ACT 2601.

 The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Executive Summary

This project reviewed the published strategic plans of Australian universities to perceive the development and use of such plans and to provide guidance to good practice in this area for Australian universities.

The reviewers perused the plans of almost all universities and visited a number of universities for discussions. The discussions focussed on the planning processes in each university and the value of the plans as perceived by the various interested parties. Two workshops on the topic were held, attended by representatives from the great majority of universities in Australia.

The widespread use of strategic planning is a fairly recent development in Australian universities. It is viewed with some scepticism by a number of academics but is widely embraced by the senior administration. The reviewers regard it as essential in the current difficult circumstances that universities face.

Good planning requires an understanding of the context in which the university operates; a good information management system within the university; the participation and support of as many of the university’s staff as possible; and close links to the budget process within the university.

The plan should present a clear vision of the mission and goals of the university and the major steps by which it proposes to reach its goals. It should specify precise and usually quantified targets and timelines and nominate the officers or sections of the university responsible for reaching these. It should contain mechanisms for funding progress towards the targets, and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating this progress.

Insofar as plans fall short of these prescriptions, it is usually through: lack of specified funding for the measures to be taken; failure to nominate people responsible for executing the plan; and failure to set in place monitoring and evaluation.

At a level below the overall strategic plan universities generally have subordinate plans for research management, equity, capital development and so on, and also plans for individual faculties or divisions of the university. This review took note of these but did not examine them closely.

The various ambitions of the universities seem to the reviewers to be realistic ones. The strategies they are following are also varied and appear suited to the circumstances of each university. The suggestion often mooted, that every university—regardless of its own circumstances—is bent on aping the few oldest, is quite wrong and should be put to rest.

[Return to top] [Download Full Report]

Please note: To download the full report you must first have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer.