Submission to the Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy
Jeanette Baird and Kerry C Pratt
Office of Research and Graduate Studies, Swinburne University of
Technology
This submission from the Office of Research and Graduate Studies at Swinburne University of Technology addresses themes four and five, with some preliminary remarks on higher education and R&D.
Australian higher education has a sound reputation internationally. To jeopardise this reputation would not only harm our own citizens but may also cripple an industry that is internationally competitive. At the same time, to seek to reinforce the old patterns of higher education provision runs the risk of supporting an industry which becomes increasingly irrelevant and out of touch. We suggest the Committee’s main task is to ensure cost-effective ways for government and industry to invest in diversity of high-quality higher education provision, for competition and innovation.
If universities are about anything, it is about assisting people to develop their capacities - certainly intellectual but also social and moral - to the fullest extent possible. In this they share much with schools, among institutions which support a broad social enterprise. Universities have a primary focus on the acquisition, generation and transmission of knowledge. Involvement with research is now an accepted part of this endeavour, as in many highly-developed enterprises: Burton Clark has suggested that "the quality of universities in the twenty-first century will depend considerably on their capacity to relate research activities to teaching and learning" (Clark, 1996, p128). A skill in intertwining research, teaching and learning is that feature which distinguishes universities from other types of knowledge providers. It is one which allows universities to offer a crucial link between a variety of education providers and a plurality of research-performing agencies.
Worldwide societal and economic directions indicate there will be an ongoing need and demand for conveyance of knowledge and production of new knowledge. Increasingly, there is recognition that education for effective learning involves various production tasks, all of which need to be done well: these include content generation, knowledge "packaging" or brokering, presentation skills or production values, an ability to tap into latest and visionary thinking and the classic skills of teaching for excitement and learning. Universities are one of a number of providers of knowledge and the number of agencies able to perform some or all of these production tasks very well increases daily. Demand for knowledge is also in a state of flux and runs the gamut from demands for "edutainment" and basic vocational training to those for highly-specialised research output.
In such an environment, the interplay between competition and collaboration is a core issue for shaping higher education systems. Networking, consortia and new provider configurations are all likely to increase, as institutions of all kinds compete for government and private funding. There will thus be a need to increase the flexibility of universities to develop new programs, new product, new alliances and new markets while retaining a basic commitment to their pivotal role in linking education and research.
A plurality of research-performing agencies is highly desirable for an advanced society: it permits alternatives, reduces hegemony, and promotes competition. Australia has a number of advantages as an R&D-performing country, including our education system, multicultural community, lifestyle, a record of innovation necessitated by isolation, relatively low costs and a strong contribution to world scientific output for the size of our population. The use of advanced communications technology has significantly expanded the potential for international research collaboration. However, there are also many obstacles to increasing our national R&D profile. Measured by citations, Australia is a widely-known contributor to international R&D in only a few selected areas. Most international industry R&D is undertaken offshore, the rate of commercialised Australian R&D is low and current Federal Government industry policy is uncertain at best. There are certainly arguments to say that Australia’s international competitiveness will rest on its ability to succeed in R&D and commercialisation. Given the Committee’s terms of reference, we suggest the Committee also consider the question "What configuration of the Australian higher education sector and other R&D performing agencies is most likely to increase our international attractiveness as a R&D-performing country?" Again, the answer is likely to involve the provision of flexibility to individual providers to form alliances as appropriate and also to compete as appropriate, while ensuring that research is linked to the transmission of knowledge.
Arguments have been advanced that Australia now has too many universities relative to its size as a nation. Few argue that in an era of mass higher education there are now too many university places, although there are debates about how those places should be funded. This suggests that the arguments about numbers of universities have more to do with a desire to advance the position of some institutions at the expense of others and rest on the assumption that one "megaversity" is better able to encourage diversity, flexibility and innovation than several providers of varying size and orientation. It appears to us that a wider range of providers offers greater opportunities to promote both competition and collaboration within higher education than a smaller number of - inevitably very similar - larger institutions. Not all students flourish in identical environments. If we are to make the most of individual capabilities, we should bear in mind that smaller or different institutions, which can value-add in differing ways, often suit particular students. It is also worth noting that many of the world’s most highly-regarded research universities have student total populations, undergraduate and postgraduate, smaller than the great majority of Australian universities.
There is, however, considerable scope for Australian universities to consider collaboration across programs, to more closely focus courses and to rationalise simple duplication of near-standard curricula. There are also many opportunities as yet undeveloped to rationalise administrative services and expertise across the higher education sector: other submissions point to efforts made by health services in outsourcing payroll and other services to central contractors. The Committee may care to consider ways to promote outsourcing of such services among universities. For example, research and commercialisation services might be outsourced or shared with a view to new provider configurations that could use expertise within industry, CSIRO, universities and private providers. A small amount of seed or incentive funding could be used to encourage greater competition and rationalisation of these standard services.
If universities are to fulfill their role of linking education and research all students, but particularly undergraduates and those learning about research, should be able to benefit from the immediacy of superb teaching and superb scholarship as part of their education. Sometimes, superb teachers are also superb scholars and researchers in their own right: in other cases, superb teachers are able to interpret and showcase cutting-edge research and practice, through actively involving researchers and research discoveries as part of their courses. Electronic delivery of programs offers opportunities to combine face to face involvement, problem-based learning and leading research in genuinely creative ways, using a variety of sources. There is no one best model, but institutions should aim to ensure that each course contains a guaranteed mix of teaching skills, "brokerage / knowledge packaging" skills and research knowledge among practitioners involved in its design. To achieve this aim, those teaching courses must have strongly-developed links to local and international research and scholarship, and the time to develop, import or adapt programs of excellence. Dialogue with research-active colleagues, in one’s own institution and in other research-performing agencies such as CSIRO and industry, is a critically important feature of these links. We can envisage the future development of courses not solely as the activity of one academic but as a project to be managed among several sources of input, drawn from a range of institutions.
As well, those preparing to be academics must be allowed adequate preparation and training to develop a set of skills that will equip them to offer courses that meet criteria of excellence. Too little attention has been able to be paid to ensuring formal training in this mix of skills, just as too little attention has been paid to research training skills appropriate to industry needs. One option might be a requirement for potential academics to undertake a formal graduate program, perhaps at Graduate Diploma level, in skills for higher education practice, encompassing pedagogic skills, knowledge brokering and scholarship/research.
Concern has been expressed over the primacy given to research over teaching and scholarship in many institutions, and the tendency for the profiles of older and newer universities to converge. Current funding regimes, which reinforce a distinction between teaching and research and oblige institutions to compete for highly-specified "pots" of money provided through multifarious schemes, exacerbate these tendencies. They thus act to reduce flexibility and diversity within the Australian higher education sector. They also encourage a proliferation of short-term contract academic staff, in which more junior staff or those undertaking research training may be regarded as low-cost "teaching fodder" rather than as a workforce requiring longer-term professional development.
Funding for higher education should therefore be broad enough to create genuine opportunities for institutions to decide for themselves the proportions of core and infrastructure funding to provide for the support of research, teaching, scholarship, knowledge "packaging", licensing of programs and strategic alliances. Given that a high proportion of recurrent funding will continue to cover salary costs, institutions may need to become more selective in the range of programs they offer if they are to recruit and train staff who are able to compete internationally for the provision of high-quality programs. Institutions may also choose to form networks to increase the abilities of academics to provide services through a variety of providers, of both educational and research programs, and to see new opportunities.
For these reasons, the Committee might explore the possibility of allocating a broadly-based annual "institutional development grant" to universities above their per-student funding. This grant could conceivably roll in the current research quantum, APA, OPRS, RIBG, innovation and some quality funding, for use as a support for general infrastructure and program innovation, in ways that encourage institutional diversity. Funds should be allocated on the basis of total student numbers, given that student demand is likely to become a reasonable proxy indicator of the desirability of a particular institution and in the absence of better performance-based measures of overall institutional success. Oversight of the patterns of internal distribution of these funds can be provided by DEETYA, through review of quantified plans and outcomes at an institutional level in line with the profiles process, supported by standard acquittals programs. Levels of investment in research, teaching development and other infrastructure can therefore be monitored by DEETYA. At the system level, incentives or sanctions could be applied to the "institutional development grant" if overall patterns of institutional expenditure appear to diverge from national priorities for higher education. As regards quality assurance, funding could alternatively be applied as a flat portion of operating grant to all institutions able to satisfy a minimum hurdle, such as a demonstrated institution-wide quality assurance system.
Universities such as Swinburne are training doctoral students not just for the future academic workforce but also for a plurality of other R&D performing agencies, whose needs for highly-developed specialist knowledge are only likely to increase. Training of research students at this time poses particular challenges recognised perhaps more clearly in industry and CSIRO than in some universities: in addition to expertise in research, we need to ensure that students can communicate well, can work in teams, manage projects and understand the social and commercial context of research. With the privatisation of various semi-government instrumentalities, the burden of funding for research training is falling more and more on government and on industry. Our experience is that industry is increasingly interested in funding postgraduate research that equips students properly as commercial R&D managers and practitioners, and is interested in programs for continuing professional development of scientific, engineering and technical staff. Also, we should aim to get intellectual property out to industry so that it can be commercialised. There is thus a need to strengthen partnerships for research and professional training among government agencies, industry and universities.
Industry is prepared to invest in research training, provided it is able to take an active part in determining the program and specify the outcomes which are of benefit to it. This level of specification by the client is not unreasonable and not at all incompatible with high academic standards. Given restrictions on investment in research training by government-as-client and the other benefits of industry-university interaction, there is a strong case for a significant level of taxation incentive to industry for "training/research investment" in programs which are as well specified as most industry-sponsored scholarships and professional courses are. The effectiveness of such incentives would be increased if industry-funded scholarships were to be exempted from taxation or at least only taxable above a certain threshhold, as such investment by industry is similar to the Federal Government’s investment in research training through APA stipends.
We also believe that research students may be interested in programs that augment or redefine the traditional PhD. Professional doctorates offer one alternative, or a Graduate Diploma in R&D management may be an addition. Increasingly, however, the nature of current PhD training processes is being questioned. For one thing, these processes appear unduly elaborate: students may be under examination for several months, while the whole nature of their training over several years may be inimical to the development of wider skills industry - and academia - will require of researchers and educators. The reluctance of institutions to experiment more widely with the PhD appears to be a reflection of a widespread unwillingness to rock the boat in research training, although some small steps have been taken. Support for alternatives would be welcomed, as would support for national monitoring of completion and withdrawal rates for research higher degrees.
Federal Government funding for research training includes weighted EFTSU funding for DEETYA-funded places, APAs without stipend (HECS exemptions), APAs with stipend, OPRS awards and various scholarships offered by research-funding agencies, e.g. NHMRC, RIRDC. Given that all Australian universities have shown a willingness to invest in research training above levels supported by DEETYA funding, the justification for continuing to run separate programs for individual scholarships schemes such as APAs and OPRS seems slight, provided an overall balance is maintained among support for students as compared to infrastructure and support for local as compared to international students. Continued restrictions on the availability of APAs without stipend could be used to provide an additional balancing device for institutions, although the basis for allocation may need to be reviewed.
Arguments have been advanced that new universities are unable to provide appropriate research training environments compared to older institutions, and that APAs with stipend should be allocated to individual students rather than to institutions on a formula basis, presumably on the basis that students will choose older universities with longer research reputations. We submit that there is little evidence for this claim and that new universities, where they have focused their efforts, have by now made considerable investments in ensuring excellent environments for their research students, augmented by cooperative use of in-kind support through access to facilities and libraries. After all, new universities have every incentive to try harder! Apart from the nearly impossible task of trying to determine those to whom a very limited number of APAs could be given, the suggestion for APAs could have some merit if it were used to promote student mobility, i.e. if students were not allowed to take places at the same institution in which they had undertaken their undergraduate studies. Such restrictions apply as a matter of course in some overseas institutions. The reality is, however, that most students canvass a range of options in applying for awards and thus already undertake a selection process in choosing the individuals with whom they wish to work with at a range of universities. If APAs with stipend funding were rolled into an overall "institutional development" grant, as suggested above, institutions would then be free to determine the number of scholarships they wished to offer in the light of competing priorities, and the structure of such scholarships.
The quantity and pace of Australia’s total R&D effort would increase were additional funding for research purposes were to be made available from Federal Government sources. If it is accepted however that such additional funding will not eventuate, the challenges for universities - and for other research providers - are to use existing levels of funding more effectively and to engage more actively with alternative funding available across the whole spectrum of Australian and international R&D efforts. There are several proposals the Committee might consider.
Across the higher education sector, all institutions may need to consider greater selectivity and concentration in their support of research, to harness a greater proportion of existing funds rather than allowing them to trickle into the sand. This is not to say that institutions should not support basic research across the range of their disciplines: it is rather to suggest that distribution of sub-critical amounts of funding should be reviewed.
Justifications for government funding of higher education include the provision of funding for activities in the national interest or for the common good, and the provision of incentives to fine-tune the system, to ensure adequate provision by providers for potentially under-supported activities. In the case of research funding, Federal Government funding is provided to universities as one of a number of agencies undertaking basic and applied research and for research training. There is a strong case for continued government support of the nation’s basic research efforts, preferably with a more clearly articulated whole-of-government approach. Present arrangements show a plethora of research funding agencies, each with their raft of schemes, together with broadly-based funding for organisations such as CSIRO. Some funding bodies have a role in the support of disciplines, e.g. NHMRC, while others support the needs of producer groups, e.g. primary industry R&D bodies. The ARC shoulders much of the burden of maintaining a huge range of research funding programs for universities. While there may be merit in such diversity of approaches to research funding, it is likely that efficiencies could be introduced into the processes for seeking and granting funds and that these schemes could be employed to encourage a greater selectivity and concentration in overall research efforts. Much time is used by university researchers in rewriting and refocusing research proposals for submission to different funding bodies, each with different criteria and closing dates even where the aims of their programs are similar. Common application forms and year-round applications would save substantial resources for universities and would facilitate cross-sharing of applications. Researchers would have more time for their research and for the creation of new partnerships, and the resource savings to universities and funding bodies would be substantial.
Simplification of assessment processes should be introduced for all but more major programs. Many of the sums available as individual grants are hardly worth competing for, particularly where success rates are well below norms for viable schemes, a fact of which the ARC is well aware. There is increasing recognition that the amounts granted for any one project under the Large Grants program are often small grants, and normally insufficient to mount a major research program. While the ARC’s administration costs are reasonable by international standards, the burden of assessment for individual grants falls very heavily on individual academics. The time of Australian and international research experts could perhaps be better employed were they asked to review the quality of overall programs and disciplines. Industry partners find the ARC’s SPIRT program valuable but highly frustrating: valuable as the scheme creates incentives to invest in R&D and to work with universities and frustrating, in that government funding is unlikely to be approved until at least 12 months after the project idea is conceived. A simplified assessment process might see an initial level of government support approved immediately if the project is assessed as appropriate. Given that success rates under this scheme run at around 50%, a reduction in the total government contribution could ensure that most projects were able to proceed. Consideration might also be given to periods of paid engagement as assessors and reviewers for individual grants or, indeed, a process of competitive tendering to identify viable alternatives to the present approaches.
The ARC, through the chairmanship of Professor Brennan, has attempted to introduce several new programs of greater relevance to our international research competitiveness: these include international initiatives and the Special Research Initiatives program, the latter specifically designed to foster networking among academic groups. These new programs have been limited in their size and application, as the ARC has so many other commitments. Given their importance for longer-term competitiveness and the rationalisation of research effort, such initiatives deserve more attention. A whole-of-government approach would undoubtedly assist efforts to promote international research collaboration, as schemes in this area are enormously fragmented. They are also apt to come and go like mirages in the desert. Options for statutory authorities to also collaborate more strongly with universities could also be explored: the ability to compete as principal investigators or lead organisations in a collaborative partnership for a significant program might create adequate incentives to for such authorities to forego other small amounts of program funding.
The CRC program is often cited as a successful program for partnerships among universities, industry, CSIRO and government and we wholeheartedly endorse it. One of the success factors is undoubtedly the level of funding, which is adequate to support a substantial program of research over several years. Another is the driving role of industry in some of the ongoing CRCs. A third is the networked model of research programs, where a range of projects is undertaken by diverse partners. This model could be fruitfully applied to refashion other ARC programs: for example, key and special research centres programs, whose current levels of ARC funding are inadequate to mount really major programs, could be replaced by consortia-led approaches, allowing a range of research providers, and those with needs for research, to become involved across all disciplines. Industry and CSIRO are able and willing to encourage cooperative use of infrastructure, particularly if there are strong incentives for them to do so.
It is also likely that State Governments could assist industry and universities to focus their efforts and concentrate resources on priority programs, through the adoption of science and technology policies linked to industry policies. Recent initiatives of several State Governments in this direction are to be commended.
There are few signs that universities are willingly under-investing in research, although the problems of support for overall infrastructure is a major concern. The justification for maintaining a raft of separate DEETYA/ARC funding programs for research infrastructure and training - APAs, OPRS, RIBG, RIEFP - is therefore weak and in fact hinders institutional pursuit of diversity. The underlying basis for the research quantum has become less than clear and the allocation of funding primarily on the basis of inputs is a long way from meeting any basic set of criteria for successful performance-based funding. Performance-based funding using outputs as a basis has apparently greater merit, although the ideal end-point of any performance-based measure should be the cost-effectiveness of provision for a desired level of quality. As with all performance measures, perverse incentives are likely to emerge for output-based funding, including the "salami" slicing of papers to increase output, if quality is not balanced. To fund on outputs without controlling for their quality makes little sense, just as funding for quality without any consideration of cost-effectiveness will encourage inefficiencies.
Rather than continue the existing investment of significant academic and governmental resources in assessing research output "quality" - currently practised as a recondite exercise in the classification of types of publications - because of a commitment to funding on output quantity, we suggest that some funding be set aside for a range of further professional studies of the prospects for stable, outcome-focused performance funding. There may also be merit in exploring options for assessment of research and teaching quality through modified versions of the UK Research and Teaching Assessment Exercises. For example, rolling reviews of disciplines could have their focus sharpened to include reviews of departments, with some funding to be allocated on the basis of an overall assessment of quality.
Arguments for restricting research funding to particular institutions rest on assumptions that those institutions are better able to direct resources internally than others and better able to form partnerships with other research providers. There is no evidence that the amount of government research funding directed to "post-Dawkins" institutions through many schemes - and it is a very small percentage of the total - would be used more effectively or efficiently by older and larger institutions. Many of these institutions conveniently forget the relative recency of Australian university involvement in research (effectively post-WWII) and that it was not so long ago that derisive cries of "Kenso Tech" were applied to the then new University of New South Wales. In the US, Caltech was initially established as an arts and crafts college. Some 30 years later, Caltech could claim Nobel prize winners among its staff. As in other endeavours, it’s not from whence you’ve come but to where you’re going that is important.
Reference
Clark, B. R., "Teaching, Research, and Quality in the Twenty-First Century", in Muller, S. (ed.) Universities in the Twenty-First Century, Berghahn Books, Oxford, 1996, pp98-112.