Higher education research stands at a kind of half-way house. At present, it is highly directed by Government research priorities. Yet the Government's ambition is to create a much more deregulated system, with self-created winners and losers. Tom Clark suggests a different starting-point. All higher education institutions generate research, and…

The Government is embarking on a grand market-based vision for the sector just at the moment when university enrolments will begin a long and perhaps inexorable slide. And according to Michael Gallagher, higher education is becoming a less attractive investment for the private sector even as the Government is pushing the sector towards ever higher…

It's no news that Australian academics, like Australian cricketers, are getting older (and perhaps tireder). But the exact dimensions of the sector's staffing crisis haven't been clear. Graham Hugo has been studying the figures in detail, and he suggests that the problem may in fact be worse than has been thought. Around a quarter of the academic…

Everybody has a view about what's happening to university hiring policies--and it's often a bleak one. But it's generally hard to tie down the facts. Alec McHoul surveyed all the new job advertisements for the second half of 2004. As you might expect, change is in the air. (Contains 2 charts and 6 endnotes.)

Abused, ignored, sidelined, belittled. It's the human face of a systemic problem. Eva Cox and James Goodman report on a recent study of workplace bullying that highlights its effects on those being bullied, and the rather piecemeal administrative efforts to deal with it so far. (Contains 7 tables.)

Transdisciplinarity has been a veritable mantra, especially in the humanities and social sciences, for twenty years or more. Yet academic structures and research application requirements still struggle to come to grips with cross-boundary research and teaching. Making universities more trans-discipline-friendly is a tricky task, however. As Wendy…

The last eight years have created radical realignments in Australia's political landscape. The Prime Minister's bitterest enemies are precisely the same people who would once have been Australian Liberalism's stalwarts. The author writes on the legacy of Australia's culture wars. For responses, see EJ848173: "Aussie Battler, or Worldly…

In this article, the author comments on Judith Brett's article (see EJ848172). Brett dissects the differences between the Howard world-view and that of the intelligentsia, using Robert Merton's dichotomy between "locals" and "cosmopolitans" as her means. On this account, Howard's preoccupation with national sovereignty--and hence with border…

In June 2002--seven months after the most divisive federal election campaign since 1975--Mr. John Howard went to Washington to be feted by the International Democratic Union--the worldwide association of centre-right political parties. So impressed were they by his against-the-odds victory that they elected him as their Chairman. In a White House…

It's never easy to connect long-term social and cultural changes to short-term electoral ones. They're like two different timescales--one incremental, even geological in pace, the other immediate and seemingly will-o'-the-wisp. Opinion polls are like weather reports, where the weather-systems seem to scud around with arbitrary and unintelligible…

This article attempts a critique of the higher education policy overview, with a particular view to how policy is made through that process. The higher education sector in Australia has become reliant for the answers to its most important policy questions on a process that has not delivered adequate answers, and which becomes less likely to…

The rise and fall of David Robinson as Vice-Chancellor of Monash University was a parable for the times. The man who defined managerialism in the Australian context had in 2002 seemed to be at the peak of his powers; a few months later he was gone in disgrace. Paul Rodan reflects on the legacy of a management style which, in the end, left Robinson…

In recent years university governance has come in from the cold, so to speak, and is now the subject of some debate in political and academic venues. The core issue for debate is the appropriateness and effectiveness of current university governance structures. This debate is particularly critical in light of the increased professionalisation of…

In recent years university governance has come in from the cold, so to speak, and is now the subject of some debate in political and academic venues. The core issue for debate is the appropriateness and effectiveness of current university governance structures. This debate is particularly critical in light of the increased professionalisation of…

Universities in Australia, as part of the public sector and reliant on public funding, are increasingly the subject of pressure for greater accountability and organisational change. The role of senior managers in the sector is often to be change agents and to manage the change process effectively. However the implementation of any change envisaged…