This paper discusses the impact Chinese students' culturally-specific features might have on the processes by which they commence their higher degrees by research candidature. We explain how existing frameworks in cross-cultural studies and an appreciation of the different educational background might be used to create a better understanding of…

The concept of diversity has been part of the Australian government's higher education agenda for several years, but empirical studies on the actual state of diversity in the sector are limited. This situation raises questions regarding the factual basis for the policy claims made. With this in mind, this paper seeks to assess the degree of…

The loss of collegiality and the loss of academic integrity were key themes raised during forums, personal interviews, a survey and focus groups conducted with University of Western Sydney academic staff as part of a research project into academic work load agreements. In this paper the experiences related by participants are placed in the light…

In a survey conducted across eleven universities in the north of England, attendance figures for manual grade staff attending internal university training programmes was found to be significantly below that of other employee groups. This is unsatisfactory from an equal opportunity perspective since the ethos of a university should encompass all…

Constrained public funding for universities and the emphasis placed on university-industry interactions mean that universities are increasingly required to compete for industrial funds for research. This in turn means that universities need to develop a customer service culture in order to be competitive and attractive to industry. Many studies…

The number of university rankings systems in use around the world has increased dramatically over the last decade. As they have spread, they have mutated; no longer are ranking systems simply clones of the original ranking systems such as "US News" and "World Report". A number of different types of "mutation" have occurred, so that there are now…

The "Review of Higher Education in Australia" (the Bradley Review) has recommended a massive expansion in the level of domestic training in Australian universities. This article examines the Report's rationale for rejecting the previous orthodoxy that there is no need for such expansion and, to the extent that there is, it would be better focussed…

Conventional approaches for fostering research productivity, such as recruitment and incentives, do relatively little to develop latent capacities in researchers. Six promising unorthodox approaches are the promotion of regular writing, tools for creativity, good luck, happiness, good health and crowd wisdom. These options challenge conventional…

Increasingly universities are becoming commercial enterprises and their core activities of teaching and research subject to business imperatives. This paper reviews the research costing methodologies of 17 Australian universities. Tension between Competition Law and Competitive Neutrality exists which could be resolved through improved costing and…

This paper considers the profile of research administration, based on a survey of 36 Australian universities. The findings identify a group that is typically female, older and university qualified. Males tend to be more likely than females to have a research higher degree, earn a significantly higher salary and move up the salary scale at a faster…

Analysis of aggregated data files on staff sent by all Australian universities to DEST in 2007 and of salary schedules posted on university websites reveals a considerable variation between salaries paid to general staff at each salary level and the relative seniority of those staff. This paper outlines the differences in staffing structures and…

There is now a large range of studies that have considered various aspects and issues of Sino-foreign university collaboration--which remains a vexed and contentious issue. The aim of the present study is to identify the specific steps a group of Sino-foreign educational alliances took over their first two years--as viewed by Chinese and foreign…

This paper reviews three developments relating to professional staff in UK higher education. The first of these is a major report undertaken for the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LFHE), which has re-conceptualised the activities of professional staff within a theoretical framework of identity (Whitchurch, 2008a). The other two…

The university attendance habits of Australians, in a geographic sense, are different from those in the United States, the United Kingdom and many other western countries. Australian university students are less likely to move between major cities to study. This paper finds that in addition to this, within a large metropolitan area, university…

The "Australian Universities' Review" began its life in 1958 as the Federal Council Bulletin, and was known as "Vestes" from 1958-1988. Simon Marginson's paper follows the fifty-year history of the journal and reviews a number of themes and trends from that history. References in the text relate to these publications by volume and number, without…