Strategic mergers are formal combinations or amalgamations of higher education institutions with the aim of enhancing competitive advantage, or merging for "mutual growth". Recently, in a number of countries, there has been a decided shift from mergers initiated by governments, and dealing mainly with "problem" cases, towards…

Australian governments in recent years have invested substantially in innovation and research commercialisation with the aim of enhancing international economic competitiveness, making research findings more readily available to research users, and supporting economic and social development. Although there have been a number of evaluations of…

Major changes in government policy and institutional management have impacted adversely on Australian university academics who tend to be highly critical of the new directions and their effects on the academic profession. Academics strongly oppose reduced government funding per student unit, higher workloads and new styles of corporatist…

The export of higher education services has become a major and controversial aspect of the internationalization of higher education, especially with the current GATS negotiations. Over the past decade, Australia has become the third largest exporter of higher education, mainly to a limited number of South and East Asian countries. Australian…

Technology transfer managers are a new group of specialist professionals engaged in facilitating transfer of university research discoveries and inventions to business firms and other research users. With relatively high academic qualifications and enjoying higher salaries than many other comparable university staff, technology transfer managers…

In building capacity in research commercialisation and science-based entrepreneurship, Australia has adopted neither the Swedish top-down approach depending on government initiative, nor the American bottom-up approach depending on incentive systems related to university ownership of intellectual property and a highly competitive and…

A survey of Australian academics at four types of higher education institutions found that while there is a high degree of homogeneity, academics at pre-1987 universities are better qualified, have appreciably better publication records, spend more time on research and writing, and show more interest in research than academics in post-1987…

Governments of developed nations use a variety of policy instruments to enhance university research and knowledge transfer capabilities. These include advocacy, persuasion and information; consultation and committees of enquiry; creation of major research centres and commercialisation agencies, and investment in research infrastructure; grants,…

Using national survey data, explored the changing roles and personal characteristics of deans of faculties and heads of academic departments in Australian higher education institutions over a 20-year period. Found that the gap between the research record of deans/heads and professors widened and that deans/heads were somewhat less likely to be…