Mills Room, Chancelry Building
Australian National University
Canberra
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Professor Richard Larkins, Dr Glenn Withers, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the invitation to address you today.
This forum is absolutely central to my own portfolio of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. And it's also crucial to the Rudd Government's broader agenda. There is nothing that sits closer to the centre of our thinking than the 38 universities represented here today by you, their Vice-Chancellors.
I have met almost all of you, and I look forward to getting to know those few I haven't yet had a chance to meet. I hope to enjoy a productive relationship with each and every one of you in the exciting and challenging years ahead.
Universities are defined by three functions:
- Teaching;
- Research; and
- Civic responsibility.
Our universities are key to the Rudd Government's thinking because they are significant sites of knowledge production. Universities produce knowledge and ideas in two main ways. First, they transfer and spread knowledge and ideas – through their teaching function. They bring knowledge and concepts to people, enabling them to think for themselves.
Second – and this is of particular relevance to my portfolio – universities generate and create new knowledge and ideas. This is their research function. In particular, this is the function of basic research. And it requires creativity as well as technical skill. Indeed, creativity is, in many ways, at the core of innovation in both thought and technology.
So universities increase the total stock of knowledge both through the generation of more knowledge per se, and through adding to the stock of people with knowledge.
But universities also engage with the world in other ways. Science and research have long been drivers of cultural as well as economic progress. Creativity, discovery and dissent are vital to challenging the status quo and grasping new opportunities.
An environment of academic freedom is crucial to universities' capacity to fulfil each of their roles. That’s why restoring academic freedom has been such an important focus of the new Government’s first three months in office.
First 100 days
You will know, I'm sure, that the Government's first hundred days came around just last week.
To mark the occasion, the Government released a booklet outlining what we have achieved so far.
And you will be aware that innovation, and what makes for innovation, figured prominently on the list – right at the top.
The Prime Minister's list included:
- The Review of the National Innovation System, to be chaired by Dr Terry Cutler;
- (Under the aegis of this review, there will also be a review of the Cooperative Research Centres program, chaired by Professor Mary O'Kane;)
- The review of Australia's automotive industry; and
- In universities, the Government's announcement of the new Excellence in Research for Australia – the ERA – to replace the former Government's flawed RQF.
In addition, I have just announced a review of the textiles, clothing and footwear industry.
(The industry reviews I won’t be discussing today. But they will have implications for universities and university research, and I urge you to follow their progress, and to make a submission if you wish.)
On top of these initiatives, there has been a lot more work going on in my portfolio during the Government's first hundred days.
I have announced the establishment and composition of a new Advisory Council for the ARC. This move has been well received in the university sector.
My Department has been working on implementation of the new Enterprise Connect – a network of centres around the country designed to improve businesses’ access to the knowledge and ideas generated by universities and other researchers. (I'll come back to this a little later.)
I have also moved to begin the process of developing charters that will outline both the rights and the responsibilities of the scientists and researchers in our national research agencies.
And I have just returned from a visit to Germany and Belgium where, among other things, I have been discussing Australia’s bid for the Square Kilometre Array. This project has huge implications for basic research and industry collaboration in Australia – implications that go well beyond the field of radio astronomy.
A number of Australian universities are involved in this global project, led by CSIRO.
A key feature of our reform program is the internationalisation of the national innovation system.
I do not have time to dwell on the SKA project today – nor on my ambition for greater Australian involvement in the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP7). But I will have more to say about these issues in the next couple of weeks and am happy to answer questions about the Government’s approach.
Compact funding, and hubs and spokes
My Department has also started work on the new system of compacts that the Government will develop as a mechanism for funding universities. This is a significant structural reform designed to strengthen institutional autonomy; to encourage cultural change; and to boost the international competitiveness of Australia’s university sector.
Compacts will provide individual universities with greater ability to respond to change of all kinds. They will help us to create a more diverse higher education sector through a more flexible approach to university funding.
I want to stress that the development process for the new compact system will mirror the final outcome – in that it will be closely consultative. Every step of the way, too, my Department will be working with that of my colleague Julia Gillard, so that the final outcome for universities reflects adequately and accurately both the teaching and the research functions of your institutions.
The compacts will provide mission-based funding for each institution, tailored to its needs, priorities and strengths. They will increase transparency in decision-making about funding to institutions, and do away with the ad hockery of the previous Government's approach.
Universities will have a reciprocal responsibility to explain their purposes, and to report publicly on how well they have performed against their own goals and expected performance standards.
The compact mechanism will not become a means for creating teaching-only institutions, or for otherwise limiting and constraining universities. Rather, it will be designed to enable each of you to play to your strengths.
Compacts will assist in the formation of our "hubs and spokes" model for research. They will allow universities to identify their respective strengths, and their areas of emerging, as well as existing, research excellence.
Innovation: central to the Government's agenda
So why has my portfolio – Innovation, Industry, Science and Research – been accorded such urgent priority in the Government's first hundred days?
In part, it is about meeting the challenges of rising inflation and stagnant productivity growth.
The best way to ensure economic prosperity in the longer term is a well-educated population and a highly skilled workforce. The Government has moved quickly to begin implementing its education revolution.
But equally important to meeting the challenges we face as a nation – and as a planet – is a strong, vigorous innovation system.
Tried and true ways are no longer good enough. And that is where university research comes in. A vibrant innovation system is more than ideas and discoveries – but it's ideas and discoveries that form the basis, the raw material for innovation.
Implications for university research
All this has clear and far-reaching implications for university research, and university researchers.
This is something that needs careful thought.
As I have mentioned, I am in the process of formulating charters that will set out the rights and the responsibilities of researchers in our public research agencies.
The universities look after this issue for themselves – though I am well aware that, over the last decade, a climate of unease has prevailed, at least in some quarters.
University academics have not felt entirely confident to speak out about their research, where this has had bearing on Government policy. Those that have spoken publicly have sometimes incurred the wrath of the Government itself. They have been held up to ridicule and their reputations have been questioned. There have been many instances of this – I don’t need to cite them here. This made academics think twice before they spoke up.
At the same time, the previous Government used its funding powers to exert influence over universities themselves.
There was an unmistakable trend towards discretionary funding, away from a formula-based approach. This meant that Vice-Chancellors and senior administrators began to look over their shoulders every time they made a decision.
Just one example of this approach was the HEWRRs. The former Government made a series of funding increases dependent on adherence to its workplace reform agenda, in particular the application of AWAs to employees.
I hope you won’t mind my making the observation that, to my mind, the Government’s treatment of universities had a tendency to render universities a little tentative in their relationship with Government.
This meant that they were sometimes less than able to fulfil their proper role as guardians and creators of knowledge – let alone their legitimate role as generators of debate, enablers of dissent and challengers to the status quo.
You will be pleased to hear that I have no intention of standing at your elbow and interfering with the way you run your universities.
The previous Government took the view that public intellectuals, our universities and our public research agencies were not to be trusted. It was presumed in the culture wars that the intellectual elites were hostile to the Government's agenda and priorities.
Labor, on the other hand, sees creativity as essential to problem solving, which is at the heart of innovation. That is why we have taken early steps in the policy areas of science, research and universities.
I will not be at the side of the research scientist at her bench, the philosopher at his whiteboard, or the historian at his desk.
However, I will put you on notice that the new Government’s approach to innovation, and to universities as part of our national innovation system, is of itself innovative. Just as the Charters will articulate the Government’s expectations of scientists, the Government expects that universities and their staff will engage actively with the society of which they are part.
This is not just a right, but an obligation. Just as we expect university academics to be good teachers and good researchers, we also seek their engagement with society as part of their civic responsibility role.
Because your institutions are part of the broader Australian community – linked to industry and the world of work; to the world of art and culture; and to social structures and social organisation.
We want universities to be more responsive about social and economic engagement. You will tell me that your institution is already open and responsive to the broader world. But I say there is still more that can be done.
Every link in the innovation chain must be strengthened and invigorated. If we are to lift our performance in innovation, then universities, industry and the community will need to become more aware of each others’ resources and capacities.
This will mean shifting into a new gear. It entails a new culture.
I don’t mean that those in the academy should turn their backs on their laboratories and libraries, and rush headlong out through the university gate. I do mean that they need to be thinking differently about what they do. For many, the reference point has to change.
The pursuit of knowledge, on the one hand (basic research), and research commercialisation on the other, are not mutually exclusive, but are part of the same continuum. Researchers seek knowledge and understanding in their respective fields, and that knowledge might be esoteric or abstract. But I am saying that this set of activities needs to be conceived as just one aspect of a much bigger project.
Enterprise Connect
One way to facilitate new ways of thinking – both for universities and for business – will be the Government’s Enterprise Connect program. This will consist of five manufacturing centres, plus a number of specialist centres, around the country.
The centres will be staffed by people who are expert at bringing together researchers from universities and public research agencies with those in industry – to solve problems and create new products and processes.
One specific program to be run within Enterprise Connect is Researchers in Business, a $10 million initiative to support the placement of researchers from universities or public research agencies into businesses. Under this initiative, we will fund up to 50 per cent of salary costs – to a maximum of $50,000 – for each 12 month placement.
Such placements will aim to develop and implement new ideas with commercial potential, but they will also help to break down the cultural divide between business and the research sector.
The Government is hoping to establish an interim advisory structure to work out the detail of how Enterprise Connect will operate. When this eventuates, I will appoint to it someone with a deep knowledge of the role of universities in the national innovation system.
I am hoping that the interim advisory structure can be operational within the next few weeks.
Research quality: the ERA
Another mechanism designed to strengthen our national R&D effort is the new system of research quality assurance – Excellence in Research for Australia, or ERA.
It is vital that we have a strong university research capacity benchmarked against international standards. We need to know how Australian research measures up against that of other, similar countries. And we need to know that the billions of dollars we spend on research each year are being spent wisely. That is what ERA will deliver.
We will base our new system squarely on peer review. Peer review keeps everyone honest. Leading Australian and international researchers will evaluate research activity in each of the ARC discipline clusters, as well as clusters covering health and medical research.
The cluster reports will set out by institution and also by discipline those areas that are internationally competitive. They will also identify emerging areas where there is potential for development.
We plan to start off with disciplines where metrics are widely accepted as an appropriate measure – such as the physical and biological sciences. At the same time, we will continue to consult with those in other disciplines about quality measures appropriate to them. We will ensure that there is expert review of metrics in all disciplines where they are used.
The ERA will build on the good work already carried out in universities to define research strengths. ERA will inform the development of our “hubs and spokes” model for research infrastructure.
I must emphasise again that the aim here is not to deny to any university, or any university academic, the right to undertake research. All universities will be research-active, and all academics who wish to do so will have the opportunity.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to confess to a huge delight in my portfolio. I have come to it with great enthusiasm and, I hope, with the energy and understanding to play my part in bringing to fruition the Rudd Government’s plans for Australia and Australians.
I trust that today I have gone some distance in outlining my vision for the role of universities and university research in the Government’s program of reform. I have no hesitation in saying that this is a program aimed at achieving cultural change across the national innovation system – from the lecture theatre to the boardroom; and from the laboratory to the factory floor.
It is an ambitious program. It will be an exciting and challenging ride. I look forward to working with all of you, individually and collectively, to make our great country even greater – a nation that is prosperous, secure, culturally vibrant and socially inclusive. I think that’s the country we all want to live in.