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One fundamental aspect of organizational transformation in higher education is the change to the profile of universities' non-academic workforce. Key staffing trends identified in recent studies conducted in a variety of national settings include an increase in the proportion of non-academic staff at universities and a shift toward more highly qualified and remunerated non-academic roles. This paper examines the extent to which these trends have played out at Australian universities over the period 1997 to 2017. Drawing on unpublished sets of staffing data, the analyses show that while the proportion of non-academic positions at Australian universities has remained largely stable, there has been a striking and uniform growth in management-rank positions, concurrent with a substantial decline in lower-level and less expensive support roles. This has some significant implications, in particular the growth in more complex "corporate" structures, the relatively fewer staff to support academic work, and the increase in the relative costs associated with maintaining the non-academic workforce at Australian universities.

The paper offers a synthesis of findings from an international initiative coordinated by the Asia Productivity Organisation (APO) to measure higher education productivity across nine Asian countries. The paper discusses benefits, barriers, and potential for estimating university productivity across international contexts. Stakeholders from nine participating countries collected and analysed institutional data and reported measurement results. The APO initiative represents the first multi-country test of an adapted productivity measurement model first advanced by the United States National Research Council (NRC). The research provides evidence for proof of concept of the adapted NRC model for use across international contexts. Additional findings demonstrate the range of productivity definitions and interpretations for higher education. The paper concludes by showing priority areas for both targeted and broad developments in research and practice of measuring productivity in higher education.

Public universities worldwide have incorporated neoliberal behaviours and norms across their activities, moulding organizational practices, processes and cultures. In particular, these changes have been expressed through forms of academic capitalism and increasing 'marketization' of public university activities. A little explored perspective on these changes is that of senior leadership within higher education. This paper addresses this topic by examining how 116 higher education leaders view 32 key issues for the future of Australian higher education in the next 10 to 20 years. Half the participants in this study were university vice-chancellors or presidents or those who were part of their senior leadership team, and the other half were leaders outside universities including government leaders responsible for budgets or policy or those in national academic organizations. Generally, both the university and the non-university leaders of the Australian higher education system perceived nearly all of the issues for its future as at least moderately important. Many traditional academic goals of knowledge generation, dissemination and application were seen as high priorities. Rated among the top ten issues were student learning outcomes and ensuring student accessibility to higher education, as well as addressing the needs of society and research on grand challenges facing humanity, such as climate change and food security. At the same time, higher education leaders viewed most of the issues related to both marketization and academic capitalism as important, including issues of internationalization, the balance between tenured and contract academics, and the role of university-industry joint research. Traditional academic goals appear to be tightly bound to components of marketization and academic capitalism. The leaders' perceptions of the importance, meaning and trajectory of Australian universities suggest core goals of higher education will likely need to continue to be balanced with the emerging neoliberal agendas

Leadership matters for the success of large enterprises and this is also the case for higher education institutions and universities. Yet, the public nature of universities and of academia means these institutions are usually highly dependent on external actors, in particular government. Viewed through a lens of distributed leadership, this paper explores how leaders in universities, national academies and government view and rate key changes associated with this pervasive reorientation and reorganisation of public higher education. It asks where do the views of leaders within universities and those outside universities converge and diverge and what patterns are evident in the differences between leaders? Drawing on 116 in-depth interviews and 114 follow-up surveys with senior higher education leaders in Australia, of which just over half were university senior executives, this paper concludes that all leaders surveyed are largely aligned in their views of most issues.

One fundamental aspect of organizational transformation in higher education is the change to the profile of universities' non-academic workforce. Key staffing trends identified in recent studies conducted in a variety of national settings include an increase in the proportion of non-academic staff at universities and a shift toward more highly qualified and remunerated non-academic roles. This paper examines the extent to which these trends have played out at Australian universities over the period 1997 to 2017. Drawing on unpublished sets of staffing data, the analyses show that while the proportion of non-academic positions at Australian universities has remained largely stable, there has been a striking and uniform growth in management-rank positions, concurrent with a substantial decline in lower-level and less expensive support roles. This has some significant implications, in particular the growth in more complex 'corporate' structures, the relatively fewer staff to support academic work, and the increase in the relative costs associated with maintaining the non-academic workforce at Australian universities., Author(s): Gwilym Croucher [sup.1] , Peter Woelert [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1008.9, 0000 0001 2179 088X, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne, , 3010, [...]

Public universities worldwide have incorporated neoliberal behaviours and norms across their activities, moulding organizational practices, processes and cultures. In particular, these changes have been expressed through forms of academic capitalism and increasing 'marketization' of public university activities. A little explored perspective on these changes is that of senior leadership within higher education. This paper addresses this topic by examining how 116 higher education leaders view 32 key issues for the future of Australian higher education in the next 10 to 20 years. Half the participants in this study were university vice-chancellors or presidents or those who were part of their senior leadership team, and the other half were leaders outside universities including government leaders responsible for budgets or policy or those in national academic organizations. Generally, both the university and the non-university leaders of the Australian higher education system perceived nearly all of the issues for its future as at least moderately important. Many traditional academic goals of knowledge generation, dissemination and application were seen as high priorities. Rated among the top ten issues were student learning outcomes and ensuring student accessibility to higher education, as well as addressing the needs of society and research on grand challenges facing humanity, such as climate change and food security. At the same time, higher education leaders viewed most of the issues related to both marketization and academic capitalism as important, including issues of internationalization, the balance between tenured and contract academics, and the role of university-industry joint research. Traditional academic goals appear to be tightly bound to components of marketization and academic capitalism. The leaders' perceptions of the importance, meaning and trajectory of Australian universities suggest core goals of higher education will likely need to continue to be balanced with the emerging neoliberal agendas, Author(s): Gwilym Croucher [sup.1] , William B. Lacy [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1008.9, 0000 0001 2179 088X, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, , Melbourne, [...]

Ensuring effective university governance and leadership is more important than ever before given contemporary transformations of higher education functions, institutions and social roles. This paper reports contributions which seek to stimulate research in this field. Drawing from the formative case study of Australian universities, it discusses prevailing insights and gaps in leadership research, and articulates theoretical dimensions of good governance, an analytical framework for studying the empirical nature and work of university senior leaders, and the characteristics of contemporary arrangements. The paper contributes methodological approaches, analytical frameworks and empirical insights which are designed to generalize and replicate in broader research.

Doctoral training continues to grow in scale and scope in Australia, but has been subjected to far less design and improvement compared with other facets of higher education. Governments and universities engage in ongoing change which helps respond to opportunities and challenges but also leads to a proliferation of options and approaches. The current research study was seeded and shaped by the ambitious view that despite such refinement the doctorate remains in need of much bolder and deeper design, and particularly design with an education focus. This paper reports outcomes from a four-year national project which sought to articulate a doctoral design architecture. The paper discusses framing contexts and concepts, design and characteristics of the doctoral architecture, then implications for sectoral, institutional and individual practice. It concludes that this kind of architecture can provide a useful guide for growth.

Leadership matters for the success of large enterprises and this is also the case for higher education institutions and universities. Yet, the public nature of universities and of academia means these institutions are usually highly dependent on external actors, in particular government. Viewed through a lens of distributed leadership, this paper explores how leaders in universities, national academies and government view and rate key changes associated with this pervasive reorientation and reorganisation of public higher education. It asks where do the views of leaders within universities and those outside universities converge and diverge and what patterns are evident in the differences between leaders? Drawing on 116 in-depth interviews and 114 follow-up surveys with senior higher education leaders in Australia, of which just over half were university senior executives, this paper concludes that all leaders surveyed are largely aligned in their views of most issues.

The growth of the doctorate in recent decades has spawned concerns about programme quality and external relevance. This article reports findings from research conducted in Australia that was shaped by the view that the doctorate remains in need of educational clarification and design. The research generated insights that can be used to modernise and realign the doctorate. First, this article discusses the development of a doctoral education framework. Next, it presents results from a questionnaire developed using the framework and administered in a national survey to both five-year-out doctoral graduates and to doctoral experts. This identifies the need to design programmes that better orient and align research training with students' professional aspirations, incorporate more real-world forms of learning, enhance traditional aspects of research training and provide structured reports of doctoral outcomes, experiences and preparations. The results underpin the need for more specific analyses of outcomes and assessment, the nature and distribution of doctoral experiences and the design and management of the resources that go into doctoral education.

The United States has been the leader in fundamental research for the last seven decades. Fundamental research is overwhelming undertaken in or in conjunction with research-intensive universities, and since the 1950s they have depended on US Federal funding to make this possible. This support has been consistently championed by Congress, is popular across the political spectrum and enjoys long public backing, in no small part because there remains a widespread trust in the societal benefits it provides. Yet the US now faces a dilemma over the future of this national achievement and the supporting arrangements making it sustainable. The ‘social contract’ for science and research now looks more tentative than at any time since the Space Race. This paper examines why many US university leaders, faculty, experts and policy-makers are increasingly concerned, what is driving this and how they are responding. Building on 37 interviews with university, academic and government leaders, this study uses a mixed methodology to explore perceived institutional challenges and the politics around them, alongside the responses and strategies of US research-intensive universities in the context of global, national and regional policies. This paper examines tensions in the relationship between universities and government, and between researcher and public, combining perspectives from a sample of leading research universities and from national policy leaders to offer insight into the intersection of Federal policy and local operationalization. It concludes that for the future of US basic science and research two factors are likely to be decisive, being whether the strength of the public backing for funding university-based fundamental research continues, and how universities respond if, and in the assessment of many, when this support erodes. If the current research system is to remain viable, universities will need to make greater efforts to rebuild trust and understanding with the US public and litigate anew their raison d'etre at the center of US research.

This study provides an overview of the history, current status, and future challenges to the Australian university system through the eyes of its leaders. Hopefully, the report will be informative and useful and will raise critical and important issues that need to be considered and addressed for the continuing success of the system and the society it enables. The intended audience includes: university leaders, managers and staff; higher education policy makers and analysts; and, Australian and global higher education researchers and scholars.

The paper contributes to the growing and often controversial study of higher education productivity measurement. The paper clarifies core productivity ideas, and considers alternative models for productivity assessment. Results from these models are explored using data from Australian higher education. Findings reveal implications for the technique and the practice of higher education productivity measurement. The paper provides evidence that productivity change estimates in higher education are not robust to the choice of estimation method. The research then demonstrates how the practice of higher education productivity measurement may benefit from approaches different to conventional econometric means of estimating frontier efficiency. Focusing on the drivers of productivity change and on the value weighting of data elements in models may provide more nuanced and actionable information for stakeholders and decision-makers. The paper concludes by urging more work to advance this field.

This paper analyses the international financing of higher education, an important yet understudied facet of contemporary policy and practice. The paper takes the globally significant China-Australia relationship as a case study. This paper argues that analysing the international political economy of the China-Australia case better illuminates the dynamics of financials flow through situating them in their socio-political context. Through such analysis, the paper makes empirical contributions of relevance to policy and practice. It also contributes more broadly to reframing the design of work in this field by asserting the methodological need for analysing international finance and the conceptual need to take such matters into account.

The theory of institutional isomorphism has been criticized for overemphasizing organizational convergence and neglecting organizational divergence. Drawing on a range of empirical data, this paper shows that multi-dimensional accounts of isomorphic change are not necessarily incompatible with accounts emphasizing divergence as a typical form of organizational response to environmental uncertainties. The specific case investigated is the proliferation of academic organizational units teaching law at Australian universities over a ten-year period (1987-1996) that saw far-reaching structural transformations of the Australian university system. The key heuristic strategy employed in this paper is to scrutinize (a) when isomorphic responses appear to occur, and (b) which specific organizational form they take. In the empirical case examined, scrutiny of each of these dimensions strongly suggests that at least some isomorphic responses of universities were driven by a dual agenda of manifesting not only similarity but also distinction.

This article traces the development of four narratives of financial assistance for Australian university students – to encourage excellence; to meet public need; to build the stock of human capital; and as universal provision – and their effect on the development of a fifth narrative, centred on the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). Financial support schemes have been provided by governments, industry, philanthropic and religious groups, or a combination of these. These narratives reflect deep-seated ideas about the meaning and value of education, and the emphasis placed on public or private benefits. This article shows how these narratives have affected access to university and who has attended. It shows the influence of student support schemes in shaping higher education in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing interest in university-industry collaboration (UIC) calls for a need to develop frameworks and compare overseas models to better understand how successful UIC occurs. This article provides a framework for analyzing UIC across three dimensions: environmental, technical, and managerial. It further breaks down these dimensions to suggest key attributes that can inform us about how dimensions can develop and improve. Subsequently, we use the framework outlined to analyze seven countries' UIC policies and frameworks and present key findings. The findings of this research include the importance of building and training a workforce ready to engage across sectors and of creating clear intellectual property policies, and the need for dedicated programs and national policies that support UIC growth.

Previous research has highlighted the occurrence of isomorphic tendencies--convergences in terms of formal organizational structure--in higher education systems in times of uncertainty and under external pressure to change. It has been repeatedly claimed that the Australian university system largely followed a logic of isomorphic change in the aftermath of radical national policy reform of the late 1980s. Yet to date, there is a lack of comprehensive empirical studies testing this thesis. Addressing this lacuna, and drawing on a range of university and government data, this paper tracks and analyses: (a) changes in the formal academic organizational structures existing at all public Australian universities and (b) changes in the numbers of academic staff and students in different academic organizational groupings over the period of 1987-1991. Despite some limitations in the available data, our system-level analysis finds that there was clear and significant convergence in terms of formal organizational structures and student and staff numbers in the majority of academic fields that were taught and researched at Australian universities at that time. We also draw attention to some conceptual limitations of existing accounts of isomorphic change in Australia and outline trajectories for future research supplementing the system-level analysis presented here.