Australia’s Universities

Australia’s public universities are robust institutions that play a crucial role in strengthening the economic and social fabric of the country. They have a Grand Bargain with the state in which they are provided with base funding to educate students to participate in the growing knowledge economy. They also have a civic role to advance knowledge and understanding and to shape the debate on crucial issues like climate change. Because these roles require more money than is provided from government sources, the universities have adopted a commercial mindset. To guide this mindset, they each produce and publish an organisation-level strategy. We argue that these strategies are incomplete and often incoherent.