CHEMP Activities
ANHEPR Home | What's New | Join the Network | Membership Database | Publications | Conferences | Contact
Origins of the Network
Across the Australian university system, there is considerable research expertise related to higher education policy and management. This expertise is typically located in education faculties, in departments such as economics, political science, sociology and management and university teaching and learning units. There is also expertise in these fields in various government agencies such as DEST and in non-government organisations such as the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee and the National Tertiary Education Union. Yet the expertise is highly dispersed and most of the networks linking researchers are not well developed. Moreover, within the university sector in Australia, there is no one centre or department which currently has the critical mass to enable a number of large scale team projects to be pursued simultaneously.
This situation in 1996 prompted members of the Research Centre for Higher Education Management and Policy (CHEMP) at the University of New England to apply for funding under the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiatives (SRI) Program to establish an Australian network similar to ones already established overseas for higher education policy and management researchers.
Inaugurated in 1996, ARC's SRI Program has the express purpose of supporting specific activities which encourage:
• networking among researchers;
• workshops and seminars aimed at developing or supporting collaborative research activities (primarily)
within the Higher Education Sector;
• the dissemination to the public of the outcomes of research facilitated under the program; and
• the co-operative development of a research capacity in fields which are not well represented in the Australian research effort.
(ARC Special Research Initiatives Program, Guidelines for Institutions, 1996: 1)
After gaining the strong support of higher education researchers and users, and policy developers in various government and non-government agencies around the country, an application proposing establishment of the Network was forwarded from CHEMP to the ARC in August 1996. The bid met with success and, following an injection of funding from the SRI Program to support the initiative, the Australian Network of Higher Education Policy and Management Researchers came into being in mid-1997. Following a Network meeting in December 1999 the name was changed to The Australian Network for Higher Education Policy Research.
Rationale and Functions
The main purpose of the Network is to provide a focus for the cooperative development of scholarly research capacity among a number of collaborating researchers in the fields of higher education policy and management. Via collaborative scholarly research, the main contribution of the Network is seen to be enhancement of the quality of the national policy information base. Such research ventures should provide policymakers and users of research with a stronger research base that will, in turn, assist them and institutional and system managers alike, with enhanced understandings of:
• selected major policy problems and policy issues;
• details of the operation of particular government programs and initiatives, and the effectiveness of organisational arrangements and management structures;
• alternative policy options and their economic and social costs;
• appropriate management models and processes to support high quality teaching and research activity; and
• comparative international perspectives on policy problems and possible responses.
The Network aims to facilitate further expansion of the considerable research strength already apparent in these areas. Further to this development is the strengthening of affiliations of Network members with counterpart agencies overseas, especially those in Europe, Asia and the Pacific, and the United States. In order to develop further the comparative international perspective, the Network will build links with similar networks in Europe and the United States. In Europe there are the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) and the European Association for Institutional Research (EAIR) which meet on an annual basis. A number of members of the Australian Network are affiliated with these consortia. In the United States the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) performs a similar function to its European counterparts and there is also a special division of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) dedicated to the scholarly study of higher education (Division J). Similarly there is a Japanese consortium of higher education researchers based in Hiroshima. Links with other researchers in Asia and the Pacific (including New Zealand) need also to be tapped.
The fragmentation of effort in Australia is particularly unfortunate in view of the size of budget expenditure on universities and on research activity, and the various policy and management issues that are matters of considerable current concern from a public policy perspective. The urgency of a sound research base for new policy initiatives has become even greater with various proposals emerging related to the funding of higher education, student support and greater deregulation for institutions, new policies being developed and implemented arising from various reviews of Australian higher education. Other important issues that have policy implications include the relationship of the higher education sector with government, globalisation, new technologies, inter-sectoral linkages, growth of the sector, institutional governance, managing diversity, market forces in higher education, changing research culture, the role of governing bodies, industrial relations issues, and changing work and academic values.
The Network's establishment is based on a number of assumptions including the belief that Australia's economic and social future is closely tied to the effectiveness of its higher education institutions and training initiatives, that appropriate policy and management research can be of assistance to policymakers and managers, and that well devised public and institutional policies need to be based on detailed and reliable information and on careful and critical assessment of options. It also is based on the assumption that the proper development of the higher education system in Australia is hindered currently by an inadequate policy information base.
Finally, there is a great deal of research in higher education of a highly applied nature with a short-term time span. It is highly desirable to place a greater emphasis on basic research related to the social science disciplines and to have more reflective and in-depth studies of a longer-term nature.
The specific aims of the Network are to:
• build an effective network among researchers which will lead to increased collaboration and cooperative development of research capacity through sharing of scholarly expertise and joint projects and mutual intellectual support;
• pursue policy and management studies of national and international significance;
• attract distinguished international scholars with special research expertise in higher education policy and management issues;
• lead to joint applications for outside project funding from a range of national competitive grant schemes for joint scholarly long and short-term research projects through provision of specialised support;
• help bridge the gap between researchers and senior officials in DETYA, state government agencies and higher education institutions by incorporating the potential end-users into activities; and to
• generally enhance the quality and effectiveness of outcomes of research to policymakers and the public through regular seminars, a major conference on a topic where there is considerable research potential, and a number of scholarly publications.
Key Focus Areas
The Network is concerned with a range of basic projects related to higher education management and policy at both institutional and system levels. It is anticipated that particular attention will be given to:
• international and comparative studies in higher education;
• internationalisation and globalisation;
• application of new technologies;
• inter-sectoral linkages;
• growth of the sector;
• new issues in university governance, especially the role of governing bodies and senior management, issues of so-called 'managerialism versus collegialism', managing quality assurance and the use of performance indicators and benchmarking;
• exploration of appropriate management structures to support quality higher education teaching and research;
• funding policies, including performance based funding of research and teaching;
• critical analysis of the objectives and detailed specification of particular government and institutional policies;
• the undergraduate and graduate curriculum, including the balance between disciplines, fields of study, length of courses, recognition of prior learning, academic standards, and the role of professions/industry in course design;
• teaching, learning and course delivery, including the application of new technology and innovative approaches to distance education and off-campus study;
• costs, resource allocation and the financial contribution made by students, parents, industry/business and government;
• the academic profession – recruitment, career paths, employment conditions, remuneration and new directions for enterprise bargaining;
• inter-sectoral linkages between higher education institutions and TAFE, schools, industry and professional bodies;
• future directions for research and R&D;
• issues dealing with deregulation, competition and market forces; and
• knowledge transfer and commercialisation.