The reputation of Australia’s leading universities has taken a hit. Many have dropped in the ranking in the world's most prestigious higher education rating list.
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00:00There are 18 measures across the five pillars which reflect the university's learning environment,
00:07such as the teaching reputation, the student-to-student ratio, income per academic, and then there
00:12are some measures about research environment, such as the research income per academic,
00:17publications per academic, and then there are certain measures that look at the quality
00:21of research, such as the citation impact, the research strength, the excellence and
00:26how influential this research is, and then there are three measures about international
00:30outlook, which is basically about the students, staff, and international co-authorship.
00:36And then there is another dimension there that looks at industry, which basically looks
00:39at whether we are having income from industry and whether our university's publications
00:43are cited in patents.
00:45So the various measures capture students, staff, university finance, and research activity.
00:51And THHE has a reputation survey which weighs about one third of the overall ranking, and
00:56that is what has driven the university's performance down, together with the fact that we had the
01:02bad conditions in 2022, which was the data used by THHE for this year's ranking.
01:07Yeah, well, let's have a look at the Australian universities' performances.
01:11We've got a graph to show how they're performing that we can bring up now.
01:15The University of Melbourne coming in at 39.
01:19It's dropped two spots.
01:20Monash has dropped four, ANU six, University of Queensland seven.
01:24There are some exceptions to the rule, but can you take us through how Australian universities
01:29fared?
01:30Yeah, so over the years, we have done really well in terms of our reputation.
01:33So our reputation has been ahead in the way that we have been doing lots of different
01:38things.
01:39And the other thing, too, is the fact that in 22, which is the data used by Thames High
01:43Education this year, basically reflected the conditions back then.
01:48In 22, there were 27 Australian universities which had operating deficits.
01:53So that was really unusual.
01:55In the previous year, in 21, there were only three universities that had deficits.
01:59So basically, we knew that the data was going to be not good for that for this year.
02:05But perhaps the most surprising thing is the fact that THHE made some changes to the reputation
02:10survey, which reflected poor performance for Australia.
02:14And this is the area where we need to pay more attention now, because the reputation
02:18scores have been sort of weakening for some years.
02:22The past two years were sort of not so bad, but this year, it's just not that great.
02:26This is also reflecting the other rankings that have come across this year.
02:31Let's talk about some of the headwinds for the sector, because we know that there's quite
02:35a few here.
02:36Presumably, funding plays a pretty big part.
02:39How do you think the incoming funding pipeline is going to impact on the university's reputations
02:44and their results?
02:47It's going to impact dramatically, because basically, the less funding available for
02:52institutions, basically, it means that we'll be doing less when in research metrics and
02:56other metrics in relation to the learning environment.
03:00But also, it will hurt our reputation, because the university will have less ability to attract
03:06international students, which in turn fund research, fund research operations, and help
03:11to build our reputation.
03:13You mentioned international students there.
03:15We know that there are incoming caps on those.
03:17How is that going to play into the future results?
03:20I suspect it will be having the impact in the next two or three years, but probably
03:24we're going to see the impact sooner in the reputation surveys, because the word is out
03:29that Australia is not welcoming students.
03:32We need to manage that aspect about to what extent the messaging out there is negative.
03:39Given that reputationally, it looks like the forecast or what the results currently are
03:43is that we're declining, and the forecast in, say, your opinion is going to be difficult,
03:49what does this mean for Australian universities attracting high-caliber students?
03:55That will continue to be challenging.
03:56It has been challenging already for a number of years, because many of the top candidates
04:01prefer to go to the United States and the United Kingdom, because they perceive that
04:05education institutions from those countries are better quality.
04:08And with the caps now, that basically put more pressure on Australian universities to
04:12demonstrate that we are top-quality institutions.
04:14And remember, rankings drive the interest for lots of students to come to Australia
04:20and also for lots of researchers to work with us.
04:23So, you know, the fact that we are trending down is no good news.
04:26No, research was going to be my next area to chat to you about.
04:30I mean, we know research is so important that comes out of universities.
04:35What do you think the future holds, the near-term future holds, for, you know, really great
04:40publications and great research to come from Australian institutions?
04:44So, for a number of years, we have done really well in terms of our publications, and we
04:47have been living off the benefit that we have been producing good research that is getting
04:51cited and also cited in patents and in other top-quality publications and researchers.
05:00But if we are having less research income, it is going to hurt us.
05:03And potentially, we're going to see, you know, difficult environment in the next three to
05:07five years because we are going to be having less impact overall.
05:11But it also highlights that there are other countries up north that are doing a lot better
05:15where there's greater investment, and basically, they are taking that opportunity to develop
05:20their national system to a better quality standards than what currently we have here
05:24in Australia right now.
05:25Yeah, let me ask you about our international colleagues there.
05:30You've mentioned the US and the UK.
05:31They tend to dominate the top 10 ranked universities, you know, starting with Oxford, MIT, Harvard,
05:38Princeton, the usual suspects.
05:40What are they doing to stay on top?
05:42Well, typically, those countries, you know, the United States and the United Kingdom,
05:47they have had a long tradition in higher education.
05:49We basically are a relatively young country, and probably our higher education system has
05:53only fully developed in the past 30 to 40 years.
05:56So we are a way down.
05:58But also in those countries, there's a greater investment made on philanthropy, industry
06:04to support universities, and therefore, the ability to do more research.
06:07So conditions are quite different from that perspective.