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In an era where higher education institutions appear increasingly committed to what Sara Ahmed calls 'speech acts' whereby declared goodwill, through stated commitments to diversity, equity, and increasing Indigenous student enrolment and completion have been made; it is undeniable that Indigenous academics are in high demand. With fewer than 430 Indigenous academics currently employed here on the continent now commonly referred to as 'Australia', and 69% of that cohort identifying as female, what does it look like to experience this demand as an Indigenous academic woman? Drawing on data collected from a Nation-wide study in 2019 of 17 one-on-one, face-to-face interviews with Indigenous academic women, using Indigenous research methodologies and poetic transcription, this paper explores the experiences and relational aspects of Indigenous academic women's roles in Australian higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalent knowledge economy discourse has direct implications for higher education policies and practices. It is expected that the higher education sector supports national economic competitiveness mainly through promoting scientific research, supporting technological transfer and innovation, and producing 'knowledge workers' such as higher degree by research graduates. However in the context of changing work requirements and fast paced technological progress, the 'skills gap' between the labour market needs and the actual attributes of graduates has emerged as a tangible concern. This paper explores the issue of research graduate employability in Australia. Drawing on critical frame analysis, the paper particularly problematises the way research graduate employability has been framed in relevant policy texts, and shows what issues are excluded from the policy agenda and why. By way of demonstrating exclusions from the current debate on doctoral graduates' skills and employability, we briefly report on new data on the level of industry-engagement of research students at one large Australian university to argue that assumptions about the need to 'fix' the skills deficit of graduates have excluded from view high levels of industry engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]