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Governments in the UK and many other countries have long sought to promote the diversity of their higher education institutions. However, diversity is hard to define, harder to measure and even more difficult to compare between countries. Most empirical analyses of the diversity of higher education systems use categorical variables, which shape the extent of diversity found. This study examines continuous variables of institutions' enrolment size and proportions of postgraduate, fulltime and international students to find the extent of variation amongst doctoral granting and all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. The study finds that there is less variety amongst all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom than in Australia, which in turn has much less variety than the United States. The paper argues that the extent of government involvement in higher education is not so important for institutional variety as the form that it takes. More tentatively, the paper suggests that the more limited the range of institutions for which government funding is available the stronger government involvement is needed to have variety among the limited range of institutions for which government financial support is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the idea of the university from the first-in-family enabling students' perspective. It provides an overview of the current crisis of meaning in scholarly commentary that points to a spectrum of meanings about the university. This spectrum ranges from the ancient imaginary of the monastic university as 'ivory tower' to the instrumental idea of the entrepreneurial university. The analysis then reports on the idea of the university in over 40 interviews and surveys of first-in-family enabling students who attended two large regional Australian universities in 2014. Their metaphorical understandings of the university constitute a powerful imaginary about what a university is and can do for individuals and the wider society. For many, the resolution of the individualistic passion for knowledge of 'ivory tower' studies and the commitment to the social and economic usefulness of the fully engaged entrepreneurial university can be found in the pursuit of the passionate career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the positioning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach programmes within universities' operations. Though universities in many respects form a rather homogenous international community, there is wide diversity in regard to the provision of STEM outreach by different institutions. To explain this diversity, a conceptual framework was developed by using the Theory of Legitimacy as an organising concept. The framework considers two opposing scenarios that form a continuum between them, namely: 'top-down' initiative by the university governance versus 'bottom-up' grass-roots initiative. Using the Theory of Legitimacy, internal and external outreach relationships are characterised and explained under the two scenarios. The framework was applied to two settings chosen due to their essential differences in outreach provision, namely, Australia and Israel. The differences that were found in internal and external legitimacy provide a useful lens for examining the low-performing, fragile system in Australia as compared with the high-performing, thriving system in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to earlier reviews by the author of the changing roles and identities of contemporary professional staff in UK higher education, and builds on a categorisation of professional staff identities as having bounded, cross-boundary and unbounded characteristics. Drawing on a study of 54 professional managers in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, it describes a further category of blended professionals, who have mixed backgrounds and portfolios, comprising elements of both professional and academic activity. The paper goes on to introduce the concept of third space as an emergent territory between academic and professional domains, which is colonised primarily by less bounded forms of professional. The implications of these developments for institutions and for individuals are considered, and some international comparisons drawn. Finally, it is suggested that third space working may be indicative of future trends in professional identities, which may increasingly coalesce with those of academic colleagues who undertake project- and management-oriented roles, so that new forms of third space professional are likely to continue to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes a metric, the research quality index (RQI), for assessing and tracking university research quality. The RQI is a composite index that encompasses the three main areas of research activity: publications, research grants and higher degree by research activity. The public availability of such an index will also facilitate benchmarking (internally, competitively and generically) by academic units in universities. This has become an important activity in Australia with the proposed introduction of the Research Quality Framework (RQF) as the future research funding mechanism for Australian universities. The RQF is a quality-based system that will replace the existing funding system that is focused on the volume of research output, not quality. Benchmarking, using the RQI, will allow academic units to track their progress towards their quality targets and facilitates internal and competitive benchmarking, allowing academic units to assess the efficacy of their research quality enhancement strategies and policies on an annual basis. The paper illustrates the compilation and operation of the RQI. The RQI is a short-term tracking methodology for use in between the cyclical major research quality assessments. With modifications, it is applicable in a wide range of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the application of performance indicators on the teaching and research activities of 152 university academics from four representative Australian universities. Most of the participants reported an increase in pressure to focus on the activities measured by the teaching and research performance indicators. A majority of the participants also indicated that their approach to teaching and research have changed. In research, this essentially meant focusing on external research grants applications and publications, and maximising the quantity produced from these activities. Some staff did use various strategies to increase their scores such as writing shorter papers in order to increase the quantity of publications. Moreover, a sizeable proportion of the participants indicated a shift in their work priorities towards research at the expense of teaching. One possible reason could be the lack of special incentives to increase their emphasis on teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traverses three consecutive policy periods with respect to Australian higher education equity, the first two driven by the policies of successive Labor Governments and the third by a highly deregulatory market liberal Coalition Government. It identifies the distinguishing characteristics of the national equity policy, planning and reporting framework put into place by Australian Labor Governments in the first of these periods (mid 1980s-mid 1990s). The second and abruptly concluded period is significant in terms of the evaluation it provides of the achievements of that framework and the elaboration of the principles, policy and procedures required to entrench progress over the longer term. The paper goes on to identify what remains of that framework in the third and contemporary era, given that the policies of the current conservative Coalition Government have brought about changes in higher education funding and policy directions which threaten to reverse what progress had been made in the two earlier periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restructuring of the Australian labour market decreased demand for low-skilled workers and increased demand for highly skilled workers and professionals further strengthening the relationship between educational and occupational attainment. To satisfy the demand for highly educated workers, the government reorganised the higher education sector increasing the number of universities and trebling the number of places for domestic undergraduate students. Analysing data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, this paper examines the association between parents' education and the likelihood of graduating from university for six birth cohorts of Australians. Overall, the findings suggest that although the expansion of the higher education sector in Australia provided alternative pathways into university, differences in educational attainment, on both quantitative and qualitative dimensions, persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some universities rely on their élitism as one mechanism to attract and retain talented faculty. This paper examines two groups of élite and non-élite universities and the mediating effect that work engagement has on affective commitment and intention to quit. Findings indicate partial support for the mediating effect of work engagement in the non-élite group but no support in the élite university group. The implications of these diverse results are posed for the management of academics in élite and non-élite universities, suggesting that a 'one size fits all approach' to performance outcomes does not always fit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to assess and conceptualise the effects of new managerialism-related organisational reforms in three Australian public universities on technical, administrative and clerical support staff job stressors and job satisfaction. Using a mixed method approach consisting of a quantitative core component and qualitative supplementary component it was found that six different types of stressors were evident: time, information; supervisory; work environment; staffing and pay; and career. Path analysis showed that these stressors were closely connected to reduced job satisfaction, which could be ameliorated by employee participation, improved communication and work-related social support. However, the qualitative analysis suggested that the prevailing climate of managerialism was not conducive to such improvements. It is concluded that while appropriate human-resource management strategies have the potential to prevent the worst consequences of change, there is some doubt about the ability of university managers, captured by new managerialism, to create and implement such an approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education in Germany and Australia is being subject to pressures of market forces, internationalisation and financial constraints. This had led to both systems experiencing significant crisis and change over the past 20 years. In this paper, frame analysis is used to compare the changing policies in each nation and examine the extent to which the landscapes of each system have been transformed. It is found that higher education policy in both nations underwent significant change in the late 1980s and again in the early 2000s, impacting on system structures and institutional forms. There is now evidence of further change occurring in both nations that may mark a transition to a ‘post-public era’ in higher education. This analysis reveals a degree of convergence in the neo-liberal policy trajectories of both nations but differences in the rate and nature of the transitions taking place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual sector universities (or duals) are a growing international phenomenon that cut across the divide that typically exists in post-secondary education. Duals combine ‘further’ and ‘higher’ education within a single institution providing enhanced opportunities for student transition between post-secondary sectors. This paper reports the results of an international survey of duals in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. The results indicate that duals operate divergent operational models in managing the structural challenges of cross-sector education characterised as unitary and binary. Many duals contend that state and provincial government regulation militates against the integration of structures, processes and human resources within a dual sector context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article undertakes a feminist critique of the restructuring of the modern university in Australia. It considers the interaction of the processes of globalisation, corporatisation (through the twin strategies of marketisation and managerialism) and the social relations of gender, and their implication for gender equity work in the academy. The paper locates the reform of Australian universities within their Western context, and considers the gendered effects of the new disciplinary technologies of quality assurance and online learning on the position of women academics. It concludes with some comments about the shift in language from equity to diversity which has accompanied corporatisation, and how this has effectively coopted women’s intellectual labour to do the work of the entrepreneurial university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]