We have argued that there are a number of important dilemmas facing Australian higher education if it wishes to pursue greater systemic diversity. However, we have also argued that greater diversity and diversification in higher education are essential in terms of the changing nature of social relations and the changing global knowledge economy.
One a priori issue is how to better conceptualize the operation of diversity in Australian universities. We noted in the beginning the way that the reality and substance of diversity disappears as one stands back to categorize and make system wide observations. Given the historic pressures in Australia for conformity, the pursuit of equity as equal provision, and the short period of time historically in which to develop much less celebrate useful diversity, there is a need to find a new framework which allows us to 'see' diversity, to talk about it, and to create structures and processes which facilitate its development. This needs to also be done in a way suitable to Australia at the beginning of the twenty first century.
Burton Clark34 refers to the substance of what goes on in universities as "the academic heartland". We are unlikely to reach an understanding of what diversity in higher education is and might be without entering and exploring this heartland.
Rejecting the conventional view that the scholarly work of universities is best described in terms of teaching, research and community service, Ernest Boyer35 argued that scholarship as a whole has four aspects, all interrelated and in different proportions at different times: teaching, application, integration (or synthesis), and discovery. According to Boyer,
What we urgently need today is a more inclusive view of what it means to be a scholar - a recognition that knowledge is acquired through research, through synthesis, through practice, and through teaching. We acknowledge that these four categories - the scholarship of discovery, of integration, of application, and of teaching - divide intellectual functions that are tied inseparably to each other. Still, there is value, we believe, in analyzing the various kinds of academic work, while also acknowledging that they dynamically interact, forming an interdependent whole. Such a vision of scholarship, one that recognizes the great diversity of talent within the professoriate, also may prove especially useful to faculty as they reflect on the meaning and direction of their professional lives (p.25).
Perhaps it is not too much of a disservice to Boyer to say that his four scholarships can be differentiated in terms of four different kinds of practices (of communication, connection and production) relating members of the university community to one another and to people outside the university. Through its practices of teaching, universities connect with potential students, students and graduates; through practices of integration, they connect to wider communities and the general public sphere; through practices of application, they connect to the professions, business and industry, and government; and through discovery, they connect to the communities of scholars whose work constitutes intellectual fields and disciplines.
In general, universities do not aim to be places where the practice of any one form of scholarship develops in isolation from the others. That would be to imagine universities as stratified or segmented by separate functions associated with each scholarship. It might be to imagine the work of different members of the University being defined primarily in terms of just one set of the relevant practices and relationships. For example, it might be to imagine universities as places where one group of people is primarily responsible for teaching, while another group is responsible for research.
On the contrary, universities do aim to be places where the practice of each scholarship is enriched and enhanced by its being conducted in relationship with the others. They aim to be places where the practice of each form of scholarship is enhanced through practical relationships with people drawn from all four of the audiences principally associated with these scholarships. In such a way, universities aim to have each of their members contributing actively to a wider web of personal, practical and social relationships stretching beyond the "small world" of the university itself36. This is not to suggest, however, that every member of the academic staff of a university will have the same profile of relationships across the four scholarships; indeed, it is to be expected that any particular individual will have different patterns of working relationships at different times.
Equally, there are differences between departments within universities in terms of their profile of work across these four kinds of scholarship. While most departments are structured around the scholarship of teaching, many centres are structured around research - though centres vary in the degree to which they focus on discovery research or other kinds of (application) research and development linkages with the professions, business and industry, and government agencies.
It is also clear that universities differ from one another in terms of their general profiles of scholarly work. To mention just a few of the differences, some have a greater preponderance of 'discovery' research (especially in medical science and 'big' science); in teaching, some have more students, and some a wider range of curriculum offerings; some are more national and some more local in their 'application' linkages to the professions, business, industry and government; in some, there is a greater encouragement of the 'integration' role of academic staff as 'public intellectuals' who contribute to major contemporary debates and discussions in the wider community.
We will use Boyer's four categories as a starting-point to analyze the increasing diversity of higher education in Australia.
The Scholarship of Teaching (or Discourse)
This is the form of scholarly work in universities through which "the work of the professor becomes consequential only as it is understood by others". It begins with what the teacher knows, and reaches out to "create a common ground of intellectual commitment" with students. It aims to "stimulate active, not passive, learning and encourage students to be critical, creative thinkers, with the capacity to go on learning after their college days are over". It requires that scholarly teachers be "well-informed, and steeped in the knowledge of their fields", and that their work be "not only transmitting knowledge, but transforming and extending it as well". Through the scholarship of teaching, teachers and their students "keep the flame of scholarship alive".
The scholarship of teaching involves practices of teaching and learning and relationships which connect teachers and students. It involves practices of communication which engage teachers and students with texts - in acts of speaking and hearing, and reading and writing. This engagement leaves its traces not only in the minds of students and teachers but also, by accumulation, in the public record which constitutes a field, a discipline or profession.
The scholarship of teaching is based on an active view of teachers as people continuously developing their scholarship of teaching. On the one hand, it views them as lifelong students of the specialist knowledge of their fields; on the other, it views them as lifelong students of teaching. It also takes an active view of students. On the one hand, it views them as learners who participate actively in the construction of their own knowledge through their practices of learning - not as passive recipients of knowledge, as if knowledge were only an adornment, possession or competence. On the other, it views students as the rising generation of scholars who will take their turn in preserving and developing knowledge and scholarship in their fields - as heirs to the stewardship of their teachers.
Australian higher education is diverse, and becoming more diverse, in terms of the scholarship of teaching. Not only is there increasing diversity in what is taught and learned (internal differentiation of fields of study, new fields of study, new kinds of degree programs), but also in how teaching and learning are conducted (resource-based teaching, experiential learning, on-line education, and so on).
The practices that formerly defined much teaching and learning in Australian universities (lectures, tutorials, labs, essays, and examinations) are still widespread. On the other hand, there is also substantial experimentation and development under way to explore the potential of other approaches to teaching and learning, especially with the change from elite higher education to mass higher education. In addition, there has been significant change in the institutional structures by which teaching and learning are developed, conducted, monitored and evaluated. Collegial control of the work of individual university teachers by Program Committees, Boards of Studies and Academic Boards, under the governance of Senates and University Councils, has been supplemented by much more vigorous mechanisms of staff induction and development, curriculum development, assessment, information technology support, and quality management. There is much more assistance available to academic staff in the development of their scholarship of teaching, and much more consciousness (for example, through staff appraisal, and monitoring of student retention and success) of the processes and products of teaching and learning in the university.
These practices and institutional structures are both enhancers and inhibitors of diversity and diversification of the scholarship of teaching in contemporary universities. Meeting regional demands, opportunism about new markets and market niches, and responsiveness to the diverse needs of different clients of the mass university are among the factors that enhance diversity and diversification in the substance and form of the scholarship of teaching. Among the factors that may inhibit innovation and diversity are: over-sensitivity to the offerings of (local, national and international) competitors; mimicry of successful approaches tried elsewhere; consortium curriculum development; some forms of collaboration; narrow, performance-indicator-based processes for monitoring and bench-marking the quality of teaching (employed by universities and governments); and conservative academic norms and values.
The scholarship of application
This is the form of scholarly work in universities through which theory and practice in the scholar's special field of knowledge are connected, especially in professional activity, though also in other forms of community service37. This scholarship is directed towards the questions "How can knowledge be responsibly applied to consequential questions? How can it be helpful to individuals as well as institutions?"
The scholarship of application involves practices of professional and community work, and social relationships which connect members of the scholarly community of the university with a wide variety of individuals, organisations and enterprises in the professions, business and industry, and government. It involves partnerships and alliances, and practices of communication, beyond the individual university, focussed on contemporary problems of practical economic, cultural, social and environmental significance outside the university. Because it engages problems of practical moment and significance, the scholarship of application frequently rebounds on the other forms of scholarship, requiring further research, further education, or further integration with knowledge across the boundaries of fields, disciplines and professions.
While universities in general have not always been good at connecting their knowledge with community needs and interests, Australian higher education is becoming more diverse in terms of the scholarship of application. For example, universities have formed a wide range of research and development linkages with business and industry, the professions, government and other agencies. Some are in the form of contracts for university services, some are other kinds of partnerships and alliances to work on problems of direct practical consequence for the non-university partners, in areas where the linkage can assist the continuing development of specialized knowledge and expertise within the university. And these linkages are formed not only in areas of applied research leading to the development of technologies; they are also in areas that contribute to the development of society (for example, through the development of policy and professional practice in a wide range of fields), culture (for example, through various kinds of contributions to the arts, media and humanities) and environment (for example, through contributions to environmental management and the preservation of Australia's natural heritage).
The practices that constitute the scholarship of application are becoming more diverse. There is far greater institutional emphasis on forming and developing linkages with diverse users of knowledge, experts outside universities, and knowledge-based industries as an aspect of both research and community service. These are then sources of new inputs for universities (for example, additional funds, new problems, additional resources and expertise from partner organizations). They change patterns of work and production within universities (for example, through the formation of cooperative research centres and other kinds of industry partnerships, and by bringing university teachers into close contact with the contemporary problems and practice of the professions, business and industry). And they create the conditions for a vast range of new outputs from universities (contributions to technology, policy, society, culture and the environment).
These changes have been paralleled by changes in university institutional structures. They are evident in the growth and development of Offices of Research, university companies, cooperative research programs, consulting arrangements and procedures, the administration of university contracts, and the control of intellectual property, to name just a few. They have become a focus for strategic development at the level of the department and the university as a whole, not only because they represent an increasing share of the university's income, but because they also contribute to its overall development, specialization and differentiation from competitors.
The conduct, and the management and administration, of the scholarship of application are increasingly significant to the reputation and income of the university vis-à-vis the communities it serves. As they become more critical to the university as a whole, university practices and institutional structures related to the scholarship of application can be both enhancers and inhibitors of diversity and diversification. Factors enhancing diversity include responsiveness to local need and opportunity, and the development of research concentrations and specialisms. Factors inhibiting diversity and diversification include: federal government budget reductions and the control of funding in this area; central university control of scarce strategic development funding; central university privileging of small numbers of research centres that promise to generate major payoffs for industry (and especially saleable intellectual property); stronger central and departmental management and administration of applied and strategic research and consulting; and the use of a narrow range of performance indicators to evaluate the success of different kinds of work in the scholarship of application.
The scholarship of integration or (synthesis)
This form of scholarly work involves "making connections across the disciplines, placing the specialties in larger context, illuminating data in a revealing way, often educating non-specialists", through "serious, disciplined work that seeks to interpret, to draw together, and to bring new insight to bear on original research". It aims to answer the questions "What do the findings [of research] mean? Is it possible to interpret what's been discovered in ways that provide a larger, more comprehensive understanding?"
The exponential growth in knowledge has increasingly resulted in academic disciplines pushing the boundaries of their specializations; at the same time, they are increasingly borrowing from each other. It used to be the case that when the boundary of a discipline was pushed there was nothing on the other side. Now, it is likely that on the other side there will be another discipline pushing towards it. These days, there are few pressing research or social questions that can be answered from within the borders of a single discipline - as is illustrated in a range of fields including biotechnology, marine science, cognitive psychology, and the like. The scholarship of integration refers not only to connections beyond the academy, but also to connections within it.
The scholarship of synthesis involves practices and social relationship connecting members of the University with people and groups in the wider community, and in contributing to contemporary debates in the wider public sphere constituted through the public media, and the open communications of various kinds of associations and networks. On the one hand, it involves practices of communication in which specialist knowledge is placed in more general frameworks; on the other, it involves hearing and appreciating the different contributions and perspectives of diverse people and groups. It makes specialist knowledge accessible to non-specialists, and it opens specialist knowledge to critical scrutiny in the public sphere.
Universities' contributions through the scholarship of integration are diverse and becoming increasingly so. Universities are a local (and national and international) source of expertise for a diverse range of groups in the wider community. In a range of settings from television and the print media to informal discussions, local groups seek access to specialist knowledge about contemporary problems and issues. They also look to the university as a source of contributions to culture, the arts and humanities - new ways of seeing old problems.
As the range of specialisms within the university develops, as multidisciplinarity grows, and as societies become more complex and differentiated, universities have become increasingly vital as interpreters of knowledge and social, economic, cultural and environmental change. University staff are encouraged not only to be 'public intellectuals', but also - and more modestly - sources of local advice on contemporary problems and issues. New practices of the scholarship of integration are emerging, and, along with them, new institutional structures. As these interactions become more critical to the reputation, public image and public utility of the university, universities have developed a variety of units and procedures to stimulate and constrain the scholarship of integration. Examples are increasing numbers of multidisciplinary courses and degrees, the rise of Community Relations units, registers of expertise, public lectures, and - more notoriously - internal processes of censorship which attempt to avoid or contain conflicts between academic freedom and the interests of powerful sponsors.
Here, too, developing practices and institutional structures are both enhancers and inhibitors of diversity and diversification. Among other factors enhancing diversity, academic staff are encouraged to make their expertise more available to the community at large, and universities make greater efforts to publicize the fruits of their research and development work. Within the university, internal processes encourage and reward collaboration and interdisciplinary developments. At the same time, there are factors inhibiting diversity. These include universities' management of their public image (which sends messages within the institution as well as to the community beyond), and the increased workloads that make it more difficult for the individual academic to find time for roles as discipline specialists, as collaborators in interdisciplinary developments, and public intellectuals.
The scholarship of discovery
This form of scholarly work involves contributing, through research, "not only to the stock of human knowledge, but also to the intellectual climate of [the] university". It aims to answer the questions "What is to be known, what is yet to be found?"
The scholarship of discovery involves practices, social relationships and connections between the people whose work constitutes the knowledge of a discipline, field or profession. On the one side, it focuses on the current research activity and practices of communication by which new contributions are added to the public record of a field ; on the other, it implies a thorough grasp of how the public record stands - the existing knowledge of the field38, and the intellectual traditions which constitute it39.
The scholarship of discovery is vastly more diverse than in universities even twenty years ago, and becoming more diverse. Not only has there been a rapid diversification of specialized fields and problems, there has also been continuing differentiation of (and within) the sources of funding for discovery research. National competitive research funding - much of it for discovery research - is one of the most prized indicators of the standing of a department or a university. Contributions to peer-reviewed journals and publications are among the most prized indicators of departmental or university generativity and productivity.
The practices and institutional structures that shape success in the scholarship of discovery are a mater of great institutional self-consciousness and awareness. They are strategized, managed and administered at every level of the organization, from the research group to the university as a whole. They are increasingly heterogeneous, following specialized development and differentiation in every field of study in the professions and disciplines. And, in every area, the practices and institutional structures of the scholarship of discovery both enhance and inhibit diversity. The unique approach that leads to a new break-through develops hand-in-hand with convergence on problems and methods, mimicry of successful strategies, standardization of federal funding strategies, standardization of institutional procedures for managing research, and increased reliance on key performance indicators as measures of local success. Within the academy, perhaps most powerful of all is the influence of professional academic norms and values40, to which academic staff are socialized through years of research training and supervision. These can exert a conservative influence on the scholarship of discovery, maintaining what Thomas Kuhn41 called 'normal science' even where researchers themselves aim to do 'extraordinary science'.
The entrepreneurial university and a more entrepreneurial higher education system
Boyer calls for strengthening each of these four aspects of scholarship. In our view, this means intensifying the relationships between the university and the kinds of client groups associated with each face of scholarship. It means stronger and more vital connections, more open two-way communication, and closer ties of partnership and productive collaboration with each. Arguably, this more active engagement with its partners leads a university in the direction of becoming more "entrepreneurial".
Burton Clark42 identifies five characteristics of the entrepreneurial university:
- a strong steering centre (which permits a university to have a strong sense of mission, purpose and strategy, and to implement it),
- a 'developmental periphery' (which permits and encourages departments to set targets and reach them, and to interact productively with the various clients of their scholarly work),
- mixed public/private funding (which expands and diversifies the resources available for scholarly work, while also providing stability over time),
- clear and sustained efforts to strengthen the academic heartland (a strong focus on the scholarly work of the university, which permits and encourages academic staff to innovate and develop the quality and impact of their scholarship), and
- generalization of the entrepreneurial culture through the whole institution (so all units become more effective and efficient, not hampered by bureaucratic modes of operation or by some disabling forms of 'collegiality').
Clark's five features of the entrepreneurial university can be transferred 'up' a level to explore - at least loosely - possible characteristics of an entrepreneurial higher education system. They might be used as criteria for exploring the extent to which current and future government mechanisms for regulating and funding the higher education system as a whole support and sustain the development of each of these five features within universities. To the extent that government regulation weakens the capacity of universities in any or all of these areas, it may disable their substantive capacities to be more responsive to need and opportunity, and thus constrain the diversity of Australian higher education as a whole43.
Reflecting on factors inhibiting and enhancing diversity, we have used Clark's features of an entrepreneurial university as a framework around which to gather some observations about a more entrepreneurial higher education system in Australia.
The Australian higher education system requires a stronger steering centre. This cannot be achieved by greater government control of universities; there is already a sense that current regulatory and funding mechanisms intrude into the affairs of universities, limiting their capacity to make autonomous decisions in the interests of the various clients of university services and of innovation. Instead, a more powerful means of mediating between national and local interests is required - though it must be one that actively promotes the functions and values of higher education through each university and the system as a whole, and in the interests of the balanced development of the system as a whole.
Effective steering from the 'centre' does not mean centralized control. It requires more sophisticated, inclusive and cooperative administration, regulation and funding mechanisms. It requires creating forums in which negotiations between individual institutions and the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs are not conducted as a set of one-to-one, one-way negotiations between supplicants and sponsors, but as a process aimed at coordinating the capacities of institutions in relation to national interests and the interests of higher education. In our view, the independent Commissions were more effective in fulfilling this coordinating role and in mediating between national and local interests, guided by the interests and values of higher education and the criterion of balanced development of the system as a whole.
In our view, this coordinating and mediating role could be fulfilled by an independent commission for higher education. Such a commission should be composed of experts in higher education familiar with the range of scholarly functions of universities, and representatives of the client groups of university scholarship (teaching, application, integration and discovery), together with representatives from government. Such an independent body for higher education could formulate, coordinate and advise government (and the universities) on questions of mission, purposes and strategies for the system as a whole in relation to the missions, purposes and strategies of individual universities. On the one hand, it could advise government on the operation, development, regulation and funding of the system as a whole, though each autonomous university. On the other, it could advise each university about its operations and proposed developments in relation to strengthening its local, regional, national and international scholarly connections, communications and contributions as a distinctive member of the national network, and in relation to balanced development of the system as a whole.
A further role for an independent commission for higher education could be in monitoring the quality of universities and the system as a whole. We have argued that complex practical judgments, as well as funding formulae, are required in reaching decisions about funding universities. Powerful synergies would be created if an independent commission advising governments and universities about higher education and its development were also involved in raising and exploring issues about quality in higher education. We have argued that quality must be understood more substantively, in relation to the scholarly work of universities, not just in general procedural terms (ensuring that institutions manage quality assurance processes, use benchmarking, and refer to quality standards). There would be merit in involving an independent commission in the quality assurance process, bringing together representatives from government, universities and the various clients of higher education programs and services. Even if its quality role were functionally parallel to other aspects of the work of the Commission (that is, not bound up in the processes concerned principally with allocation of resources), it would improve the powers of judgment of such a commission. It would help the commission as a whole to develop discourses relevant to the different aspects of scholarship, in different fields of study and research, and thus to ground its decisions more securely and more substantively in the potential of each university and the system as a whole. It would help to give substance to judgments about national priorities and interests in relation to the strategic priorities and local interests of individual universities. And, finally, it would assist the commission in advising individual institutions about the quality of proposed developments in relation to specific client needs and interests, since it would have a national perspective on how scholarly developments in other universities are responding to needs and interests in various fields.
The Australian higher education system should be administered, regulated and funded in ways that actively and positively encourage quality and responsive development of higher education through each university. It should respect and enhance the legal autonomy of universities enshrined in their Acts. To the extent that it is compatible with the interests of self-government and self-determination of all universities, a strong steering centre for the system as a whole should respect and support the self-development and self-determination of each university. Though with an eye to national priorities, needs and circumstances, the administration of the system as a whole should be actively responsive to needs and opportunities identified by each university.
Individual universities should be assertive in determining the directions of their self-development. While all have statements of mission and goals, and strategic plans of various kinds, we believe that there would be merit in clarifying and strengthening many of these statements, and (just as importantly) using them much more positively in the allocation of resources. That is, the principal basis for regulating and funding universities should be to make it possible for them to operate autonomously, exercising the powers conferred by their Acts for the objects specified in their Acts. Funding and regulating them for balanced development of Australian higher education as a whole is a necessary but secondary principle. (If and when this secondary principle is dominant, it may amount to unreasonable interference in the constitutional autonomy of universities.)
Within universities, of course, the principle of the 'developmental periphery' also requires more positive steering of operations and development at the departmental level, and through centres; adopting it at the level of the higher education system in relation to a developmental periphery of universities does not override the need for a developmental periphery within universities, and for the same reasons.
Higher education should be funded by government at a level that permits each university and the system as a whole to function without unnecessary instability and uncertainty. Government funding and funding policies should also encourage and assist universities to extend the resources available for their work, in each area of scholarship - teaching, application, integration and discovery. In each of these areas, it should assist universities to increase the proportion of private funding in the public/private funding mix.
In relation to teaching, for example, it could assist universities to increase their income from student fees (though recognizing the limits on students' capacities to pay, and supporting their education through public subsidies of different kinds). In addition to current HECS and the availability of full-fee-paying courses for different groups and levels of students, "SuperHECS" arrangements of the kind suggested by Miller and Pincus44 should be explored as ways of increasing the proportion of private funding in the public/ private mix.
In relation to application, government could assist universities to develop linkages with business, industry and the professions, and to tap new resources - for example, through more generous tax rebates for research and development, and through providing matching funds for key developments of local and regional, as well as national, significance. There is at present a danger that a renewed interest in 'national priorities and needs' will become yet another common template pushing all universities to compete on the same terms, in the same areas, and ignoring local and regional priorities which are, we have argued, equally important in higher education.
In the scholarship of integration, governments could assist and support universities in contributing to social, cultural and environmental affairs, as well as economic development, again with an eye to local and regional as well as national impact. In order to assist universities in having a greater impact on social, cultural, environmental and economic debates and discussions, improvement in the level of core support for universities is needed, since, with increasing academic workloads, the scholarship of integration is the most vulnerable.
In funding discovery research, government may still have the greater responsibility. Nevertheless, government should assist universities to expand the proportion of private funding available, through tax support and other measures. This, too, requires improved core support for each university as well as for national competitive research grants bodies like the ARC and the NH&MRC. The competitive funding mechanisms of such bodies does deliver key funding to key projects and research programs on the basis of merit, and through segmented competition which is more effective and efficient than the open competitive mechanisms used in other areas (for example, for innovations in teaching and learning). On the other hand, however, improved mechanisms must be found to deliver basic support to every university to strengthen core discovery research capacity. The research quantum approach, funding research on the basis of past performance and using a narrow and distorting composite index, progressively advantaged some universities at the expense of others (in a zero-sum game). More effective mechanisms must be found to strengthen the core research capacity of each institution, especially but not only in relation to discovery research45. The 'venture capital' funding approach we have suggested may be such a mechanism.
According to Meek and Wood (1998)46, "The Green Paper [that initiated the formation of the Unified National System] stated that governments would fund institutions for what they do, not for what they are called..." (p.4). In part, this means funding universities to meet many capital and running costs incurred in their operations, which amount to sustaining the viability of the funding already sunk in their infrastructure. The old block grant funding mechanism, which used historical costs as the principal basis for determining triennial allocations, was based on this approach. But what was intended by the new regime was a closer relationship between funding and function. The profiles approach and other current regulatory and funding mechanisms aimed to achieve this, though for many reasons already discussed, these approaches have become problematic.
Given the rich substantive diversity in what universities do, however, it has been difficult for governments to respond appropriately to realize their intention of linking functions and funding more closely. Instead of historical operating costs as a basis for funding, what has been achieved, in effect, is historical operations as the principal basis for funding. The profiles approach, for example, takes existing operations as the basis for funding, and permits change and development at the margins. The national competitive grants schemes generally reward researchers with established records in their fields. The research quantum as a component of operating grants rewards established records of research performance at the level of the whole institution.
A more effective approach to regulating and funding university functions would certainly need to take historical costs and operations into account, but it would also deliver resources more specifically in terms of functions. In our view, this requires recognizing functions, and the diversity of functions in 'what universities do' more substantively. It requires placing a higher value on achieving the goals of higher education through each university and the system as a whole. To do this, mechanisms for regulation and funding should permit more focused and substantive negotiation between governments and universities to achieve a better balance between funding existing capacities and proposed developments. Any new mechanisms should not entirely separate funding mechanisms for teaching, application, integration and discovery (which need to develop in relation to one another), but they should attend more carefully to the actual communication and connection between universities and the various clients of each of these faces of scholarship. In particular, the new mechanisms should focus on the substantive work being done in each domain of current operations and proposed developments. It should also assist in achieving a balance between local and regional development impact, on the one hand, and impact in the interests of national development through higher education, on the other.
An entrepreneurial higher education system would not only recognize and support whole universities, it would also be capable of engaging the 'developmental periphery' within universities. To be more responsive to the interrelationships between circumstance, need and opportunity in developing scholarship, the system must recognize and support quality strategically, in relation to particular operations and developments within universities. Those conducting the quality rounds - in the main, senior academics from universities - were able to experience something of the internal diversity of operations and developments within universities, and to form differentiated views of their specific contributions in relation to different clients of universities, on the one hand, and, on the other, the overall strategic development of each university (Maling and Keepes, 1998)47. The flaw was that the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education was obliged to recommend the allocation of 'quality' funds to whole institutions (in six groups in the first round, three in the second, and through a more complex weighting system in the third). As Maling and Keepes observed, the process (especially in the first two quality rounds) had a 'league table' effect, "reinforcing a concept and status of a University as an older well established institution with a strong emphasis on research" (p.40), and, to that extent, discouraging diversity.
The British Research Assessment Exercise, by contrast, rates departments, not whole universities, in terms of their research performance in their fields, and delivers resources to them in relation to levels of research performance. While this mechanism is flawed in another way (rewarding historical performance, potentially at the cost of developing local and national capacity), it demonstrates that, at least in the dimension of research, it is possible to devise mechanisms that connect with the detailed work of institutions - rather than at the whole-institution level. We would not recommend the approach adopted by UK Research Assessment Exercise in relation to allocation of funds, but we would recommend it as an approach to connecting with the work of academic organizational units within universities. It demonstrates that it is possible for a national body to engage with, and make judgments about, scholarly work at the sub-institutional level48.
The final feature of Clark's entrepreneurial university concerns the development of an entrepreneurial culture across the whole institution - in service areas as well as in the work of departments and centres. In relation to the higher education system as a whole, one might consider how each institution can make best use of its infrastructure in terms of serving local, regional and national interests in ways that might supplement and strengthen the scholarly work of the university, if only by generating additional resources (for example, from commercial use of university facilities).
A more important aspect of the development of an entrepreneurial culture across higher education system as a whole, however, is that a stronger steering centre for the system could be more actively responsive (by contrast with current arrangements, which are more passive and reactive). The old Commissions were responsive in the sense that they responded to university bids for development, but they were mostly reactive to universities' current operations and planned developments. They made recommendations on funding to government, but were relatively passive in relation to the development of the system as a national system of scholarship. More actively responsive roles could be envisaged - for example, more active brokerage and advisory roles through which an independent commission for higher education might also advise and support universities in relation to proposed and potential developments. It might also assist in building cooperative arrangements between autonomous institutions in a number of areas, to reduce inefficiencies of competition (as happens, to an extent, in current procedures for developing large-scale research infrastructure in collaborations between universities and between universities and other research organizations).
Establishing an independent commission for higher education capable of these more active roles would pose a challenge to the role of the Higher Education Division of DETYA, and to the roles of the Research Councils, requiring careful definition of the distinctive responsibilities of each. Nevertheless, it is our view that such an independent body is required if the goal of developing a more entrepreneurial higher education system is to be achieved. |
