Numerous Australian universities drop in rank on global index

ABC NEWS (Australia)

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.

Transcript

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.

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