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Universities had their fingers crossed that the second Rudd government budget would deliver some of the promises to the sector despite the blooming government deficit in response to the global financial crisis. Indeed, vice chancellors went to some effort to convince government it is good investment, Universities Australian commissioning KPMG economic modeling to highlight the value of higher education to the nation's economy.
Did the government deliver? Opinion is divideded. $5.3 billion looks good, but much is due over four to six years, by which time a changed a new governement may be in Canberra, or the global economy may have shifted again.
Governance and performance of universities
A new report by the National Bureau of Economic Research, titled The Governance and Performance of Research Universities: Evidence from Europe and the US, investigates how university governance affects research output, measured by patenting and international university research rankings.
The authors, from Harvard, Stanford, Université Libre de Bruxelles and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, generate several measures of governance and competitive funding over decades for both Europe and America. They show that university autonomy from state policy and open competition for research resources are positively correlated with university output. They conclude
The most natural overall interpretation of our results is that frontier research is a complex thing that a university can only pursue effectively if it has the discretion to direct resources and researchers towards what it believes are the most promising paths. Universities will put more effort into directing resources well if they knows that rewards are allocated based on competition, especially competition that is strictly merit-based.
The paper is available from the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Social Science Research Network
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