Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In order to be helpful, Minister, I do have recommendation 5 in front of me. It says:

Along with teaching, the undertaking of research is, and should remain, a defining feature of what it means to be a university in Australia; a threshold benchmark of quality and quantity of research should be included in the Higher Education Provider Category Standards. This threshold benchmark for research quality should be augmented over time.

Universities Australia in their response and, I assume, in discussions with the government say that 30 per cent of a university's research should be at a world standard in the areas that they provide specialty in now in order to be properly regulated under the framework that this government is administering and that, in 2030, 50 per cent of research should be assessed as being at a world standard. Australia—despite the efforts in some parts and lack of effort in others, despite hostility in some other parts and lack of care, I suppose, despite that attitude from the federal government—does 2.6 per cent of the globe's research that is assessed as being at world-standard research level, despite us having 0.3 per cent of the world's population. Indeed, it's that research, over the course of the postwar period, that has led to the greatest advances in Australian agricultural production and Australian industry, the advances that have led to the greatest growth in Australian jobs and indeed good quality jobs. That's pretty important not just for the future of the university sector but for the government having a strong approach to regulating the proportion of world-standard research that each of our universities conduct. Can the minister advise the Senate what this legislation proposes to do in that regard?