Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC)
The Group of Eight (Go8) broadly supports the proposed outcomes and strategic priorities in the Australian Tertiary Education Commission’s (ATEC) first Statement of Strategic Priorities (SSP).
The first SSP is an important opportunity to establish a durable model of system stewardship – one which provides clear national direction while recognising the diversity, differentiation and specialisation of Australia’s universities.
A strong, resilient, dynamic and innovative tertiary education system will be built by harnessing the complementary strengths of different institutions, not by requiring institutions with different missions and capabilities to pursue uniform activities, priorities or outcomes.
This distinction is particularly important because the SSP must recognise the distinctive, interconnected contributions of education, research and research training and that research is a fundamental part of Australian universities. Research is an enabling part of the system that should be embedded across all priorities, as well as recognised as a standalone priority.
In particular, research and research training are integral to the success of the proposed new global engagement and collaboration priorities. Global engagement will be stronger and more consequential if it explicitly recognises international research collaboration and research talent, global research networks and research talent as core dimensions of Australia’s international engagement. Equally, research partnerships, translation, and shared research infrastructure should be central to the collaboration priority, reflecting the critical role universities play in bringing together knowledge, capability and partners to address national challenges.
The proposed new student experience and safety priority appropriately recognises an issue of significant importance to students, universities and wider community. However, its current framing risks defining the student experience principally through harm, risk and compliance, rather than through the positive conditions that enable students to participate, belong and succeed. The Go8 recommends reframing the priority as student experience and support. Safety must remain explicit and foundational, but support provides a broader and more constructive framework, encompassing both the prevention of and response to harm and the proactive academic, wellbeing and institutional environments that enable students to thrive.
The Go8 broadly supports the proposed outcomes and strategic priority architecture. However, the draft does not yet give sufficient weight to the central role of research and research training in Australia’s economic prosperity, social wellbeing, sovereign capability and national resilience. Research must be recognised both as a strategic priority in its own right and as a system-wide capability that enables progress across global engagement, collaboration, national priorities, workforce development and system resilience.
Recommendations
The Go8 recommends that the ATEC:
- Ensure universities can express the value their individual strengths and capabilities contribute within the broader priorities through the mission-based compact process.
- Retain research as a standalone strategic priority, while recognising research and research training as system-wide capabilities that enable progress across the broader framework.
- Strengthen global engagement by explicitly encompassing international research collaboration, global knowledge networks, research talent, mobility and trusted international partnerships.
- Broaden collaboration by giving explicit and appropriate recognition to education partnerships, research collaboration, research translation, innovation and shared research capability and infrastructure.
- Rename student experience and safety as student experience and support, with student safety retained as an explicit and foundational component of the broader priority.
Further information
Institutional diversity
The ATEC’s stewardship should focus on building the capability, capacity and resilience of the tertiary education system. The SSP should provide clear strategic direction and a basis for constructive engagement between the ATEC and universities, while preserving institutional autonomy, differentiation and the capacity of universities to pursue their distinctive missions.
The priorities should guide a strategic dialogue, through which universities demonstrate how their distinctive strengths and capabilities contribute to national outcomes. They should not evolve into quasi-regulatory requirements or a standardised performance framework that expects every institution to demonstrate the same activities or outcomes.Institutional diversity and differentiated missions are strengths of the Australian tertiary education system and should be reinforced, not diminished, through the SSP.
This distinction will be particularly important in the development of mission-based compacts. System-level outcomes and priorities should not automatically translate into additional provider-level targets, metrics or reporting obligations. Not everything that matters can or should be measured through a common quantitative indicator, and the contribution an institution makes to national objectives will reflect its mission, disciplinary profile, research intensity and operating context. The ATEC should therefore use the compact process as a genuine strategic dialogue, drawing on quantitative and qualitative evidence where appropriate.
Ultimately ATEC’s success should be judged by the strength, capability, diversity and resilience of the system it stewards, not by the degree of uniformity it creates within. A well-designed SSP should establish a clear strategic framework while leaving sufficient flexibility for institutions to determine how they contribute to its objectives.
Research as a system-wide capability
The existing research priority is an important and necessary component of the SSP. The draft appropriately recognises that research and research training support underpin Australia’s economic prosperity, social wellbeing, sovereign capability, national resilience and international competitiveness. The final SSP should preserve this broad conception and resist narrowing the value of research to immediate workforce, translation or commercial outcomes. Fundamental and discovery research, applied research, translation and commercialisation form an interconnected continuum. The capacity to translate and commercialise tomorrow depends on sustained investment in the people, ideas, capability and infrastructure of the research system today.
Research should also be recognised not simply as a standalone priority, but a system-wide capability that enables progress across the SSP. Research helps anticipate and shape emerging workforce needs, underpins high-quality teaching, generates new knowledge and industries, strengthens sovereign capability and national resilience, and provides the evidence needed to address complex social, economic, health, environmental and security challenges. Its contribution should therefore be explicit across the relevant priorities, particularly global engagement, collaboration, national priorities and workforce development.
This does not mean imposing uniform research expectations across providers. Australia benefits from institutions with different missions, levels of research intensity, disciplinary profiles and forms of contribution. Mission-based compacts should recognise that differentiation and provide a means for institutions to demonstrate how their distinctive capabilities contribute to system-level and national outcomes, rather than applying common research measures or activity expectations to every provider.
Finally, the SSP should clearly delineate ATEC’s research stewardship role from the responsibilities of research funding agencies and government departments. ATEC should strengthen the research system through strategic stewardship, not create an additional layer of research regulation, assessment or reporting.
Global engagement
The global engagement priority should recognise international education and international research collaboration as mutually reinforcing pillars of Australia’s international engagement and standing. The draft acknowledges international research, but its substantive emphasis remains weighted towards international education, sustainable growth, student experience and sector integrity. These matters are important, but they do not capture the full strategic value of universities’ global engagement.
International research collaboration connects Australia to global knowledge, expertise, networks and infrastructure and enables Australian researchers to contribute to challenges that no country can address alone. It also strengthens Australia’s capacity to attract and retain global research talent, participate in major international research programmes and partnerships, and build the trusted relationships that underpin scientific and technological cooperation. Global engagement also encompasses researcher and postgraduate mobility, science diplomacy and Australia’s contribution to global knowledge exchange.
The priority should therefore explicitly recognise international research collaboration, research talent, global knowledge networks and trusted research partnerships as core elements of global engagement. This would better reflect the contribution globally engaged universities make to Australia’s prosperity, capability, international capability and strategic influence.
Collaboration
The collaboration priority should give greater and more explicit recognition to research partnerships, research translation and innovation alongside education and workforce partnerships. The draft refers to research impact and translation, but its detailed framing focuses primarily on learner needs, curriculum relevance, work-integrated learning and workforce development. A broader approach should recognise collaboration among universities, industry, governments and communities as a critical mechanism for strengthening research, generating new knowledge, translating discoveries and building the capability needed to address national challenges.
This should include cross-institutional and interdisciplinary research, university-industry innovation partnerships, collaboration with governments and public agencies, community-led research, collaboration with First Nations communities, and shared access to specialist capability and research infrastructure. Collaboration is particularly important where national challenges require scale, complementary expertise, specialist infrastructure or sustained partnerships beyond the capability of any single institution or sector.
The ATEC should nevertheless avoid treating collaboration as an end in itself or as a substitute for sustainable core capability. Emphasis should be on universities focusing on and improving the quality, purpose and outcomes of partnerships, rather than the number of agreements or participating organisations. The framework should also recognise that effective collaboration takes different forms across disciplines, partners and places.
Student experience and support
The proposed priority addresses matters of clear importance to students, institutions and the wider community. However, the title student experience and safety risks framing the priority principally through harm prevention, institutional compliance and post hoc responses. Safety must remain explicit and foundational, but it should not define the broader student experience. A positive student experience also depends on the conditions that enable students to participate, belong, progress and succeed.
The Go8 therefore recommends renaming the priority student experience and support. This better reflects the breadth of the priority itself, which extends beyond safety to academic achievement, wellbeing, belonging, engagement, inclusion and accessibility. “Support” provides a broader and more positive framework, encompassing the academic, wellbeing, accessibility, cultural and practical support that enables students to succeed, while retaining safety as an essential and explicit component.
This broader framing would not diminish the importance of student safety. Rather, it would place safety within a positive and proactive conception of student success. Safe environments, effective prevention and appropriate responses to harm are essential, but they sit alongside the educational, social and practical supports that enable students to realise the benefits of higher education.
A predominantly safety-focused framing also risks drawing ATEC into areas already subject to dedicated policy, regulatory and complaints mechanisms. ATEC’s role should be complementary, not duplicative. The SSP should clearly recognise the respective responsibilities of the Higher Education Gender-based Violence Regulator, National Student Ombudsman and TEQSA, and avoid creating additional or overlapping compliance, reporting and assurance requirements. ATEC can add greatest value through system stewardship focused on the broader conditions for student support, participation and success.
Conclusion
The Go8 supports ATEC’s ambition to establish a clear and durable framework for stewardship of the tertiary education system. The proposed outcomes and priorities provide a sound foundation, including the retention of research as a standalone priority and the addition of global engagement, collaboration and, as recommended by the Go8, student experience and support.
The final SSP will be stronger if it recognises research and research training not simply as a discrete field of activity, but as national capabilities that underpin the broader framework. International research collaboration, global knowledge networks and research talent should be core elements of global engagement, while research partnerships, translation, innovation and shared research capability and infrastructure should be integral to collaboration.
Reframing student experience and safety as student experience and support would likewise strengthen the SSP. It would retain safety as an explicit and foundational responsibility while recognising the broader positive and proactive conditions that enable students to participate, belong, progress and succeed.
Ultimately, the success of the SSP will depend as much on how it is implemented as on how its priorities are framed. Mission-based compacts and the performance framework should recognise institutional differentiation and provide universities with the flexibility to demonstrate how their distinctive missions and capabilities contribute to national outcomes. System-level priorities should guide and strengthen the sector, not become uniform provider-level requirements.
A successful SSP should therefore combine clear national direction with institutional differentiation; meaningful accountability with proportionate measurement; and strong system stewardship with institutional autonomy.
This will enable ATEC to strengthen the capability, diversity and resilience of the tertiary education system, while preserving the specialisation and distinctive institutional strengths on which that system depends.