Australian higher education reviewer Mary O¡¯Kane has been enlisted to run the independent commission she instigated to oversee her reforms.

Education minister Jason Clare told a Parliament House gathering that he had appointed O¡¯Kane, a former University of Adelaide vice-chancellor and New South Wales chief scientist, as interim chief commissioner of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec).

She will be supported by former Western Sydney University vice-chancellor Barney Glover, now commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia, and Larissa Behrendt, a law professor and Indigenous rights advocate at the University of Technology Sydney. The pair were on the panel of the Australian Universities Accord, which O¡¯Kane chaired.

Clare said the Atec would ensure that the accord reform agenda ¡°doesn¡¯t gather dust¡± or get forgotten by a future government. He promised legislation in the second half of this year to ¡°formally establish¡± the commission, if his Labor Party wins the looming federal election.

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In the meantime, O¡¯Kane and her two colleagues will set up and run Atec on an interim basis from 1 July. ¡°I am getting the band back together,¡± Clare told Universities Australia¡¯s Solutions Summit. ¡°The people who wrote the accord will help to make it real.¡±

In a speech to the conference dinner, Clare highlighted his government¡¯s achievements in early childhood and school education. He listed higher education reforms including payments for compulsory student practicums, an expansion of enabling courses, funding for new study hubs and the establishment of a National Student Ombudsman¡¯s office and an Expert Council on University Governance.

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Clare said changes to student debt indexation had saved graduates more than A$3 billion (?1.5 billion), and his party had made post-election promises to slash student debt by a further 20 per cent and to fund more university places for general practitioners.

¡°None of us are in these jobs forever, but for the last two-and-a-half years or so it has been a real privilege to work with you,¡± he told the gathering. ¡°I really look forward to addressing this gala dinner again, this time next year.¡±

Meanwhile, a proposed overhaul of Australian Research Council (ARC) schemes would slash the number of competitive grant programmes from 15 to six and boost opportunities for early career academics.

Recommendations in a new discussion paper would streamline the National Competitive Grants Programme (NCGP) into schemes of between two and seven years, with indicative funding ranging between A$50,000 and A$7 million.

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ARC chair Peter Shergold said the ¡°overwhelming focus¡± would be to give early career researchers the ¡°leg-up that they require¡±. An equally important goal was to support academics at any stage of their careers to undertake research crafted ¡°to push the broad boundaries of our knowledge or to test widely accepted theories or interpretations¡±.

¡°Our view¡­is to place NCGP where it can drive cross-pollination and collaboration across basic and applied research, rather than making a distinction for funding purposes,¡± he told the conference.

The proposals would reduce the number of fellowships and ¡°embed¡± them in projects and project teams, Shergold said. A key role of laureates would be ¡°leading and mentoring groups of earlier stage researchers ¨C in other words¡­contributing to the development of the next generation of researchers¡±.

The ARC board has begun consultation on the proposals, having already consulted on their development. Feedback to the paper is due by 13 April.

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com