Australian state governments should relinquish their right to choose university board members, according to a researcher who has catalogued the governing bodies of Australia¡¯s 39 universities.

Thomas Barlow says state government control over university governance is ¡°absurd¡± and ¡°out of line with widely accepted standards¡± while also exacerbating a shortage of experience on councils.

With Australian universities mostly regulated at the state level, state and territory governments typically appoint four ¨C and in some cases as many as eight ¨C of an average of 16 governing body members, despite providing less than 2?per cent of university funding.

Dr Barlow¡¯s says this is ¡°detrimental¡± as well as unjust, because ¡°political processes create selection incentives that are very different from those that universities actually need¡±.

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¡°Where a single government appoints multiple councillors, there will be a natural tendency towards homogenisation, both of values and expertise,¡± the report says.

Dr Barlow¡¯s review found that governing bodies were massively overstocked with professional and financial services experience while lacking firepower in just about every other field.

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Externally appointed members proved about 16 times more likely to have qualifications in law than in computer science, denying councils the deep insights they needed to address ¡°the challenges and opportunities of the digital age¡±, he says.

The review found that the proportion of council members with business backgrounds was far higher than business faculties¡¯ share of universities¡¯ enrolments, staff numbers or research spending or output. By contrast, the percentage of trustees with credentials in technology and particularly health was well below these fields¡¯ share of university teaching and research.

Likewise, the life and physical sciences¡¯ prominence in research was not reflected in councils¡¯ membership, although this shortfall was mitigated somewhat by an oversupply of vice-chancellors and executives with backgrounds in these areas.

¡°I wouldn¡¯t have said this really mattered 20 years ago, and maybe not 10 years ago,¡± Dr Barlow told Times Higher Education. ¡°But it matters now.¡±

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Dr Barlow said international education revenues had given institutions and their councils ¡°much greater discretionary resources¡± to mould research strategies that had once largely been shaped by the results of funding grant applications. He said career background helped to shape perspective, spawning ¡°fundamental differences in the way [occupational] communities think, the way they act, [and] their ideas about the world¡±.

Meanwhile, universities¡¯ escalating research intensity had raised the stakes for their governing bodies. ¡°If you¡¯re making a big decision about investment in astronomy or ecology, how can a governing board make a serious assessment unless it has some vaguely relevant expertise?¡± he asked.

Governance arrangements are largely working well, the report concludes, despite being ¡°literally medieval¡± and seemingly ¡°designed to facilitate obstruction¡±. The most obvious and easily addressed gap ¡°is not the inertia of current structures but the surprising lack of diversity in expertise¡±, it says.

But while it does not advocate major structural change, the report recommends an end to state government appointments. Governments should ¡°legislate for universities to incorporate, empowering them with a less political appointment process and ultimately giving them greater control of their own destiny¡±.

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Dr Barlow conceded that this proposal faced stiff odds. ¡°State governments are very unlikely to want to relinquish their capacity to offer perks,¡± he said. ¡°But institutions will be better off without that imposition. They can then design exactly the boards they need to be as effective as they can be.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com