He succeeds the former chair, University of Canberra vice-chancellor Paddy Nixon, who was meant to be chair until 2025, but who resigned earlier this month.

The group, which includes Flinders University, Griffith University, James Cook University, La Trobe University, Murdoch University, the University of Canberra, and Western Sydney University, is dedicated to building inclusive education and better research capabilities among the campuses.

Professor Biggs said he is committed to continuing the IRU's achievements after it celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.

"I’m honoured to be named as the Chair of the IRU, with its commitment to equity and innovation," he said.

"I’d like to thank Paddy for his leadership in 2023 and I’m looking forward to continuing the IRU’s values-based work in our communities, around Australia, and the wider Indo-Pacific."

Executive director Paul Harris said this was an important time to lead the university group.

"This is an important moment for Australian universities and for higher education policy, as we await the final report of the Universities Accord panel," he said.

"I look forward to working with Professor Biggs over the next two years as the IRU continues to engage constructively with government on evidence-based policy reform that will maximise the contribution of our universities to the Australian economy and society."

The IRU group (comprising seven universities) is focusing on three key areas relating to the pandemic: developing vaccines, preventing the spread and supporting frontline health workers.

IRU executive director Conor King said: "University researchers are playing a major role in Australia’s COVID-19 recovery, whether developing vaccines, researching the social impact of COVID or literally heading to the frontline to help out in hospitals.

“The breadth of this activity highlights the vital and often under-appreciated role that researchers have in our everyday lives.

"The immediate job of these experts is to help get us through the pandemic. But with universities facing a major reduction in revenue in 2020, the longer-term future of Australian research appears less certain.

“The IRU is calling on the Australian Government to implement a research investment package across 2020 and 2021 to ensure researchers can continue doing their important work.”

Here are the 20 ways IRU members are tackling the virus.

Developing vaccines

1. Griffith University is running several research projects into COVID-19 vaccines and drugs, through Griffith University’s Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics and the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery (GRIDD).

2. Flinders University professor Nikolai Petrovsky is heading a team that is “testing a vaccine candidate against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus”. Oracle cloud infrastructure has partnered with the team “to access an expanded research community and enable rapid design of the vaccine candidate”.

3. Professor John Miles and other academics at James Cook University’s Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM) “have utilised an existing vaccine platform to identify a COVID-19 vaccine candidate”. The group is now entering a pre-clinical development phase “with a view to clinical trials in 18 months and is seeking investment to continue work on this important project”.

4. Murdoch University’s Antimicrobial Resistance and Infectious Diseases Research Laboratory has begun research into existing drugs that may be rapidly redeployed for use in the current pandemic. These have been considered “lost” antibiotics “that are known to have antiviral activity but were never pursued commercially, and new antiviral candidates for the future”.

Preventing the spread

5. Charles Darwin University (CDU) and technology developer SPEE3D have partnered to utilise 3D printing technology to “coat door handles with copper in high traffic areas as a possible solution to help reduce the viability of viruses such as COVID-19”. Studies show copper to be effective as an antimicrobial material and “items covered in copper could potentially reducing transmission by reducing the survival of the virus”.

6. Flinders University’s International Centre for Point of Care Testing has joined with UNSW’s Kirby Institute to distribute a coronavirus testing kit in remote Aboriginal communities. Such remote communities are thought to be at a high risk from the pandemic.

7. James Cook University veterinary scientists have partnered with a range of experts from Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific to train “animal disease detectives” in 11 countries across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. This will assist in strengthening detection, control and preventing future animal disease outbreaks.

8. Western Sydney University’s Translational Health Research Institute is joining forces with Boston University and Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Centre (Old Dominion University) to build a simulation model of the human factors responsible for viral spread, including social networks, fear and social contagion.

Supporting frontline health workers

9. Western Sydney University has decided to fast-track exams for their final-year medical students who want to begin their careers now and support the fight against COVID-19. The students will be employed as "assistants in medicine" to work in non-COVID-19 wards, allowing more experienced doctors to deal with the pandemic.

10. James Cook University is making similar arrangements to allow its “later year health professional students” access the health workforce this year.

11. La Trobe University has donated essential PPE equipment to its partner health services, and Bendigo campus’s teaching ward is being used by the local hospital.

12. Griffith University’s expertise in 3D printers is helping to manufacture face shields and other personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline health workers across Australia. This comes after a call-out by the state’s health authorities.

13. Charles Darwin University is working closely with NT Health and local ADF members to produce 3D-printed face shields to protect frontline health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

14. James Cook University’s College of Medicine and Dentistry and College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Science are “developing a COVID-19 webinar series targeted towards health professionals, with JCU experts providing advice on topics such as virology; mental health first aid in a pandemic; disease control in regional and remote areas; and telehealth”.

15. Charles Darwin University’s Menzies School of Health Research is playing a critical role at the frontline of the pandemic in the Northern Territory and beyond, including establishing the Darwin Pandemic Clinic and advising Queensland and Northern Territory Governments on their response. Menzies researchers who hold joint positions with Royal Darwin Hospital (including infectious diseases specialists) are undertaking additional hours at the hospital to meet the increased demand for clinical care.

Social research into COVID-19

16. Flinders University’s Caring Futures Institute is conducting research into grief and trauma triggered by COVID-19. The Institute will study “the physical and emotional toll the virus places on dying patients and distressed loved ones”.

17. Led by Murdoch University, The Australian National Phenome Centre is researching why some young, healthy people succumb to COVID-19 but similar young people do not. “It is analysing data from local COVID-19 patients to predict how severe the disease will be for each individual and understand different responses to treatments.”

18. James Cook University’s Centre for Disaster Studies is researching what people know about COVID-19 and how they gain their information. The study is intended to help Australia be better prepared for the recovery phase – and a future pandemic.

19. Griffith University is undertaking a range of social research projects related to COVID-19, including:

• how people prepare for the social and psychological impacts of COVID-19 lockdown
• studies in domestic violence and abuse during social isolation, and
• how tourism can rebound after COVID-19.

20. La Trobe University has also begun several social research projects examining the impact of COVID-19, including:

• understanding panic-buying during the pandemic
• gauging people's sentiments on social distancing
• health, wellbeing and social connectedness during times of social distancing
• innovative uses of technology for sex and intimacy during COVID-19 (under Ethics review), and
• alcohol consumption during the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s a question I asked myself last year when I saw my son’s VCE results. During his 10 years in primary school and early secondary, we were kept up-to-date about his progress against standard outcomes for his year of schooling. Yet when students get to years 11 and 12, their results are all rammed together into one ATAR and several adjusted subject scores.

The ATAR is not an assessment of learning. It simply tells us there were many students who did better than our son academically and many who did less well. It tells us nothing about what each student knows. The subject scores are little better. Each one is set to an average of 30, with a proportion of students’ results sitting either side of that score.

To make the transition from schooling to tertiary education and training effective for students, we first need to understand their level of achievement at school. It is the strange reality that students are provided with regular statements of learning levels throughout school but, in most states, none at the end of Year 12.

Throughout Australia, the senior secondary outcomes are, with the major exception of NSW, adjusted and normalised results which inform students and parents about the relative standing of each student compared to others in the state but do not make clear the actual level of capability. As a result, we do not know what change (if any) there is to Year 12 outcomes over time.

There was much bemoaning of the recent results of PISA, an international test of learning across 79 countries, that showed the level of knowledge and capability of Australian 15-year-olds is slipping backwards. If the PISA results are accurate, then it is likely too that students at the end of Year 12 are also in a worse position than previously – but we cannot tell from the way Victoria releases the results.

This is a problem for universities and other tertiary education institutions. If they are unsure what the students already know or can do, they are hampered in providing a smooth transition from school to tertiary learning. Universities have clear ideas about what a graduate should be capable of – the challenge is to ensure all graduates reach that point, especially if the entry capability is less strong than previously. Falling entry standards is a regular catchcry that people like me tend to dismiss as idealising of the past. But perhaps it has some validity.

Universities are far from blameless. We created the ranking systems that asks not “are you capable of my course” but “are you more or less capable than the next applicant”. The Australian Tertiary Academic Ranking (ATAR) is an effective means to select among those who are suitable when only some can be successful. The assumption is that the higher your academic capability at the point of application, the greater reason to admit you. This is a generally accepted rationing mechanism, although alternatives are possible.

We should not put school leavers in a box for life based on a Year 12 outcome. Instead, we need to understand each persons abilities and help them gain further knowledge and skills. The more objective the statement of Year 12 outcomes is, the better placed everyone is to build off it.

Year 12 certificates are almost forgotten during the end-of-year celebrations yet they should not be left to gather dust so quickly. They should instead be the launch pad into adult education and employment by encapsulating the information each person needs in a way that is useful across the breadth of tertiary education and school leaver employment. They should include clear information about the learnings of the individual, allowing tertiary education providers to directly assess whether a person has the minimum level of capability to undertake a course.

Rebalancing the focus from the ATAR to the certificate would also help reduce the pressure during the final years of school. It would support a vibrant education system that not only celebrates the most capable students but pushes everyone to new levels.

Conor King is executive director of Innovative Research Universities.

That’s one of the potential problems with the scope of the bill's details spelled out by Innovative Research Universities (IRU).

In its submission to the Department of Education, IRU detailed concerns that the draft legislation is too broad in seeking to cover all cases of cheating through use of another party.

“Cheating includes ‘providing any part of a piece of work or assignment’. A cheating service provider can be ‘any person’ who provides or advertises these services, irrespective of if it is intentional or for any gain for the person providing the service,” the group said.

“This breadth creates uncertainty over what will be practically enforceable by TEQSA, whether universities become obligated to report all cases to TEQSA and when to involve TEQSA in investigations.”

Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) also voiced its concern about the breadth of the legislation, saying it was too heavy-handed.

“While commercial contract cheating services often advertise to vulnerable students in order to profit, individuals who assist in cheating (such as parents and friends) are more likely to be well-intentioned and may have a lack of understanding of academic integrity.

“This type of cheating should be dealt with inside the established university system, with an educative focus for prevention, rather than punitively through the courts.”

IRU would like to see the scope of commercial contract cheating services restricted or a more nuanced definition of "part of a piece of work or assignment” should the department retain the current list.

It also wants clear guidelines for how universities can assist TEQSA with investigations.

Barry Down, a VET and student engagement specialist, says this dichotomy has become unrealistic. "The reality is that society requires smart workers and citizens with a broad range of capabilities (including practical and thinking skills) more suited to the 21st century," he said.

In the lead-up to the government's review of the VET sector, announced on Wednesday, he is urging policy makers to consider his point of view, predicated on today's job market and generational change.

"... Secure and rewarding work is rapidly disappearing," he said. "Young people themselves want to be involved with real-world tasks, problems and questions."

Echoing the findings of a recent UNICEF survey of 14 to 16-year-olds, Down said that teens regard much of the school curriculum as irrelevant, and want more practical learning. "Some progressive schools are already doing this. At Big Picture Education Australia, [for example,] students attend workplaces two days a week where they pursue their interests, guided by an expert mentor."

Employers, too, want vocational employees with practical and intellectual skills. Down described a conversation he had with a kitchen cabinet maker: "He said he didn't want an apprentice chippie that cut things any longer ... he wanted an apprentice that could design, create, draw and communicate for supplies in China using technology.

"Most careers involve practical as well as intellectual elements ..."

Yet he conceded that convincing schools of this is a "big task". "The university pathway is generally perceived as the gold standard ... schools need to do a lot more in terms of elevating the status of VET ... the [VET] review is a wonderful opportunity to do that ... in that schools could be urged to integrate [practical and intellectual skills] more closely."

He thinks persuading parents won't be as difficult. "I talk to many parents. Their primary concern is to see their child pursuing school in way that satisfies their child's needs and interests.

"The VET sector has historically played a key role in supporting second chance learning opportunities and broader social outcomes," he added.

"It is important to recognise these core values to ensure that all citizens, irrespective of their circumstances, have access to a well-resourced education and training sector."

Also responding to the review, Craig Robertson, chief executive of TAFE Directors Australia (TDA), held a similar view to Down's. He endorsed recent comments made by former Prime Minister John Howard: considering the future of work, tertiary education has become 'lopsided', with too few students pursuing VET qualifications and too many pursuing university ones.

Even universities agreed with Down's proposition that VET and universities shouldn't be isolated from each other. "VET providers and universities cannot be considered in silos ... The IRU urges both political parties to ... look at the big picture of tertiary education," its executive director Conor King said.

Yet VET stakeholders, including TDA and the Australian Education Union, are concerned that the review won't be comprehensive due to its short timeframe: submissions are due on 25 January, and the final report will be delivered in March.

"Rushing a half-baked VET review through over Christmas to report in March is a sign of a government that is panicking to have something to say about vocational education in the lead-up to the federal election," AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe said.

Per its terms of reference, the review "will focus on how the Australian Government’s investment in VET could be more effective to provide Australians with the skills they need to be successful throughout their working life. It will also focus on ensuring Australian businesses, including small and family businesses and businesses in rural and regional areas, have the skills they need to support their business growth."

It will be led by Steven Joyce, the former New Zealand Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment.

The group said the cost recovery measure will put Australian universities out of pocket $10 million a year.

Should the Higher Education Support (Charges) Bill 2018 be passed with the charge still in place universities will begin paying in 2019/20, IRU warned.

“Universities facilitate students to access HELP, bearing costs in the process," the group said in a statement. "These costs include liaising with government departments and processing student applications for HELP.

“The government’s higher education provider charge will simply further divert resources away from students’ education at a time when the government is already reducing resourcing for this through the Commonwealth Grants Scheme funding freeze.”

IRU said charging providers instead of students shows “the fundamental error underlying the charge”.

“The Government – rightly – will not charge students directly for access to HELP. Yet it will, instead, penalise students by further reducing the resources universities and other higher education providers have to deliver students a good education,” the group said.

Click here to read IRU's full statement.

Today, however, the digital revolution (and, in some instances, cost-cutting) has caused much of learning to be done online. In the face of this, if universities are to continue to fully serve their original purpose, they must physically adapt. IRU members Western Sydney, La Trobe, and James Cook universities claim to be doing just that.

At IRU's Senior Leaders Forum 2018, they shared their realities and visions for the campuses of 2018 and beyond.

Western Sydney University

"Organisations should focus on providing workplaces that support the requirements for privacy and focus, as well as interaction and collaboration," Bond University assistant professor of organisational behaviour, Dr Libby Sander recently wrote.

Western Sydney University clearly didn't get her memo. Its new Parramatta, Sydney campus is completely open plan, including its academic staff spaces, where students are encouraged to 'co-mingle' with staff.

That's not the only novel feature of the high-tech building: in keeping with the interactive learning trend, it also has no lecture theatres. Its tutorial rooms operate in a 'flipped classroom' style, where content is learnt at home and on-campus time is devoted to student-led small-group discussion. Another on-trend element is the building's interdisciplinary nature: it encompasses the business, economics and engineering faculties. Similar features are in place at the university's new Ngara Ngura Liverpool campus.

These elements sound era-appropriate, but how exactly do they future-proof the campus? By having students and staff design them, informed assistant vice-chancellor Dr Andy Marks. "The objective of the design is encouraging collaboration ... everything is in service of that principle," he said.

One relationship that's been strengthened by design is between students and staff and another of the building's tenants: professional services firm PwC. Not only do they share meeting spaces, but given the Parramatta campus is primarily used to teach business, students undertake internships and staff work with PwC on research and public engagement activities, like lectures on economics and politics. Also, PwC informs curricula design and directly recruits WSU business graduates into its ranks – 29 just last year.

"Universities in Australia have a challenging record on collaboration," Marks said. "... One way of doing this is by being in same space."

WSU claims their new campuses also encourage innovation. Campus Review queried whether this was more than a buzzword. It was: by creating the first network of startup incubators in Western Sydney, the university is literally a site of invention. "Co-location is an amazing device, and quite a simple way to [collaborate]," Marks said. Like with PwC, the university is also levering this connection to inform curricula, apply research, and even host classes.

Marks says that this move is strategic. "All of the innovation funding from governments goes to the big cities [so] the universities that aren't necessarily in capital cities or high density areas are adopting innovative ways to encourage innovation. The challenge for regionally-based universities is to ensure that the suburbs where the predominant workforce is situated have support for innovation as well. We've been filling that gap in a way that governments and industry aren't."

A similar, engineering-focused venture, this time with UNSW, is in the pipeline. Marks says this is unusual, though it forms part of a broader shift in the way universities operate with each other. "Higher education has traditionally been pretty cutthroat and competitive," he said.

"We're working with the University of Wollongong, UNSW, Newcastle and USYD in terms of site collaborations.

"I think it's a side effect of the fact that we've had all this regulatory and budget uncertainty. Universities are actually thinking it might be more productive for us to work together to overcome that, and that's producing innovations as well."

La Trobe University

How many uses can you integrate into a university precinct? According to La Trobe, seemingly endless ones. Its planned revamp of its North Melbourne Bundoora campus includes student and private accommodation; a town centre including retail, commercial and entertainment businesses; a sports ground; a health hub including a hospital and a health centre; aged and child care services; research facilities; and parklands.

"We are fortunate in that when our founders established the university, they acquired 235 hectares of land," La Trobe Vice-President (Development) Natalie MacDonald said.

"We looked at how to benefit students and the research experience by partnering with industry ... [and] not be a university isolated from its surrounds: the thousands-year-old model of universities.

"Our driving force is economic growth and community wellbeing."

She explained how, for example, the private hospital will benefit all stakeholders: the public will use it while staff and students conduct research and undertake work placements.

While La Trobe's way of executing this may differ to that of universities in different locations, MacDonald says the underlying, integrative message applies to all. "We have to be seen as part of and contributing to the community, as well as research and learning.

"That is the future of universities ..."

James Cook University

The labs of world-leading scientists like Jamie Seymour, who studies the toxicology of the deadly Irukandji jellyfish, have been upgraded. This is part of James Cook University's physical transformation, initiated in 2004, and set to cost nearly $2 billion over 20 years. Dingy, analogue classrooms, which were "raised as a serious concern by both the engineering and IT accrediting bodies", are being ushered into the digital, interactive learning age. The Townsville campus of the global tropical health and medicine hub now also sports an aesthetic facelift, including ‘learning oases’, tropical courtyards and an arboretum.

According to JCU’s director - estate, Hilary Kavanagh, students needed a reason to come to campus. Though, rather than solely plan the makeover in line with learning online, he said it will deliver an experience students can't get from their computers. Cue: communal ponds and palm trees.

Like WSU and La Trobe, JCU will also be relying on a mixed-use campus to ensure it survives beyond future education metamorphoses. Residential housing for students and the public, and a 'Health and Knowledge Precinct' have been developed. By 2035, an engineering 'innovation hub', childcare facilities, an aged care home, and a hotel will also feature. An 'ideas market' (a kind of town square for university staff, students and the public) is the centrepiece of the rebuild.

Sarah Hill said developments like those of WSU, La Trobe and JCU underscore the planning needs of cities at large. The chief executive of the Greater Sydney Commission, who also spoke at the IRU's Senior Leaders Forum, emphasised universities' roles in shaping innovation, society and the economy. Therefore, she said, they should be situated accordingly.

Raising the issue yesterday at the House of Representatives Inquiry into Funding Australia’s Research, IRU executive director Conor King noted that in 2016, for instance, universities received $5.3 billion, yet only $1.5 billion of this could be spent without restriction. The government reserved most of the remainder for specific research streams.

This matters, the IRU contends, because 'closed' funding hinders universities' ability to coordinate research, and also limits their capacity for innovation.

How does it stymie these pursuits? Bradley Smith, manager of research strategy and special projects at James Cook University (an IRU member) says it's mostly an issue of timing. "The more discretionary funding is reduced as a share (and diverted to prop up systemically underfunded direct grants) the harder it is to sustain strategic program investment," Smith said. This also applies to infrastructure funding.

"It is university-wide funding [not directed grants] that keeps academic researchers paid and allows them to support the whole research theme," an IRU spokesperson added. An example of this is JCU's aquaculture facility. Though it receives government funding, to initially attract that, as well as to keep it operational, the university has to invest significant sums of its own.

Also, because there are "gaps in grants", smooth career pathways for new researchers are not ensured. Hence, they have neither the capacity nor the security to undertake 'riskier' projects.

Lastly, grant conferrals, in general, simply discourage risk.

The IRU claims 'closed', that is, directed funding, is an ever-growing issue. Between 2006 and 2016, the proportion of 'open' funding decreased by 6 per cent.

"The IRU argues that block funding should be the next target for a real increase, to give universities a greater say over which research issues are supported and which are not," King said.

"Universities are best-placed to know which research is most likely to have the biggest impact while delivering the best value for money."

Legislation to lower the repayment threshold from $55,000 to $45,000 has been passed in the lower house and will now progress to the Senate.

Innovative Research Universities executive director Conor King weighed in on the decision.

“Making the HELP cap renewable is a useful improvement to what was likely to become a problematic restriction on renewing of skills in mid and later life," he said.

“The fact it could force some people to test their earning potential before acquiring further qualifications is useful in ensuring people make good choices about further study.

“The IRU accepts this proposal [to reduce the payment threshold] as better than the government seeking further cuts elsewhere in grants it controls.

“The challenge ahead is to reverse the restriction on government funding that will mean more and more Australians miss out on a university place.”

The National Union of Students (NUS) and the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) expressed concern the proposed changes would be counterproductive and prevent many Australians from pursuing a university education.

The organisations say the legislation would force low-earning graduates to start paying back their student loans "when they are earning not much more than minimum wage", and would force students out of postgraduate degrees unless they could afford to pay a large deposit upfront.

“There already exist postgraduate courses which exceed the current FEE-HELP limit. By introducing a combined debt cap the coalition government will be forcing students to take up dodgy private loans, or pay upfront for a postgraduate qualification. This is irrespective if a lifetime or debt cap is imposed,” NUS national president Mark Pace said.

CAPA national president Natasha Abrahams said: “Australia should be continuing to lead the way with our equitable HECS-HELP system. It has taken a long time to build our higher education system, but the government is dismantling it for the sake of their myopic goal of short-term budget savings."

For example, although there has been funding indexation, universities' costs far exceed this. Further, King says, Simon Birmingham's statement that per-student funding has risen is not backed by evidence. By comparing our government's funding proposal with that of England (graph below), King says ours is clearly askew.

Representing the IRU – which consists of Murdoch, La Trobe, James Cook, Griffith, Flinders and Charles Darwin universities – King fleshed out these points in a chat with Campus Review. He also offered an outline of the IRU's alternative university funding model, which you can read more about here.