Lectures

Below is the full text of the 2014 Hepi Annual Lecture by Professor Paul Wellings, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong, which was delivered at Australia House on the evening of Wednesday, 26th November 2014. A full version of the lecture with some supporting slides is available in pdf format here. 

Ladies and Gentleman,

It is a great pleasure to be here this evening and to see so many friends and colleagues with interests in our universities and in the development of higher education policy. To the Chairman of HEPI, Sir Graeme Davies, and to your fellow Trustees and Advisory Board members, thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to present the 11th HEPI Annual Lecture.

I began my academic life as an undergraduate in London at King’s College, just over the road from tonight’s venue here at Australia House. Since then I have had the privilege of working in the research and higher education systems of the UK and Australia throughout my professional life. So it is no surprise that tonight I am going to focus on various aspects of the two university systems and to examine some of the structures and policies driving the sectors in both countries.

Earlier this year, the then UK Minister for Universities and Science, The Right Hon. David Willetts MP, spoke at the Annual Conference of Universities Australia in Canberra. He began by pointing out that Ministers, of all political persuasions, arrive in this portfolio excited at the prospect of having responsibility of a significant and well-structured sector. But then they find that, rather than being asked to admire the architecture, they are actually required to engage in continual fine tuning, or worse, emergency repairs of the plumbing systems.

And, of course, at an institutional […]