The Watt review’s recommendations are timely and sensible, says David Lloyd.

I mentioned previously that we live in turbulent higher education policy times down here in Australia. Another eddy in the airstream of university navigation was set in motion by Christopher Pyne, the former education and training minister, back in July 2015.

The minister set a very pragmatic cat among some sacred cow-shaped pigeons. The cat took the form of Ian Watt, former secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who, ably assisted by an expert group, drawn marvellously politically correctly from across all the major interest groups of our local university sector, set about a review of research policy and funding arrangements. The review was intended to:

• develop options to strengthen Australia’s research system
• encourage greater collaboration between universities and other research end users
• make Australia’s high-quality research translate into economic and social benefits for the nation. 

So far, so easy-peasy. Watt and his group consulted widely, asked very intelligent questions and performed deep analyses of the “as is” alongside imaginings of what “could be”. They asked the question “why?” a lot, which is always a good sign.