“ARC Training Centre is ensuring digital security for all Australians,” the Australian Research Council confidently announces the centre for Information Resilience it will fund (it’s at Uni Queensland). Good-o but perhaps the Australian Signals Directorate should not stand down just yet.

In Features this morning

Last week Erica Wilson and Thomas Roche (Southern Cross U) set out their university’s revolution in learning and teaching.  Is it working? It is, they, with colleague Liz Goode, explain HERE. New in Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series, Needed Now .

plus, Merlin Crossley (UNSW) makes the case for invigilated exams – they are to assessment what the Erg is to rowing.

and in Expert Opinion  Samantha Hall (Campus Intuition) on students returning to campus, what they want, what they will do and why the UK does it different, HERE.

Is CMM. People at Flinders U (quite a few people) are upset indeed that it was left off the list in Friday’s email edition of universities winning more than the average for new ARC Discovery Grants. Flinders had 11 wins out of 37 applications, giving it the most successful per centage for universities making more than 20 bids.

One size does not fit all in content and delivery for international markets so providers need to adjust governance and delivery

Samantha Young (Monash U) is here to help, producing a “toolkit for transnational education” for  providers of all shapes and sizes, published by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.

While Dr Young states she has designed it “to guide institutions new to TNE” it will undoubtedly end up on the desks of international ed staff at long-established providers.

The Australian Research has had an ok couple of years – insofar as the four riders of the apocalypse did not stable their horses at 11 Lancaster Place, Canberra

But on other bases the times have been terrible, what with aggrieved researchers and ministers with culture warring complaints.

And yet morale was ok.

The agency’s results in the Australian Public Service Census are bang on average across just about all criteria, with results that managers at TEQSA and ASQA would likely wish for (CMM Friday). And even when the ARC’s are bad, they are still pretty good. Just 42 per cent of staff thought, “change is managed well in my agency” – but that is 3 per cent better than the figure for all small APS organisations.

And ARC people believe, really believe, in what they do, – 91 per cent agreed with “I understand how my role contributes to achieving an outcome for the Australian public.”

True believers also at the National Health and Medical Research Council

The overall employee engagement score in the APS ’21 census is 79 – five above the service as a whole. 88 per cent of people responding reported they were “proud to work” there and 96 per cent, “believe strongly in the purpose and objectives of my agency, (12 per cent up on the all-APS score).

And they believe their leaders make work worth it , 85 per cent agreed their SES manager, “ensures that work effort contributes to the strategic direction of the agency …” – that’s 11 per cent above the all-APS score.

Western Sydney U staff vote this week on an enterprise agreement proposed by management and the unions on campus. Observers suggest they will endorse it

One reason why is that it looks like being a benchmark for pay rises, 3.35 per cent in October ’23, 2.9 per cent in October ‘24 and 2.6 per cent in March 2025 (CMM July 26). WSU is being quoted by union negotiators at other universities where they want management to offer more.

Another reason is the creation of 150 new FTE jobs, for casual academic staff to convert to continuing employment. This is an achievement making WSU the first university, as far as CMM knows, where management and the National Tertiary Education Union have agreed to something significant to help academics imprisoned in the precariat of sessional contracts. It is said to have taken some bargaining to get done but WSU sets a model for other institutions.

“This is a fantastic, historic achievement by our members. If this were replicated at every university we would see mass decasualisation, alongside mass conversion of casual labour into permanent jobs, right across the sector” then National Tertiary Education Union NSW division (now national) secretary Damien Cahill said when terms were agreed (CMM Juky 26)

Which is another reason why the agreement will likely get up – it was an achievement by locals for locals, a source of some pride at WSU.

The Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools announces its 2023 Executive Board: Kit Wise (RMIT) returns as chair, Veronika Kelly (Uni SA) is deputy , Lyndall Adams (ECU) is treasurer, Charles Robb (QUT) is secretary. Members are Simone Slee (Uni Melbourne), Katherine Moline (UNSW), Andrew Lavery (Uni Sydney), Mitchell Whitelaw (ANU), and Spiros Panigirakis (Monash U). Thao Nguyen (RMIT) is executive officer.

Griffith U announces its academic and research awards * Vicky Avery – research impact * Brydie-Leigh Bartleet – research leadership * Laura Irvine-Brown – early career teaching * Michele Burford – research leadership * Janice Buss – teaching * Sarojni Choy – internationalisation * Amanda Daly – learning and teaching leadership  * Laura Diamond -ECR ** Global Wetlands Team – research group/team * Sohil Khan – internationalisation * Wendy Moyle – research supervision * Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine Teaching Team – internationalisation * Kelly Shoecraft – sessional teaching * Muhammad Shiddiky – MCR