In this tent or out they won’t be comfortable 

Education Minister Dan Tehan is inviting vice chancellors into the STEM tent, to join the panel designing the new linkage fund, which will increase uni-industry research, student placements and graduate numbers.

It’s a lose-lose for VCs who accept.  Joining will make it hard to criticise the fund, and more broadly the government’s new CSP funding rates for STEM subjects. Declining will also make it difficult to criticise the new arrangements – with the government able to say VCs could have had their say.

Then again, any VCs across the issues  who decline because they are washing their hair will also be sending a signal.