Macquarie U is offering a voluntary early exit to older academics, which the Australian Tax Office agrees qualifies as a tax concessional early retirement scheme. Applications will go to committees which will ration places if demand exceeds supply.

The university suggests the offer could appeal to academics between 50 and 65 who do not like the impact of changes on work and working lives, such as, “the increased competitiveness of research and the digitisation of education.”

However, while the university is expansive about who qualifies it is quite precise as to who doesn’t. Staff who the university rates as research productive and/or hold external grants, or who have won teaching awards/grants, are barred. So is everybody in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and the Department of Chiropractic. And MU Distinguished Professors can forget it.

The scheme is being rolled out faculty by faculty, with people approved expected to be gone a month after accepting an offer.