Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Stories of Wonder platforms and celebrates the real impact Deakin students, alumni, researchers and staff are making in the world, right now.
Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B
Iain Martin is Deakin's Vice-Chancellor,
and he's on a mission
to explore the evolving role
of universities in society.
In this episode, he shares his vision
for education, research,
and the power of curiosity
to shape the future.
From the lands of the
Wudawurrung people,
this is Stories of Wonder.
- Iain Martin, welcome
to "Stories of Wonder."
- Thank you very much indeed.
It's great to be with you.
- How long have you been at Deakin now
and in higher education more broadly?
- So at Deakin about six and a half years.
I started in May of 2019,
but in higher education more broadly.
I left university in 1987,
had a couple of years
working only clinically
and then it was back into a
part-time university role.
So whatever that is now, 35 years.
- Wow. That's, yeah.
So in and around
universities for that long,
what were you doing before that?
- Before that I was a medical student
at the University of Leeds in the UK
and then a junior doctor in Leeds.
- Wow, interesting.
And you were a surgeon for
a very long time as well?
- I had a surgical certificate
for about 20 years. Yeah.
- Wow.
What was your university experience like
and how did it shape you?
- So wind the clock back to 1982,
At that stage, UK or Australia,
less than 10% of school
leavers went to university.
And I was not from a family where
going to university was the norm.
My mum was a teacher,
my dad was an engineer,
but he'd done engineering
through apprenticeship
and then nighttime study
rather than university.
So it wasn't the norm.
I arrived not knowing what on
earth I was gonna experience.
Medicine's not a typical
undergraduate experience
because you go
and you have a completely
regimented existence
for your entire five years.
Everything is scheduled,
there's very little choice,
but it was extraordinary.
And the one thing I reflect on
is so much of what I have now
in terms of how I look at things,
think about things was
shaped by those five years
and the two or three years afterwards
when I came back into
the university world.
So yeah, really interesting,
but very, very different.
Few things our students
wouldn't like to think about.
Every assessment was written,
every assessment was pretty brutal.
And then when the results were out,
there was no confidentiality.
There was a list posted
on the notice board
which said these people
have passed with these marks
and these people have failed, so.
- Oh my goodness.
- So it was pretty open
and pretty confronting at times.
- Geez.
What were people's
reactions when, you know,
they didn't do so well
and everyone could see? That's very-
- Really, they were very,
there was commonest reaction
was probably the shoulders dropped
and the slinking off into the background
hoping not to be seen.
- Oh, my goodness.
- But there was tears and there was wails.
It was brutal. I mean
it was extraordinary.
And again, we have improved
as a sector in so many ways
and that's certainly one way.
- I wouldn't be doing
my job if I didn't ask.
Did you ever have to experience
a bit of a low score out
in the public like that?
- I am gonna ashamedly
or pleasingly say no,
I got through everything, okay, so.
- Oh well yeah, we go.
Yeah. And but you know,
your resilience must
have had to be quite high
to be able to cope with
that sort of pressure.
- And look, medicine is a tough
geek at the best of times.
And it was tough then.
So you were resilient
when you were a student.
And then being a junior
doctor, even more resilient.
- It's an interesting
time for universities
in the culture and society.
Deakins latest research polling
over a thousand Australians
shows that public trust has declined
in many of these institutions.
One in three Australians
say they don't trust unis.
Two in five think executives
focus more on revenue
than quality.
Firstly, do you think that
last one about revenue
is actually true,
but secondly, you know,
how do we fix this?
- So am I worried about ensuring that
we have a strong financial
base for Deakin to work on?
Yes, I am.
Because without that we can't
do everything else we want.
But for me,
quality is the thing that
you cannot give up on.
Because actually if
you give up on quality,
then everything else
falls away underneath you
and the finances will suffer.
So ultimately it's about getting
what you do as a university right,
but within a sustainable
financial context.
- So the the core reason
- The core.
for a university existing
is not to, you know?
- No. So the core reason that
we are here, there's two.
One is to provide education
for our students, number one.
And number two is to carry out research
and innovation that makes a difference
beyond the walls of the university.
And if we get those two pieces right
and manage things carefully, you do well.
- Hmm. You've spoken recently
about the idea of the social licence.
- Yes.
- That universities have.
What do you mean when you say that?
- So the concept of social
licence is really saying,
we exist at the pleasure
of the Australian people.
We are public organisations
established by,
with the exception of ANU
state acts of parliament.
And effectively there is a contract
that we will work to provide
high quality education
and high quality research and innovation
for the benefit of Australia
in its broadest sense.
And in doing that,
we are responsive to those
public pressures, demands,
and others.
But the flip side of that is that
public and our politicians we work with
need to understand that
there are some things about universities
which will inevitably create
some sense of discomfort.
Challenging and provoking the norm.
Challenging paradigms,
saying actually the evidence is saying
we've got a belief that
actually we'd be better off
as a nation doing something
that way rather than that way.
That's what we are here for.
So it's not just a one way
we listen to the public,
we listen to politicians
and do what they say.
It's about establishing
that licence to operate
as high quality institutions.
- So pushing the knowledge and the beliefs
and you know, the assumptions of things.
- Oh, it is really important.
I can't remember who said it,
but there is somebody
who quoted in the past,
some statement that said something like,
our ignorance is infinite.
And that is to say there is so much
about the world around us,
the environment we work in, we don't know.
And it is our job to continue to explore
and push and say,
where does the truth as we
best understand it lie in this.
And that's our role.
And that will rattle cages at times
and we have to be able to do that.
That sits at the heart
of academic freedom,
that notion of academic discovery,
which is a key part of being a university.
But that cannot be the only piece
because it has to reflect,
we're operating in Australia,
supported by the Australian people.
- Mm. So ceaseless curiosity.
- Yeah.
Ceaseless curiosity is a really good way
of thinking about it,
because if I get asked what's the thing
that a student should take
away from an education
and benefit from in the future,
I think it is unbounded curiosity
is a really important thing to do,
is keep on asking questions,
keep on asking the why
and keep on exploring, pushing yourself,
going into different areas.
And I think if we can impart
some of that with our students,
and I think we do our
best to try and do that,
we've done a good job.
- So where are universities now
in relation to this sort of aim
and where do you think that
things need to change a bit?
- So in answering that,
can I wind the clock
back a little bit? So-
- So as I said, when I
started in university in 1982,
Australia, the UK,
less than 10% of people
went to university.
Now in both countries it's nudging 50%.
We are providing access to
a whole range of people,
we've embraced the internet,
which means that the knowledge we hold
is no longer knowledge we hold,
it's knowledge that we help interpret.
We are doing research at a level and scale
that we never would've imagined.
We've really embraced internationalisation
and been part of Australia's
international outreach,
soft diplomacy efforts.
But those successes have
created a whole series
of fault lines.
And those fault lines are,
well, you started with some of them,
this notion that we are more interested
in the money than the educational quality.
This notion that we are seeing ourselves
as corporate businesses
rather than for Australia's
good public organisations.
Perceptional reality, I
don't think it matters.
But what I want to see is
how we start to say actually,
how can we work with the public,
work with community and
political leaders to say,
let's reestablish that
licence to operate between us
and actually say the fault
lines have come from success,
but let's reset the system,
so that we now have a system where
it's understood what
we do and why we do it.
But there is that level
of trust, responsibility,
integrity, and accountability.
Those four key things in there
that our sector can demonstrate
absolutely categorically
as to why we are here.
- Hmm. So you've said that universities
have sort of lost sight of
some of their shared purpose.
You might have mentioned some of it there,
but what do you think has
caused that kind of adrift
and how do we find our way back?
- I think some of it has been
the consequence of
effectively the massification
of higher education.
You can offer a very different offering
if you're thinking about
10% of the population
coming from the most
academically able cohort
of the country.
It's a very different offering.
And I think as we've gone more broad,
that's led people to question.
People will look back and say,
well, when I went to
university, wasn't it great?
I had a great experience.
I didn't have a part-time job.
I was on campus 30 hours a week.
That's not possible now
for many of our students.
Only 40% of Deakins
taught students come from
that traditional 18-year-old
school leader category.
People are coming back for
either their first undergraduate degree
or a later qualification.
That changes the nature,
which means we've got
to work harder to engage
and explain why we do and how we do it.
Technology is changing
things around us at a pace
and I think we need to be able to embrace,
say why are we doing
and using the technology
changes that we have.
So those are the things
are sort of the positive
drivers for change.
But I also, there's been some things
happen over the last
few years, two decades,
that have changed things.
One of those is rankings.
So global rankings really didn't exist
So global rankings really didn't exist
before about the year 2000.
- Really?
- Yes.
- Boy.
- So there were some ranking-
- What were we advertising?
- We were talking about what we did.
But you have to remember,
you didn't really need to advertise
because if you had a
capped number of students
you could take
and there were more people
wanting to come than
places available.
- Yeah.
You didn't have a problem.
- You didn't have a problem.
- Yeah.
- And international education
was a much smaller part of the mix then.
So all of those things have changed.
- Yeah.
- But rankings have led to
a sort of hierarchy
and what most rankings measure
is research performance.
- Yes.
- Rather than what is it like
to be an undergraduate at that university.
And universities have,
had to respond to improve
their rankings because
they felt pressured to do so
in order to maintain
their student numbers,
and the viability and the
standing of their institution.
- Yeah.
- But that has led to
a whole series of drivers
that aren't necessarily
leading to a balance of focus
on education versus focus
on research and innovation.
And I think that has perceptional reality
changed the minds of the community.
Because if you go out and
talk to most stakeholders,
and we did this in the survey we did,
why we there?
Most Australians think we are
there about education first
and research second.
Most universities tend to sort of think
we are research first and education second
in terms of parameters
for what would drive them.
And I think putting that right
and putting education at
the core of why we are here
is part of my message
in talking about this
over the last few weeks and months.
Because that is why
Australian people believe
they establish universities.
The research is really beneficial,
but the education is
number one in their mind.
Our data says that,
I can certainly confirm
from every conversation I have
outside of the organisation
that the majority of the
public see it that way.
But it doesn't therefore mean
that you have to give up
on the notion of research excellence.
We've talked a lot at
Deakin about this concept
of balanced excellence,
which is valuing both of
those core missions equally,
education and research,
and driving to make sure
that we grow capability
and quality at both
without one being at the
expense of the other.
And we've done it.
We've got,
and it's not just me doing
the usual Vice-Chancellor,
aren't we brilliant thing?
The evidence that we have
from improvements in research quality
and where we stand in
educational quality in Australia,
mean that if you do your
usual sort of four plot graph
with good on both in the
top right hand corner,
we are right up there.
So that for me is part of regaining trust
and social licences to say,
one doesn't have to trade off the other
and education really, really matters.
- I guess beyond that,
how do you, you know,
you've mentioned a couple of times
whether it's perception
or reality, you know,
it doesn't really matter
- Yes.
- because you know, to some
the perception is, you know,
- Yes.
- this or that, you know,
we use, you know,
we still use rankings
a lot in our marketing.
Every university does and it's
a bit of a foggy see really?
- Yes.
- It almost all cancels
each other out.
What do you think that kind
of change in our, you know,
core commitment to both of those things
being as important as each other.
How does that look on the other end
and how do you,
how will we know that people
have started to get the message
that both education and research
are a core to our, you
know, fundamental values
as a university?
- I think ultimately it
comes from proof points
and proof points for
education is students come,
they stay, they succeed,
and when they leave they say
we had a good experience.
And we've got concrete evidence
for all of those proof points.
In 2026, we will be a larger university
in terms of student numbers
than we've ever been.
The demand to come and study
at Deakin hasn't gone away.
So we are there
and for most of the last 14 or 15 years,
students have said consistently
in the state of Victoria,
we are the most satisfied
with the education experience we've had.
- Yeah.
- And if you look at that
on the national stage,
we've been one or two amongst
the large public universities
for most of the last few years as well.
So there's concrete evidence around that.
But also,
we can talk about the
evidence on the research side.
We've made consistent improvements
over the last six to 10 years
in our research performance.
And if you look at some of the evidence,
and I take it all with a
little bit of a pinch of salt
because there's lies and lies
and statistics as so often said.
But no public university has improved
its sort of academic
performance research wise
faster than Deakin has
over the last five years.
- Yeah. Wow.
- And much as I'm low
to talk about the times higher rankings,
'cause it's the one I think is
possibly the most problematic
because its perception.
If you look at their
measures of research quality,
it puts us at 87th in the world.
So well within the top 100.
So it's not just me saying,
isn't it great there is
objective evidence behind it.
- Yeah.
- And that's what
we want to keep doing and
that's my proof point.
But we will consistently
have conversations
around the executive table
and the senior leadership team around.
We don't want to trade
one off for the other.
We have to focus on making
sure that improvements in one
don't come at the price of
reductions in the other.
- Yeah. You're releasing
a white paper soon
- Yes.
- on the social licence
challenge facing universities.
I believe you want
people beyond the sector
to engage with the ideas
and join the conversation.
Can you tell us a bit about this?
- Yeah, so I'll talk
about why I need people
outside of the sector to engage first.
We can talk to ourselves,
and we do it very frequently,
and we do it very articulately.
But we are talking to ourselves.
- We're very experienced, yes.
- We're very experienced
at talking to ourselves.
And the only way we will change
and deliver what we need to do
is to bring the broader
Australian community with us.
And I have a very strong view that
until we have brought
the broader Australian community with us,
it will be very hard for us to say,
trust us, resource us further
for us to do more than we
are doing at the moment.
So I think, that's why
I want to go beyond.
So the white paper is
really an exploration
of what social licence means
for Australian universities in 2025
and what we might do
to start to put things right.
And as I said, we've got
these pillars of integrity,
trust, responsibility and
accountability within there.
And we need to look at
how we make sure within
all of those pillars we get it right,
but also within the
context of a university.
So I've talked a lot about
what integrity, trust,
responsibility, and
accountability means for education
and how we make sure that we do that,
what it means for research
and as well as doing the
sort of the obvious thing
that our research must be high quality,
must be backed by a
great deal of integrity.
We must be accountable what we find,
this is where the flip side of this comes.
We've also got to be brave enough
to do things that are uncomfortable.
Challenge paradigms, challenge the norm
and give our academics not
just the responsibility
and the ability,
but to make them really proud of saying,
we are not simply gonna
accept the world as it is.
We are going to look,
we are going to explore
and find ways of making it better.
Or better understanding what is happening.
And to do that with pride
and to do that knowing
you have the backing of
the institution to do that.
Because that inevitably at times
pressures vested interests
outside of the university.
And I've got lived experience
in my leadership time
of people ringing the
university and saying,
how dare you let your academics do this?
It's damaging for my X,
Y or Z or my business.
And it's a very easy response,
which is to say they are
an expert in that area.
They have done high quality, solid work
that has come to a conclusion
that is different to yours.
You might not like the conclusion,
but I'm gonna stand behind them
and back them in doing that.
And that's happened a
number of times in my career
and I've wanted to assure our community
that we will continue to do that.
So that is part of the
social licence as well
because if a university can't
do that, we are failing,
because there's few other organisations
in a liberal democracy that
can actually do that work.
In the education space,
along the same way,
we talk about the importance
of giving our students
the skills to navigate
difficult conversations,
challenging ideas,
challenging ideas,
working in a way that
enables them to leave university
with an ability to work with people
who they might fundamentally
disagree with in some areas.
But find areas where we can come together,
areas where we can work
and we can play the idea
and not the person in those debates.
And I think that's a
really important thing
because if you look at
what's happening recently,
too much of what's going on within
and beyond the walls of universities is
this inability to accept that
people can hold legitimately
different ideas.
It doesn't make you evil,
it doesn't make you somebody
you cannot talk to and engage.
It is legitimate.
This is not a new thing.
And in the white paper,
I quote Clark Kerr,
so it's a name that won't
be familiar to many people.
He was the founder and designer
of the University of California system
and was president in the 1960s.
At a time when America was going through
another period of volt,
Vietnam war, Black rights,
many, many other things were going on.
And there were some very, very difficult
and robust debates on campus.
And Clark has this quote, which he said,
our job as a university
is to make students ready
for difficult ideas.
Not difficult ideas, ready for students.
Words to that effect.
And I think that holds as true now
as it did in the late 1960s,
that we want to give
our students that skill.
But we need to accept the fact that
that will be challenging
for many of our students.
We need to support them,
but at the same time we need
to say that's non-negotiable.
You can't just play the person
and say, I don't want to listen to that,
'cause I disagree with it.
- Where are universities
sort of sitting today
in this particular sort of climate
when it comes to, you know,
bigger discussions happening that
people are kind of expecting
universities as an institution
to weigh in on one side or the other
or are expecting, you know,
some sort of an alignment
and getting uncomfortable
if it doesn't align
with where they're sitting.
What traditionally has been
the role of a university
in a societal sense from that perspective?
And what should the role be today?
- This has been a live debate
for much of the role of a university,
certainly since World War II
and probably long before that as well.
- It's not the first time.
- It's not the first time.
And I think it will continue to come back.
For many of these difficult ideas,
I will often get asked,
well, what's the
university's view on that?
And I'm not sure in many cases
you can absolutely have a university view
because the university is largely,
well it is the people that sit within it.
And there will be very,
very, very few points of view
where there is unanimity.
And I think my response to that often,
and I've learned this over the years,
is not to say we have a view it is to say,
our role is to have the environment
where these difficult ideas,
where you are seeking a view is debated.
Where we will bring people onto campus
and have those challenging
and difficult debates.
But not to say,
we go down one path or the other.
I think we have probably done ourselves
a disservice as a sector by too frequently
coming up with that statement that
our view as a university is X, Y, or Z.
Rather than recognising the plural views
Rather than recognising the plural views
that many in our community,
in the wider community would hold.
Now don't get me wrong,
that is not an excuse to say that
you can simply say,
well, you can be racially
abusive, homophobic,
academic freedom, freedom
of speech has boundaries.
It has to have boundaries.
You cannot,
to misquote Karl Popper,
tolerate the intolerant.
You've gotta have people who are prepared
to be tolerant in the way
they debate and negotiate these ideas.
Even if their ideas are not
changed at the end of it,
they've got to be tolerant.
And I think that's part of my,
I can't force this on people,
but I can encourage from
the top that kind of debate
and build that kind of environment.
And I can tell you,
I've had nobody in the Deakin community
come up to me and said,
you are wrong on this one.
Most people have said thank you for saying
what you're saying,
because for most of our community,
that's the kind of place they wanna be in.
- Mm. And like has the pressure, you know,
in your time as VC,
but your time in higher education,
is there more pressure on
universities to come out
as an institution on one side or the other
on certain issues than before
or is it sort of the same?
- There is very much
greater public pressure
on universities, full stop.
And very much greater public awareness
of what goes on in the university world.
I think it's difficult to comment
completely going back
to my time as a student,
because as a student you
don't really understand
what's happening at the senior level.
But talking to people who were working
a little bit later than
that in senior roles,
we are now very much
more publicly scrutinised
than we ever have been.
And that produces a very much more
considerable degree of pressure.
And that scrutiny comes in
difficult areas from both sides.
- Yeah.
- So it is absolutely,
you are aware of that scrutiny.
I'm personally very aware that
everything I say or do now is
available for public scrutiny.
I've got no problem with that.
But you live your life in the public eyes
of Vice-Chancellor now.
That was not the case 20 or 30 years ago.
- Yeah. It's kind of a
changing set of circumstances
to deal with as a VC.
- Yeah.
- Well you mentioned before, you know,
and it's kind of a debate of courage.
It sounds like, you know,
to be at this sort of level,
to be an institution.
- Yeah.
- It needs to be a safe space
to be able to push back or
- Yes.
- let your curiosity
lead wherever it leads
and discover or whatever
it needs to discover.
And then, you know,
it needs to be a safe space for debate.
- Yes.
- Not a safe space for,
you know, one particular
idea or the other.
- Yes.
- How do we help
students engage with, you know,
challenging ideas without compromising
their sense of belonging?
- We can write as many
policies, policy documents,
guidebooks as we like.
Ultimately it is the culture that happens
across the university in the classroom
from day one all the way
through their journey.
And that's what we've gotta be able to do,
is to sort of express that view that
you are coming here to be challenged,
to grow your worldview.
To be able to deal with address
and address those difficult ideas,
those ideas where we don't
have all the answers.
It's a cultural thing.
And again, that's why I'm
pleased to be talking about it
because I can do some
things in the institute
and I can do some things
with a lot more difficulty.
But one of the things
you can do from the top
is actually start to say,
this is the kind of
culture you want to see
and propagate that.
And I think that's what we've got to do.
This isn't about policy,
this is about the kind of
institution we fundamentally are.
And indeed the kind of sector
I think we should fundamentally be.
- Hmm. Can you reflect on a time,
if you can remember any,
that you felt uncomfortable and challenged
with an idea that you had
and maybe it changed your
perspective on something?
- There are many little
ones that you come through,
because as you go through your education,
your working life
and particularly in medicine,
so much of what you are taught in one year
is proved to be wrong or
imprecise in later years.
- Right.
- So very personal example,
my surgical career,
when I started my surgical career
and started my surgical research career,
stomach ulcers were
thought simply to be due
to stress and too much acid.
- Yeah. And the perception
sort of still is that, right?
- But in fact,
the vast majority of them
are caused by a bacterial infection.
- Well I mean, I gotta
go talk to my doctor,
'cause this is,
- Yes.
- breaking news for a lot of people.
But interesting though,
it's the drained kind of-
- And there's a grain assumption
that the majority of
stomach duodenal ulcers
are caused by a bacterial infection,
that changed the world overnight.
And the work that I was working
on for my doctoral thesis,
by the time I written it
was almost completely irrelevant.
But that's challenging in one way,
but it's actually really
exciting in another
because you've been part
of a transformation.
- Totally.
- And there are many, many other examples
in clinical practise
where that has happened.
But again, it's not a new thing.
On one of the stock quotes
that people used to talk about
when you introduce a new
group of medical students
to their programme
that was said in the UK,
certainly said amongst my US colleagues,
I dunno if it was said here is,
by the time you qualify,
50% of what we teach you
is likely to be wrong or inaccurate.
Our challenge is, we which 50%.
And that reflected the
sheer pace of change
in clinical practise.
And I don't think that's changed.
And I think if you look
at any professional area,
you're gonna see that same driver.
We are living in a world where knowledge,
understanding technology
is changing at such a pace
that everybody is going to be
challenged by this worldview
that what I thought was the norm
is no longer the norm.
You've gotta be comfortable with that.
But also you've gotta have this sense
of insatiable curiosity,
which is not to get concerned
or worried about it,
but actually to enjoy it.
Because I think if you don't enjoy it,
you're gonna find the world
a very, very difficult place.
(both laughing)
- That's an interesting one
about the stomach ulcer,
'cause it probably is a
great example that reflects
how long it takes for a
development like that.
- Yes.
- That is very, you know,
scientific and you know, it is what it is
to be kind of to seep through
and be accepted in society
instead of a presumed sort of
- Yeah.
- assumption or wisdom.
- And I think this is also another point
that I make that great
scientific evidence on its own.
- Yeah.
- Doesn't change
policy overnight.
- That's right, yeah.
- Policy, frameworks,
all those other things
change through a whole
series of other drivers.
And as an academic community
we've got to recognise that
we play a role in shaping
the future of our country
through the application of that evidence.
- Mm.
- But it is naive to think
that simply great evidence
will change something tomorrow.
It is one part of a
difficult and complex system.
Now, it is easy to throw
rocks at politicians,
but they have a really,
really difficult task to do.
And bringing together communities
with very disparate views
into a sort of an agreed policy position
is a difficult thing to do.
And they are balancing out
not just what the best
scientific evidence would say,
how far is the community
prepared to go on a journey?
How far can we bring?
How much can we afford?
What is the trade off between
the evidence advantaging
and perhaps giving good
outcomes for one group
against perhaps
disadvantaging another group?
They're trading all of those.
We are, but one part of that.
We need to play a really strong part,
and this is comes back to the white paper,
another conversation I
sort of trying there,
is the role of academic researchers
being the honest broker.
What I mean by that is that,
we talk about our research in a way
that gives the right level of
information and confidence to
those who are using that research,
either for policy or change
or developing new products
but doesn't overstate it
and openly acknowledges
where the gaps are,
so that we are giving
that right information.
And also absolutely
fundamentally recognises
that there is more to
changing policy and approach
than simply great evidence.
- You mentioned research
and you were talking
about it a bit earlier
as part of the sort of core, you know,
not value proposition,
but mission I guess of
why universities exist.
Was this, well firstly, you know,
research is such a big, you know,
part of this now for universities
and what we hear from them.
Was it kind of always the case?
- So universities have been around now
for a very long period.
I mean we're well over a thousand years
of universities in the develop, you know,
sort of development history.
When universities first started,
they were largely teaching organisations.
- Mm.
- And it was really
the 19th century where you started to see
different models of universities.
And there was a model that was
advocated by Cardinal Newman,
Catholic Cardinal,
which was the university
really as that sacred holder
of the knowledge leading
to a great education.
And he talked about practical
knowledge being useless.
So this was this notion that
we are there to think
about the things that are
not the every day,
but to go beyond that.
And he also said, if a
university's role is research,
then why do we need students?
But at the same time there was a model
that was developing in
Germany, and in the US,
and to some extent in the UK,
where actually that fusion
of research and education
was becoming more and more common.
And in the early 20th century,
partly precipitated by World War I,
there was a real explosion of
the engagement of universities
and research.
That really reached its
crescendo after World War II
when America said very much that
that research development
associated with universities
is part of the future of our country.
So it has not always been,
thus that you've seen
these two parallel strands,
it's really in the last
80 to a 100 years that
that model has developed.
But now it is there.
And in a world where knowledge
is changing so quickly,
so rapidly, I don't believe you could have
a strong tertiary
education in an environment
that wasn't looking to the future,
that wasn't exploring,
wasn't doing that research.
So I think we are at a point
where that is inevitable.
The balance between the
two is where the debate,
how much effort do you put
into one versus the other?
Which areas do you will
be really important?
The other difficult debate
is what kind of research you do.
There's always a lot of
pressure to do research
that takes ideas that
we know about it already
and look to find ways of generating impact
from those ideas through new companies,
new policies, new approaches,
new patterns of care in healthcare.
But those only happen
because we've got a background of good,
often what people outside
the organisation would see
as esoteric discovery research
looking to explore and push the boundaries
that people have no idea about.
- Hmm.
- And it is really important
that as a nation we keep that balance.
- So how, because I was
gonna ask, you know,
how, you know, what value everyday people
would think that that
research is offering them.
But you kind of talked to
it there a little bit where,
you know, it's not always,
it can't all be things that
are immediately understandable.
Some of it needs to be directed to things
that we don't even, you know,
- Yeah.
know or understand yet.
- So absolutely we need both.
And I'll give you two stories.
Our entire world is built
around electronics these days,
almost everything.
But without fundamental physics,
none of the developments
in transistor technology
that took place in the '30s, '40s
and '50s could have happened.
It's applied fundamental physics.
You need to have that.
So when the people in the late 19th,
early 20th century were
exploring the structure of atoms,
the periodic table, all of that,
what use did that have then?
Probably very little.
What use does it have now?
It underpins almost everything.
- Yeah. We do.
- The other one I do,
which is a little bit more
sort of cheeky is,
if I wrote a grant today
to say I want to develop the
idea of imaginary numbers
that can't possibly exist,
could never exist
because I think they're
mathematically interesting.
You can imagine how some people
would play that out in the media.
But imaginary numbers enable
us to have mathematics
that enables us to do
the very complex maths
that enables our MRI scanners to work,
to enable radar to work,
to enable so many other things to work.
- Yeah.
- You have to have
that fundamental discovery research
that can then underpin
the impactful research
that people see beyond the
boundaries of the university.
The question is not do
you need both? You do.
Question is how much do we need of one
and how much do we need about that?
And how do we make sure that
we keep the balance
between the two, right?
And that's where we need social licence
to be able to have those
debates and discussions,
but also bring the public with us,
being able to tell those stories
as to why esoteric discovery research,
it might not benefit the
community now, but who knows.
- What do you think needs
to change in research
to make it more accessible and impactful?
- There's a couple of things.
The first is,
we need to be really good at
using clear, simple language.
- Mm.
- To explain what we do,
how we do it, and why we do it.
Our academic communities,
and I've been as guilty as
this of others over the years.
It is very easy to fall back into
the grammar, the language used,
the words of your
particular academic tribe.
- Yeah.
- The problem is
that's almost imperceptible at times.
Impenetrable, sorry, I should say
to people outside of your academic group,
let alone outside of the university.
We need to move away from this idea that
it is important for our discipline
to have its own language.
No. We need to have language
that can be understood easily
by those outside of our discipline,
so that we can articulate
what we're doing well
and what we don't.
The other thing that we need to do is,
to be really honest
about what we are doing
and the likely impact of that.
That's a difficult conversation
because I absolutely understand
if you're a junior researcher,
what you are doing
matters intently to you.
I come from a surgical cancer background
where most of my research was,
I don't know how many
times cancer X, Y, or Z
has been cured in my mice over my 30 years
where I've been engaged
loosely with clinical practise.
- Yeah.
- We've gotta be honest
with people around,
this is a step,
this is one part of unravelling
a really, really complicated journey
and bringing the community with us.
And I think it's really
important we do that.
I mean I've used a medical example,
but you can pull out many,
many other examples in there.
But we can't do that on our own.
We need to do it,
so that the public understand
why we're doing this.
But we also need to
bring the media with us,
so that when researchers
are being interviewed,
the right questions are being asked.
And we don't always see that.
- How, I mean, you know,
we're running outta
time here a little bit,
but how do you even start
to make that impact when you know that
the latest slight, you know,
development in cancer research
- Yes.
- is always going to
be presented, you know,
on a retail level.
- Yes.
- You know,
in the news bulletin as a good news story
or something like that.
- And it will be.
And I'm not sure you
can easily change that,
but I think it is
important we recognise it
because I personally believe that
it actually harms us because
people become immune to
- The proportion of development.
- Yeah, the proportion
- Gets lost, right?
- Gets lost.
And sort of, oh I've heard it all before
and I think we need to start there.
It's challenging for journalists because
the journalism world
has changed immensely.
We see very few full-time science
or knowledge based reporters working well
and I think that part of this is actually
my sense of us helping to lead by
accepting this role as honest brokers.
So when we as researchers go out there,
we are talking about it
with that balance thing.
And accepting that might not mean
that we get the light
shine on us quite as much,
but when the light does get shone,
it's for genuine advances.
- Talk to me about something
that Deakin has researched
that gives you hope for the future.
- I always dislike this kind of question
because the one I pull out means
I get accused of being the father
who favours one child over another.
- (laughs) Let the emails be open
to all of you.
- So, I think let's pull
out a couple of ideas.
One is the work we're
doing in circular economy,
which is taking the mountains of waste,
mountains of waste clothing,
mountains of waste product
and recycling it into usable
raw materials to go there.
I think this whole notion
of the circular economy
is really important.
Just last week we were launching
a part of the circular
economy by a factory
taking bio waste and using
that as a source line
for multiple raw materials for future.
That's one that gives me real hope
that we are taking
fundamental discovery
based material science
and turning it into something
that's very practical,
addressing a real
problem that is out there
beyond the walls of the university.
The other one I pull out, which is,
really interesting is
the Food and Mood Centre.
Looking at how you can help people
with complex mental illness
by looking at their diet,
thinking about how food
interacts with your treatment,
your behaviour, difficult
challenging work,
but potentially really, really impactful.
There's probably 20 other examples
that I could pull out really easily.
And I do say too with a degree.
- Can blame it on us.
You added the mouth, okay?
- Yes. I'll blame it on you.
- Okay. We say much (indistinct).
- But I think what both of those have got,
is they're both underpinned
by a very strong
fundamental understanding of
the science, the basis, the discovery work
and then taking that and applying it
beyond the walls of the university
into the wider community.
And lots of young people
are seriously questioning
whether university is
the right path for them.
- Yes.
- One in three Australians
question whether university is worth it.
Why should people study
at university today?
- So I'm gonna turn that around and say,
I want to start by saying,
post 18 education is really important.
But that doesn't mean to say that
there is an inherently greater value
in going down a university path
than going down a vocational path.
It is about having the willingness
and the ability to explore both.
And the willingness to say,
both from a systems point of view,
I can change pathway if
that's the right thing for me.
And the pathways are there,
so people can come back in.
And I do think that's an
important part of what we do.
Because I think if we simply say
that university is the most
important path post 18,
we're actually doing
the nation a disservice.
And that's part of my
social licence argument.
We need to see both and provide both.
But coming back to university education.
I believe it is still a great thing to do.
Purely from a venal fiscal point of view,
we know even now,
economically you do really
well by getting a degree.
On average,
there's a very, very
significant salary premium
over a lifetime from having
a degree level education and.
But I think that's sort of the hard,
maybe tangible part of this.
The softer intangible
is if we get this right
and I think we really
try to get this right,
is it gives you that
skillset to both be curious
but also to challenge,
and also to deal with a world
that is changing really, really quickly,
where there is probably more
greyness and uncertainty
and to help you navigate that.
It also provides you
with a great opportunity
to be exposed to
different environments, different people,
different communities.
There's a lot of conversation
around international education,
but there's nothing
better than sitting down
and talking with someone
from a different cultural
background and saying,
what's it like for you
thinking about this challenge?
That's really enriching.
And if we do it well,
we have people leaving with
that insatiable curiosity
to explore the world
and make a positive difference beyond it.
So I absolutely think it is vital.
And on a personal level,
there's almost nothing I do now
that wasn't shaped to some
extent by my time at university.
- Students spend a lot
of time and money on uni
- Yeah.
- in Australia,
it's not cheap.
Look, what are you doing
and what is Deakin doing to
make sure that, you know,
students get the most
value out of their degrees?
- So it is a very significant
investment in choice.
And I think choosing
your university pathway
is one of those major life milestones
alongside getting married
and buying a house.
I think it's of that magnitude in terms of
what it means to you.
We have to recognise that,
and I believe we do.
I think the focus on quality,
the student experience,
ensuring that we care deeply,
that we look at ways
our students succeeding
and where they're not,
what can we do to change?
So it is that continual
evolution of change,
adaptation, support for the students,
but recognising that there
isn't one size fits all.
A lot of what you might recommend
to change the university experience
for an 18-year-old school leaver
looks very, very different
from the 30-year-old mom of two
coming back to do a business
qualification part-time.
We have and we are doing,
thinking about ways of
how do we personalise
that experience at scale.
And have we got it
completely right yet? No.
But do we have an enduring
and absolute commitment
to making sure that we
do what we can? We do.
- There's a lot of new students
who'll be starting at this time of year
when this podcast goes out.
How did you feel when you started at uni?
- Perfectly honestly,
petrified and completely clueless
as about what I was about to experience.
(Dom laughing)
- There you go. If you're
feeling the same way.
- Yes. And I think that point is mean.
- Martin felt that way.
- Yeah.
And I think a lot of
our students will feel,
I really dunno what's happening.
I'm not sure what's, what's going.
- It's daunting.
- It's daunting.
It is absolutely daunting.
And I think don't imagine
that you are the only person feeling that.
You are probably actually in the majority,
but most people are too nervous
to actually admit that
they're feeling that
because they're worried
that they're the only one.
You're not the only one.
And the consequence from that is,
don't stew.
Don't sit in your own,
uncertainty is if you don't know, ask.
If you don't know,
find out from people in the university,
what, where, why, and how.
Ask the questions, find out.
That's the biggest advice
that I can give you.
You are going to feel that.
Oh this is just,
I don't know, I don't understand.
It's not the structured
system you had at school.
Enjoy it. Enjoy the uncertainty, but ask.
- Yeah. People want to help.
- Yes. And they do.
And one of the things
that I'm immensely proud
of the Deakin community
is people do want to help.
They are hugely proud
of their relationship with the students
and hugely supportive.
But they do need to be
asked the question first.
- What does Deakin do
better now compared to,
I don't know, when you went to uni
or maybe when you first
started in higher education?
- We certainly don't post
results on the notice board.
(both laughing)
- I think we should bring it back.
(both laughing)
- Resilience. That's what we're teaching.
Goodness.
- Yeah.
So I think there is a lot
more support for students now.
Certainly when I went through university,
it was very much sink or swim.
There wasn't a lot of student services.
There wasn't a lot of student support.
- Yeah.
- We do that very well.
Students with disabilities,
there are pathways and
support pathways there now
that just simply did not exist.
And just some very practical things.
When I went through university in 1982,
the internet was barely there.
If I wanted to find some information,
it was a physical trek to the library.
- Yeah.
- It was going to the shelves
and pulling off dusty journals,
finding the right one.
Or more often than not finding the one,
- The wrong one.
- the one copy
you wanted was the one that was
missing from the collection.
- Yeah.
- And I think anyone
who did research at that time
will tell you the same story.
So when, and I remember
when I was doing my
high degree by research,
it was just at the time that
digital search was coming in for journals,
I remember sitting at home
with the modem dialling up
some ridiculously slow space.
- Go make a cup of coffee.
- You make a coffee for coffee.
- Go make dinner, go have a
shower, come back tomorrow.
- It might have taken you two hours,
but that was a hell of a lot better than
the day and a half
it would've taken you in the old system.
So I think that sense of
technology enabling you
to do stuff now that was either impossible
or incredibly time consuming
was a big change as well.
- What advice would you have
to students at the beginning
of their university journey?
- I'd say the first thing,
which is you're not sure
ask would be my number one.
The second is,
most of our students make the right choice
and end up in a degree that they love
and find themselves comfortable in it.
But if you are finding that
this is not what you expected,
don't sit there and suffer.
Don't sit there and do think about
can I change my pathway?
Can I look at other options?
And I think that's a really
important thing to say that,
one of the things that
we are much better now
is this ability to move around.
You're not making a fixed decision.
So you make your choice to
study at university on good,
but not complete information.
And a minority of students
will find themselves
in a programme that
doesn't actually suit them.
And again, my very strong advice would be
talk to people and find out
are there options to either
refine what I'm studying
or look to a different pathway.
- Yeah.
- And the final thing I'd say
is make the most of it.
It might feel like a
whole lot of pressure.
And I know now that
students are juggling jobs
in the way that my
cohort didn't have to do.
- Yeah.
- But this ability
to spend a significant
chunk of three years
exploring a knowledge area that you love,
it's a luxury that you won't
get again anytime soon.
- Totally
- So make the most of it,
because you don't see it as
that luxury when you are there.
- No.
- But it is.
- Yeah.
- And really enjoy that time.
- It's about you.
- Yes.
- This time.
- Yes.
- So even though there's pressure from,
you know, it's not about your parents,
it's not about the teachers,
it's not about, it's about you.
- Yeah.
- And you can shape so much
of that experience.
And I think that's both
a challenge for people,
but a real opportunity.
And I think play the latter,
make it an opportunity.
- Yeah. Good advice.
Final questions.
- Yes.
- Very quick fire.
- Yes.
- We're just looking
for a word or two here.
What's it like being
Vice-Chancellor in one word?
- Interesting.
- Interesting.
- With a exclamation
mark at the end of it.
- Hmm. Yeah. That's an interesting answer.
Yes, very appropriate. I think.
What's the last thing you asked AI to do?
It's a bit risque, this one.
- I'm gonna sound like a complete nerd,
but it was last night
and I've got a home computer server
that I run some stuff on at home
and I just asked it,
how do I write a programme to do X?
And it did it for me,
'cause I'm not great at doing it.
It did it for me really, really quickly
and completely accurately.
- Great. That's using AI
to its full potential.
- Yes. Yes.
- How I write a programme
for this. Amazing.
And finally, what's
your favourite podcast?
You don't have to say "Stories of Wonder,"
although you know, would
be a nice endorsement, but.
- Look, there's a couple
that I really enjoy,
but I think my favourite
is, "The Rest is Politics."
Because two great ex UK politicians,
but they've just got
this wonderful banter.
It's between Alistair Campbell,
- Campbell and Dun Rory Stewart.
- Rory. Yes, yep.
But really great people.
And I love the conversations,
but it also reminds me a lot
of what I see in politicians
because I get the privilege
of meeting with politicians
outside of the public gaze.
And you actually see in them
this deep intellectual curiosity care,
the debating the ideas,
not playing the person in a way
that you don't see in public.
And I wish more people could see that
because it would make a difference.
- Yeah, fair enough.
Well, great answers
and it's been nice to
see a bit more of you
- Yes.
- here Iain,
and nice to chat with you today.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you very much for the opportunity.