Mark Scott may not have a PhD. But he knows how to talk to politicians

When the vice-chancellors of Australia’s top universities get together, the sector’s newest, Mark Scott, will not have a PhD, a Nobel Prize or pioneering research to add to their pile of scholarly achievements. But he will have something they don’t.

It’s something they need. Mr Scott, the NSW Department of Education secretary, has experience in managing and even strengthening an independent yet government-funded organisation that’s deeply disliked and frequently dumped upon by many Coalition MPs.

He ran the ABC.

Mark Scott, when he was managing director of the ABC.Credit: Mal Fairclough

Relations between universities and the government have been strained in the past few years. Universities missed out on JobKeeper payments over COVID, even though their international fee revenue — used to fund research — was hit hard by the border closures forced by COVID-19.

They’ve copped criticism about over-reliance on Chinese students from government MPs, even though the federal government endorsed overseas fee revenue as a way of topping up universities’ ever-decreasing proportion of public money.

Most of them quietly accepted the Job-ready Graduates Package, which privately they railed against — “philistines” was one word used — because they were so afraid the government would cut off research money.

And the peak advocacy body, Universities Australia, now represents so many different interests from different types of universities that some argue it’s unable to provide much effective representation for anyone at all.

Scholarly vice-chancellors understand research and can empathise with academics. They fight for the epistemic values. They’re big thinkers. But few have had much experience at greasing wheels in Canberra or rallying the public to their cause, and this is what the sector needs right now.

Sydney University chancellor Belinda Hutchinson acknowledged as much in an interview with the Herald. “We need to get our message out better than we have done ... we have to take the community with us on what we do and why what we do is so important,” she said.

University commentator, Australian National University Professor Andrew Norton, said universities had significant stakeholders to manage, including the Commonwealth government, and someone who has led two large public sector organisations in the past “would probably have more knowledge of how to go about that than an academic”.

“We need to get our message out better than we have done ... we have to take the community with us on what we do and why what we do is so important.”

Univeristy of Sydney chancellor Belinda Hutchinson

The risk is that Mr Scott — who will be made a professor of practice — will struggle to win the respect of academics, who are traditionally resistant to management, and decisions that are seen to be driven less by scholarship than pragmatism.

Sydney University’s staff are more active on this front than those at most Australian universities.

Professor Norton said it was a bold appointment. “I actually think it’s worth trying,” he said. “They are tackling real problems with this appointment, and time will tell how the balance will work out. I think he’s done a pretty good job in his previous roles.

“A decent injection of political and bureaucratic nous would help both university of sydney and the sector more broadly.”

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