The clear and consistent message from the Federal Government's Mortimer, West and Stocker Reports is that universities need to attract significant external funding, according to a new senior academic manager at the University of Queensland.
'While we don't agree with everything proposed in these reports, it is clear that universities have to change their culture to survive in an environment of diminishing government funding,' Professor Mick McManus said.
'It is also important for us to see opportunities in this environment and to convince government that investment in the tertiary education sector is crucial for the future of Australia.'
Professor McManus takes up appointment today as Executive Dean of the University's Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences, succeeding Professor Alan Pettigrew, appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor (academic affairs) at the University of New South Wales.
He heads one of the University's largest faculties, spanning 10 departments, seven research centres and two Co-operative Research Centres with a total budget of about $60 million, 894 staff and occupying 55,401 sq metres of space with a replacement cost of more than $103 million.
He said some changes mooted in various reports could have major university impacts. For example, a likely scenario was that research quantum funds could be distributed according to the British model, where departments were ranked from one to five star. A drop in one on the ranking scale could have disastrous funding outcomes for a particular department.
It was important in financially challenging times not to lose sight of academic excellence.
'Indeed, if anything like the new British funding model is adopted by DEETYA, where essentially the four most recent significant publications of staff form a major part of the evaluation, faculties would need to be acutely aware where they would be placed on a national scale,' he said.
Professor McManus said the Mortimer Report recommended such changes as doubling the monies earned from spinoff companies by 2002 and raising levels of external funding by 50 percent by 2005. He said it was important that his Faculty began to position itself for those types of changes in major government funding.
'To do that, we need to bring in our stakeholders, such as industry and government, and reach out to them in many ways,' he said.
Professor McManus said he was fortunate to inherit the Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences 'in very good order and therefore not in need of radical surgery.'
'However, it is important that we see opportunities for the Faculty in an environment which is becoming less funding-friendly to educational pursuits. We have to adopt a clever way of operating which involves maximising our internal resources and raising significant funds from the private sector.
'The bottom line is that we do not have a choice but to respond, and it is important that our approach is sound, innovative and driven by excellence and a keen sense of the education market both nationally and internationally.
'This Faculty is very well situated to go into the third millennium with a fantastic development, the $60 million Molecular Biosciences Institute, to have a major impact on our future.
'The Institute will be a unique experience in Australian universities. It is important that we capitalise on its potential influence in a major way through teaching and research and tackle the major expectations of government and industry in external funding, technology transfer and spinoff companies.
'The Institute will also provide a platform for us to lift our science to new levels of excellence.'
Professor McManus said the Faculty's areas of excellence included marine science in which the University had resources which were not only nationally significant but were the best in the world, with research facilities at Heron Island, Moreton Bay and Low Isles. His Faculty would ensure the University's investment in these areas was well utilised.
He said the Faculty was also facing a major curriculum review which needed to consider the needs of students, cognate faculties, industry and government.
Professor McManus said the emerging challenges for the Faculty included remaining relevant in an environment where the knowledge base was doubling every eight months and resulting in a 'tremendous' blurring of the boundaries between disciplines.
'To maximise our teaching and research, we will have to be a Faculty of departments and centres without walls. It is increasingly apparent that most research problems require a multi-disciplinary approach drawing on expertise from a range of disciplines within the Biological and Chemical Sciences,' he said.
'I also believe that faculties that teach together are happier faculties.
'Much work remains to create a research and teaching environment whereby interactions between centres and departments are the norm and joint appointments are strongly encouraged.'
Professor McManus said the Graduate School had recently become part of the University's agenda. His Faculty would work with the Graduate School to internationalise its programs to attract significantly more overseas students at the postgraduate level. There was also considerable scope for the Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences to increase the number of international undergraduate students it attracted.
Professor McManus was appointed Foundation Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Queensland in 1992. Prior to this he was a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Principal Research Fellow at Flinders University in South Australia.
Professor McManus initially trained as a pharmacist at Curtin University in 1972, then earned his PhD in biochemical pharmacology from the University of Western Australia in 1978.
Following his PhD, he spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London and four years as a Fogarty International Fellow/Associate at the National Cancer Institute within the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, United States.
Returning to Australia in 1983, Professor McManus was awarded an Anti-Cancer Foundation of the Universities of South Australia Research Fellowship and subsequently an NHMRC senior principal research fellowship.
He became Physiology and Pharmacology Department head in 1993, holding the position until December 1997. The period coincided with the growth of the Department into one of the largest and most successful in Australia, with a strong modern teaching ethos and a leading research edge.
Under his stewardship, the Department's success rate in attracting NHMRC funding has consistently been twice the national average and it also has attracted significant Australian Research Council and private sector funding. Undergraduate and postgraduate student numbers have grown considerably, with a four-fold increase in honours students and a doubling of PhD student numbers.
Professor David Adams took up the headship in January.
Professor McManus has been a member of several national and state committees including the National Health and Medical Research Council's Assigners Panel since 1992 and the Melbourne Regional Grant Interviewing Committee.
His research interests in the structure, function and regulation of enzymes involved in the metabolism of drugs and carcinogens by humans have attracted several million dollars in funding and he has published more than 100 papers.
Professor McManus hopes to continue leading a major research project in the molecular biology of the human sulfotransferase system. In particular, he is focusing on their role in the metabolic activation of heterocyclic amines, chemicals that are formed when meat is cooked at temperatures ranging from 150 to 300 degrees centigrade. These chemicals are exceedingly mutagenic in short term bacterial tests and Professor McManus is investigating their possible role in diseases such as colo-rectal cancer.
For more information, contact Professor McManus (telephone 07 3365 1611).
