Universities are no longer the bastions of privilege they once were. The once hallowed halls of learning have been replaced with global institutions all competing for a piece of the knowledge pie. So, what does this mean for the tertiary education sector?

Universities fund their research activities through a combination to external research funding, principally government sources with some private sector contributions, and by using university discretionary funds. The latter are mainly sourced for teaching domestic and international students and from donations and investment income. In numerous submissions to the Commonwealth Government Australian universities have consistently stated that government research funding was insufficient to sustain their international competitiveness so cross-subsidisation was necessary.

The nature of Australian universities traditionally has been characterised by competition. However, in the context of open innovation, the realisation grows that collaborating and sharing knowledge and information has a very positive impact on innovation and the effectiveness of individual organisations. So what can we learn from others? This theme will take us through how universities partner with other universities, state and local governments, and industry and community organisations.

If you want to encourage children to play a sport, skills training would seem obvious. Running, passing, and ball handling are standard skills for netball, basketball or football. As game concepts are introduced, most children discover a preference for positions, perhaps playing forward or defence. Over time, they may develop specialized skills in their preferred position as well as a highly refined sense of team collaboration.

Prof Sandra Jones, RMIT, has published a HERDSA Guide Leading the Academy: distributed leadership in Higher Education, which was launched at the 2017 HERDSA Annual Conference.

Although the Information Age is connecting billions of people, ideas and resources — achieving an astounding pace of technological change and even suggesting a future where human and machine become one — it also offers a renewal of the promise and value of something centuries old.