The National Context For
Research Training
• The importance of good research higher
degree supervision
 Some statistics and Government drivers in the
Postgraduate Research Sector
 Student intellectual property
 The Dean of Graduate Studies
Research Performance
• Key indicators of research performance
 Research income
 Postgraduate research students
Postgraduate enrolments (domestic load)
Postgraduate completions (all students)
 Research publications
• Drives research block grant funding
 About $100M p.a.
 RTS, IGS, RIBG, APAs, IPRSs
Research Performance
Pre-White Paper
Completions Publications
2%
4%
Income
36%
Enrolments
58%
Completions
31%
Post-White Paper
Enrolments
8%
Publication
9%
Income
52%
Funding Drivers
Scheme weightings
Funding
Scheme
Research
Publications
RTS
(52%)
10%
IGS
(25%)
10%
Higher
Degree
Load
Higher
Degree
Completions
Research
Income
50%
40%
30%
60%
RIBG (14%)
100%*
APA
(8%)
10%
50%
40%
IPRS
(1%)
10%
50%
40%
* NCGI Income only
Return on Funding Drivers
For 2003
Approximate Return per Unit
Research Publication
$4,161
NCG Income (Category 1)
66c
Other Research Income (Category 2-4)
38c
Research Enrolments – High Cost
$5,214
Research Enrolments – Low Cost
$2,219
PhD Completion - High Cost
$99,692
PhD Completion - Low Cost
$42,422
Masters (Research) Completion- High
$49,846
Masters (Research) Completion - Low
$21,211
Research Students
Actual Student Load (EFTSU) Non-Overseas Students by State 2001
2400
Masters (R)
PhD
2200
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Melbourne
•
•
•
Queensland
Sydney
Monash
New South Wales Western Australia
Adelaide
ANU
Domestic research student load now drives only 8% of block funding
Overseas research student load is approximately 16% of total research load
PhD load makes up around 80% of total research load
Research Completions
550
15%
14%
500
13%
12%
11%
400
10%
350
9%
300
8%
250
7%
6%
200
5%
150
4%
3%
100
2%
50
1%
0
0%
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
No.of HDR Completions
•
•
1997
1998
1999
2000
% Share of National Total
Completions have been slowly increasing
% National share slowly decreasing (9.64% in 2000)
2001
% Share of National Total
No. of HDR Completions
450
Load-to-Completion Ratio
PhD Load to Completion Ratio
Rolling 3 Year Average 1996-2001
20
15
10
5
NA
0
Vet Sci.
99-01
SCA
98-00
Pharmacy
97-99
Medicine
Health Sci.
Education
Dentistry
Arts
Agriculture
96-98
Research Training Scheme
• Research performance across the board has
been good so we do relatively well under RTS
Provisional allocation for 2003 - $56M
 Increased from $54M in 2002
• DEST looks at our RTS allocation then ascribes
a notional cost per domestic postgraduate and
estimates how many domestic postgraduates
we should be supporting
• If we are “under-enrolled” we send back any
“excess” funding for redistribution
• The University of Sydney is UNDER-ENROLLED
DOMESTIC POSTGRADUATE LOAD
University by College
Total Domestic Postgraduate Research Load (EFTSU)
by College
1996-2002
2500
2000
1996
1997
1500
EFTSU
1998
1999
2000
2001
1000
2002
500
0
CHS
CHASS
CST
UNIVERSITY
DOMESTIC POSTGRADUATE COMMENCING LOAD
University by College
Total Commencing Operating Grant Research Load (EFTSU)
by College
2000-2002
800
700
600
EFTSU
500
1997
1998
1999
400
2000
2001
2002
300
200
100
0
CHS Commencing
CHASS Commencing
CST Commencing
UNIVERSITY
Research Training Scheme
• Improve efforts to recruit domestic
students
• Clear signal is that we should have the
capacity to carry 5-10% more than we
are now
 without compromising quality
• We should ideally be looking at slight
over-enrolment so that we “return”
nothing to the pool and benefit by
deriving more RTS from the pool
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Intellectual Property Rule
• Takes into account participation of
students in third party agreements
• Clearly sets out roles and
responsibilities of supervisors, students
etc. with respect to IP
• Students own their own IP (unlike staff)
 Supervisors MUST ensure that students are
made fully aware of any requirement to assign
or consent BEFORE students they commence
Students must receive appropriate advice
Intellectual Property
• Hypothetical Case Study – positive
 Student involved in PhD project. Good ideas –
good potential applications
BLO notified, student assigns IP to University
BLO files provisional patent listing student and
supervisor as inventors
 Escalating investor interest
 IP licensed to investor – full patent filed
 Royalty flow shared equally between
University, Department and Inventors
 Everybody happy J
Intellectual Property
• Hypothetical Case Study – negative
 Student’s work partly involves research
contract project with a third party
 Student not aware of any confidentiality
requirements
 Student publishes “confidential” information in
PhD thesis
 Contract breached – University, Department
and supervisor exposed to legal action
 Supervisor disciplined, future contracts gone
 Nobody happy
L
Intellectual Property
• Hypothetical Case Study – negative
 Student involved in a simple vacation project
 Good ideas – good potential application
 leads to patent and IP
 multiple inventors claimed, including the student
 student not well-advised
 Escalating investor interest in IP




Narrow window-of-opportunity under time pressure
Student challenges IP agreement for greater share
Inventors in conflict - ownership of IP clouded
Stalemate
 Investors go away, nobody happy
L
Dean of Graduate Studies
• Dean of Graduate Studies (DoGS)
• Professor Masud Behnia
Will serve as a focus for all postgraduate
research activity across the University
Will work closely with
 Deans
 Associate Deans (Postgraduate Studies)
 Heads of Schools/Departments
 Postgraduate Coordinators
 Supervisors and postgraduate students
 Located at Eastern end of Merewether Building