Australian higher education in perpetual crisis? A narrative of crisis leadership in universities

Australian higher education has typically performed above its weight class globally. For a country of approximately 26 million people and 42 universities, the nation exceeds global averages. In 2023, Australia was the 55th largest country by population (Worldometer in Countries in the world by population (2023). Worldometer. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/, 2023), and in 2021 it was the thirteen largest economy (World Bank in GDP (current US$). World Bank Group. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/Ny.Gdp.Mktp.Cd?most_recent_value_desc=true, 2023). For clarity, it represents 0.33 per cent of the world's population, and 1.7 per cent of the world’s global economy. In research terms however, it represents the 9th largest country by citations since 1996, and has ranged from 5 to 7th largest since 2014 (Scimago in Scimago Journal and Country Rank. Scimago. https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?order=ci&ord=desc&year=2013, 2023). Australia represents 17 per cent of the top 100 universities in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (2022) and represents seven of the top 100 universities by teaching quality (Times Higher Education in Impact Rankings 2022. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/impactrankings#!/length/25/locations/AUS/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/undefined, 2022). In contextual terms, earliest evidence indicates University of Oxford was teaching in 1096, Harvard College was founded in 1636, and the University of Sydney was founded in 1850. So, despite the smaller economy and population, and a much younger higher education sector, Australia is quite successful as a global provider of higher education.

The success of Australian higher education has required resilience in the face of continued crisis, from government decrees to for university massification and lofty targets of 50 per cent of the Australian population receiving a tertiary education to the COVID-19 pandemic, and more recently the authentication crisis presented by ChatGPT’s emergence. Many of these challenges lack a unique Australian origin, but have required a uniquely Australian response. This chapter provides a critical review of twenty-first-century Australian higher education through the lens of crisis leadership, and offers a look at the ways in which crisis leadership and management have been applied to contemporary crisis in universities.

The critical review presented in this chapter is important in its identification of leadership practices that have, and have not, been successful in Australian universities. This chapter affords a conceptual assessment of practical efforts made by those in senior management positions to enact leadership in response to crisis. It concludes with possible policy and leadership development responses that may support greater resilience when an unexpected and unpredictable crisis presents itself.