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Nation-building universities in a global environment: The case of Australia

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Abstract

The mass system of higher education in Australia is a product of the publicly financed nation-building strategies of the 1955–1990 period. The nation-building university is now undergoing a three way crisis brought on by the governmental retreat from nation-building and from the funding that sustained it, the stand-off between corporateand academic practices inside universities, andthe need for new strategies in a globalisingenvironment, in which national policies arerelativised but remain important. The crisis isexacerbated by Australia's location on theAmerican `periphery', associated with globalvulnerability and fluctuating economic andcultural dependence. In response the primarystrategy should not be to imitate Americanuniversities, a course of action which islikely to deliver modest returns, but tostrengthen the academic identity andplace-based identity of Australianinstitutions, enabling them to make adistinctive contribution to global highereducation underpinned by a renewed partnershipbetween nation and university.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Monash Centre for Research in International Education, Monash University, Australia

    Simon Marginson

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  1. Simon Marginson
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Marginson, S. Nation-building universities in a global environment: The case of Australia. Higher Education 43, 409–428 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014691304966

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