Turning to the future: Adelaide University will bring about much change
Adelaide University is spearheading a game-changing era in Australia’s university sector, with students, research and the state set to benefit.
This decade has delivered Australian universities an existential crisis of sorts –one that Adelaide University co-Vice Chancellors Peter Høj AC and David Lloyd seek to leave behind whilst preparing for the next inevitable challenges facing higher education.
First, there was the fall in international enrolments due to Covid border closures, then the federal government’s cap on those numbers and, now, the ongoing rise of AI and machine learning that is reshaping industries at a rapid pace and carving a gap between current university learnings and real-world applications.
Høj and Lloyd have big aspirations for the new Adelaide University, including for it to be a destination for education and to rank in the top 5 nationally for student experience.
When the University opens in January 2026, it is expected to have around 70,000 students, with international students accounting for roughly 25% of those enrolled.
To put that in perspective, five of Australia’s universities currently have enrolments of 70,000 or above, including four of the research-intensive Group of Eight.
“The scale factor in this can’t be overplayed, it’s a critically important component of what we’re trying to achieve on the back of Australia’s largest domestic base,” Lloyd said.
One of those aims is to be Australia’s most connected university – an engine room for innovation, economic development and social cohesion.
“When we look at the two merging institutions and cohorts of academic staff, we have a significant level of aligned activities in core disciplines, and they’ve been competing for 30-odd years,” Lloyd said.
Aligning them will build the University’s reputation for academic excellence in teaching and research in core areas and increase its research output, which feeds into the ability to attract the best students, academics and researchers.
“This will play back to the strengths of the state,” Lloyd said.
It is estimated that the University’s activities will contribute $4.7 billion a year to the Australian economy.
Høj said Australia’s comparatively low levels of business investment into research is, by OECD standards, a problem.
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The total for all R&D spending in Australia is currently around $40 billion, with about one-third of that investment coming from universities.
Adelaide University is expected to attract investment into the state through partnered research and by contributing to the workforce, reputation and growth of the state’s key sectors.
“With partnered research, our research choices and contributions are not defined only inside the University, they are also influenced by what outside organisations believe would be a valuable research contribution,” Høj said.
Lloyd noted that the aim of partnered research, unlike consultancy, is to ask “questions of interest to the institution that advance knowledge”.
“We are both very clear on the fact that the University is not supposed to be a surrogate for industry,” he said.
“Eighty per cent of Australia’s basic research happens in universities, and it’s mostly funded by universities, but that’s not the spectrum of research.
“You need to have that full transition from basic, to translational and different levels of technology readiness.
“We can engage in near market research with an industry because we’ve got something they don’t have, which is the capacity to ask or answer a certain question, but it’s not about the absolution of industry to do their own work.
“Largely, when we get into that near market work, it has actually been funded by the partner.”
The state can expect to see this lift in research produce a positive flow-on effect, with accelerated economic growth enabling greater public investment and ensuring fewer people are left behind.
Adelaide University City Campus, North Terrace. Photo: supplied
Meanwhile, it is expected to empower future trailblazers to pioneer groundbreaking research, inventions and ideas.
The institution will aim to deliver online education to more students than any other Australian university, offering cohorts like non-school leavers access to lifelong learning and the flexibility to undertake tertiary study while working or raising a family.
The demand for skilled employment is projected to rise and 9 out of 10 jobs created in the next five years will require post-school qualifications.
Currently, 28 per cent of SA residents hold a bachelor’s degree or above compared with the national average of 36 per cent, and Høj said there has been a push by nations worldwide to have a greater proportion of their populations holding tertiary qualifications.
Digital delivery will go a long way to achieving this, as will the modularity of the curriculum that will give students greater flexibility in the topics they study in any semester-long subject.
Modularity will also enable subjects to rapidly be updated or switched out as technological, medical and other advances are made in the real world.
For students moving directly from Year 12 into university studies, Høj said the on-campus experience is “incredibly important” in the formation of the individual.
The new curriculum will be ‘digitally rich’, combining classroom experiences with digital content, including gamification of learning.
Lloyd said this will enable higher levels of knowledge transfer and gain, with course materials delivered in diverse, digital formats and one-sided lectures replaced by lectorials and other interactive sessions.
“If your pre-read is ‘watch this really interesting digital piece we’ve created for you’, and we have a discourse on what you’ve learned from that, and then augment your understanding through challenge, debate, workshops and interaction – all the research says this is how education [makes an impact], it’s the evolution of the lecture,” he said.
More than 1500 staff from both of the founding universities have begun developing content for the new courses and programs, and over 200 industry members and employers have also been engaged in program design to turbo charge a highly informed curriculum.
Also being deployed are the founding institution’s own world-leading Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning (C3L) and the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML).
They will deliver the learning analytics that will underpin what Lloyd called the “hyper care learning environment”.
Adelaide University will also be the first in Australia to have a Deputy Vice Chancellor Student Experience & Success.
“We have an ambition to be top five in Australia for student experience, which is quite a feat for a very large organisation,” Høj said.
“If you look at tertiary organisations in Australia that that are ranked number one or two for student experiences, they’re typically small specialist ones.
“But we know with the appropriate focus and resources applied, scale should not affect student experience.
“So, that’s another thing that will set us apart. One, because it’s the right thing to do and two, because we know it’s going to be measured.”
The current funding model for higher education in Australia is a recognised challenge for the sector.
Operating at scale is one of the few levers available for institutions to attract the most talented students and staff, invest in infrastructure, and achieve research, student and community outcomes.
The efficiency gains from scale will significantly reduce the University’s reliance on revenue from international students – making it a “shockproof organisation”, said Lloyd – and enable a larger proportion of revenue to be spent on academic purpose.
Scale will provide the ability to focus the resources of each of the merging universities to deliver a wider curriculum that is better aligned with the future needs of the state and the nation, while also sustaining niche programs.
“There are programs that only produce a handful of graduates, but it’s critically important to have them,” Lloyd said.
“For example, without the geology program, we wouldn’t have geologists for a sustainable minerals industry.”
Adelaide University aims to drive innovation from its roots in South Australia, pulling global knowledge into the region, and pushing new discoveries to the rest of the world.
Høj said “with everything else being equal” the University would be able to provide the state with “more of the discipline expertise than any self-contained society would need”.
“I think it’s a university’s role to create a society which is prosperous enough to do what it has to do for its citizens, and to also be able to make sure that very few people are left behind.
“That cannot happen without innovation flowing into the broader economy and consequential economic growth.”
