For participation in reality or online please registration by 30 October 2023 on https://events.au.dk/chefannuallecture2023-01112023

13.00-13.05 Introduction, Sue Wright, Co-director of CHEF
It is 20 years since 2003 University reforms. There have been similar reforms elsewhere, including in Australia. The CHEF Annual Lecture will set out the current major review of Australian higher education governance and policy and provide an opportunity for three discussants to reflect on what is happening in Denmark.

13.05-14.00 CHEF Annual Lecture ‘The Australian university sector: the canary in the birdcage of higher education’
Jill Blackmore, AM, Alfred Deakin Professor in Education, Deakin University, Australia and President of the Australian Association of University Professors
Abstract Decades of corporate governance based on massification, managerialism and marketisation under conditions of reduced funding and casualisation of academic work, therefore impacting on quality of teaching and research, means Australian universities are now in crisis.  Their role as critic, conscience and contributor to the public good has been subverted by executive prioritising of asset management, reputation and international rankings rather than academic freedom. Australia, uniquely located in the Global South but culturally and historically tied to the global North, is now confronted by extreme climate change, Indigenous reconciliation, geopolitical uncertainty in the Indo- Pacific, skills shortages, and national debt (Covid legacy) etc.  Will a new Labor government’s multiple reviews of higher education in 2023 focusing on equity, research, funding, internationalisation, and governance, together with industrial relations and labour market reform result in fundamental change or just tinkering at the edges of a broken system?  What influences are being brought to bear on policymakers and university management and with what potential effects? Is this a moment for optimism or ongoing despair?

Reflections on the CHEF Annual Lecture in the context of Danish university reform
14.05-14.20 Jakob Williams Ørberg, NNF India in New Delhi, Novo Nordisk Foundation
He will reflect on the Danish reform’s promises kept and unkept in the context of Australia’s rethinking. Jakob has a background in research on university reform and from policy making in Danish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. He was Counsellor on Innovation at the Embassy of Denmark in India until 2022.

14.20-14.30 Mette Birkedal Bruun, Professor of Church History, Copenhagen University and Vice-chair of the Danish Council for Research and Innovation Policy (DFIR).
She will reflect on points from CHEF’s annual lecture whilst presenting issues raised in DFIR’s 2023 report ‘Universities for the future: Twenty years of the University Act’.

14.30-14.40 Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen, Lecturer in Cultural Encounters, and member of the Governing Board, Roskilde University.
She will reflect on debates about university governance in Australia and Denmark from the perspective of a lecturer and the academic representative on RUC’s governing board.

14.40-15.00 Open discussion