A submission in response to Number 4 Part 3 of the University Advisory Group’s questions
| Executive summary Universities are the nation’s primary repositories of knowledge and the primary creators of knowledge across all fields – sciences, technology, health, business, culture and the arts. One of the most valuable roles of the university is the dissemination of its knowledge, both through the university’s teaching of people (who then enter the workforce or participate in community activities) and by transferring the knowledge created in its research programmes. Knowledge transfer through teaching It would be possible to enhance the transfer of knowledge through the teaching function of universities by: – extending and deepening the take-up of work-integrated learning in teaching – ensuring that university instructors give emphasis to applying skills learned in different contexts as a mechanism for ensuring that students’ skills become transferable skills – increasing the offering (and the take-up) of post-graduation training (life-long learning), potentially making greater use of micro-credentials. The UAG should recommend that Universities NZ explore the implications of those three enhancements and discuss with government any resourcing implications. Knowledge transfer through research Transfer of research information to communities and users occurs through a wide range of mechanisms – including through the political process, professional associations, news media and researcher advocacy, as well as research contracts. The primary current mechanism for incentivising and rewarding the transfer of research knowledge is through the external research income (ERI) component of the PBRF. That captures commercial, NGO and government agency research purchase and also funding from the government’s three “public good” research funding agencies (but is blind to unfunded research transfer). Because it is hard to quantify the extent of transfer that occurs through unfunded mechanisms, the ERI stands as a proxy for the extent of research knowledge transfer in the funding system. Given the importance to New Zealand of the transfer of research knowledge, the UAG should recommend to the government that the ERI component should be retained in the research funding system – the PBRF or any mechanism that replaces or modifies the PBRF. In 2013, the government modified the ERI by weighting commercial research contract income higher than revenue from research contracts with government agencies and research funding from the three public good research funds. That decision undervalues much socially valuable research. The UAG should recommend that the government remove the differential weighting of ERI by type of funder. |
The context
Universities are both repositories and creators of knowledge. Science, technology, medicine. Plus social sciences – how societies and organisations within society operate, how individuals function. And our commercial life. Universities also have a particular role in developing, housing and disseminating cultural knowledge – our history, traditions, our arts, … And, as organisations that house, analyse and create knowledge across multiple fields and that employ experts in a wide range of disciplines, universities develop an integrated, multi-dimensional picture of our society.
The most socially and economically valuable role of the university – the role that justifies the large public investment in universities – is the dissemination of its knowledge, in all of those fields, throughout the community. Dissemination, in a range of ways, to government organisations, businesses, the health and education systems, NGOs, community groups and engaged individuals.
There is a positive relationship between the education level of a country’s population and its economic performance and its social outcomes[1]. The mechanisms that drive the positive relationship are not entirely clear; in part, it derives from the skills – cognitive and socio-emotional – acquired in higher education. However, the knowledge gained in higher education also plays a part, particularly knowledge in fields such as science, medicine, in economically important fields such as accounting, economics, management and engineering, but also knowledge and understanding of how societies work, how individuals affect and are affected by society. And culturally significant knowledge – knowledge of the arts, our traditions, languages and history – is a key requirement in some careers, especially (but not only) in the public sector.
Dissemination through university teaching programmes …
The primary mechanism for transferring knowledge from the university to the community is through teaching and qualifying individuals – conveying knowledge to students, training students so that they acquire skills that enable them to use that knowledge. And certifying their acquisition of knowledge (and skills) through assessment and awarding degrees. A degree is a declaration that an individual knows and understands a subject area to a certain depth and also has the cognitive skills needed to apply that knowledge. Knowledge plus skills.
The balance of importance between knowledge and skills varies between fields, for instance, between a graduate in medicine and a graduate in the humanities. The medical graduate needs to know enough about human physiology, illness and medicine to cure sick people but also needs the skills, cognitive skills and socio-emotional skills, to make use of that knowledge. The humanities graduate may end up in a job where the knowledge acquired in the study of (say) history may play a lesser role but where the cognitive skills, analytical skills, communication skills, digital skills, as well as socio-emotional skills provide the base from which the graduate, as an employee, can create value for the employer. An understanding of culture and the arts also makes a contribution to social well-being[2].
More than half of university graduates each year complete vocational qualifications, degrees that have a direct connection with, and provide entry to, a specific vocation or occupation – such as law, the medical professions, teaching, creative writing, engineering, theatrical and musical performance, fine arts, accounting, …[3]. Those – and many other graduates – draw on a specific body of knowledge, as well as their skills, when they enter their chosen occupation. Other graduates, like those with a qualification in data science, are also very likely to draw on knowledge learned at university, in addition to their skills.
Improving the transfer of knowledge through teaching programmes
Lift the take-up and intensity of work integrated learning:
One important way of improving the transfer of knowledge (as well as skills) acquired during university study is to increase the uptake of work-integrated learning (WIL). WIL sees students undertaking internships or work placements, having the opportunity to test and sharpen their knowledge and skills in a work environment, being mentored by a workplace supervisor, with a university teacher overseeing the placement, and ensuring that the student is capturing the educational benefit of the placement.
WIL is intended to enrich the theoretical learning undertaken in the classroom, integrating “… knowledge gained in the university with knowledge accessed or constructed through experiences in workplaces… [which has] been shown to develop capabilities that enhance the employability of graduates”[4]. It combines “…academic and practical knowledge and skills which better prepares (sic) them for the workplace … students engage in authentic and meaningful work-related tasks and learn by doing …”[5].
Done well, WIL should equip graduates to gain more from their studies when they return to the lecture theatre and the lab. It also means that students are likely to be more effective in using the knowledge gained in their studies when they enter the workforce. Canadian research[6] that shows that in most fields, participation in work-integrated learning leads to better outcomes, higher earnings, even controlling for the students’ GPA[7]. That implies there is value for graduates and employers in work-integrated learning. It suggests that the experience in the workplace has deepened the transfer of knowledge.
Many universities in Canada (such as the University of Waterloo) and some in Australia (such as Swinburne University of Technology) have used work-integrated learning to enrich their teaching over many decades.
In New Zealand, WIL has long been a feature of many pure vocational degrees (medicine, nursing, teaching for instance) which include supervised internships/work placements that ensure that students are closely supervised and taught in the workplace. Likewise engineering and agriculture degrees have practical work requirements (which is, in most cases, a less intensive form of WIL). WIL is optional in some vocational degrees in some universities (such as law at the University of Canterbury). It is a requirement of all bachelors degrees – in all fields, not just vocational degrees – at the University of Waikato. In some cases, however, the work experience may have a greater focus on the weeks worked than on the skills acquired from the supervisor and workers on the job.
But, as noted in the Improving Teaching section of this submission, it is very expensive to go beyond work experience and other forms of light-touch WIL. Once the university has a tutor linking with the work-place supervisor and lending specific support to the student during the work placement, economies of scale can evaporate. It is likely that the light-touch of the WIL offered in some courses and the relative slowness to embrace WIL in a comprehensive way across New Zealand’s universities may reflect the fact WIL is costly and unfunded.
Lifting the take-up and intensity of WIL across the system will require investment.
Focus on improving the transferability of skills
One of the arguments often made for the humanities and other fields often derided as of “lower relevance” relates to transferability of the generic skills that all bachelors graduates are expected to acquire – skills such as analytical thinking and innovation, critical thinking and analysis, complex problem solving, reasoning, problem solving and ideation …[8].
However, the transferability of skills – the idea that skills acquired in one context can readily be applied in another – cannot simply be taken for granted. Research[9] suggests that that a person needs to be able to “select, adapt, adjust and apply” these generic skills to different contexts. Transferability is not simply a question of the nature of the skill; it is also about the capability of the person to transfer that skill. Generic skills become transferable skills only if the student has been helped to acquire the capability to apply those skills in different contexts. That depends on the capability of the student but also the skills of the teacher.
So, studying a subject that inculcates generic skills doesn’t guarantee that those skills will be transferable. To realise the potential requires the student to develop the capability to use those skills in multiple contexts.
That is the challenge for university departments – giving students tasks that will encourage them to use their skills in different contexts, fostering the transferability of the graduate’s skills.
Extend the provision and take-up of life-long learning in the universities:
Compared with other OECD countries, New Zealand rates very highly in the take-up of formal learning opportunities by those in employment. New Zealand also rates reasonably well (seventh of 27 OECD countries) in the OECD’s “readiness to learn” index which assesses attitudes to life-long learning by employed adults[10]. While the take up of, and demand for, in-work training is high, it’s not clear how much universities have captured that opportunity.
However, the development and recognition of the micro-credential model creates an opportunity for universities to play a greater role in the provision of upskilling for adult learners, for their graduates, especially for those in work, but also for those who want to learn more about our society and culture[11].
Any expansion in life-long learning by our universities would also likely need funding; not necessarily government funding, but it would need to be resourced.
Improving the transfer of knowledge created in university research
In the Improving Research section of this submission, I pointed out that our universities are required under law to combine research and teaching. And I explained that bibliometric data shows that the research of New Zealand’s universities meets international standards. In New Zealand, as in many other countries, the universities house a majority of the country’s researchers[12] and produce a high proportion of the country’s research.
Because university research has an educational purpose, much of that research will be “blue skies” research – which is exploratory, innovative, curiosity-driven, fundamental research, usually investigator-led, rather than strategic or commercial, goal-driven research[13].
While blue-skies, investigator-led research is an important part of any university’s programme, governments try to capitalise on their research funding of universities by encouraging part of that research capability to focus on strategic and economic purposes.
There are famous examples of why. The US responded to German leadership in military technology during World War 2, and to Russian superiority in space technology in the 1950s, by pouring vast sums into research, most of it in universities, to great effect. And universities were important catalysts of the explosion of the Californian ICT and medical technology industries[14]. It is now widely recognised that research and development play an important role in fostering innovation and, ultimately, productivity, particularly in certain types of industries[15].
Put simply, our social and economic development and health rely on research, university research in particular. The dissemination of that research is critical.
Improving research knowledge transfer through the research funding mechanism
In the Improving Research section of this submission, I noted that the PBRF has a component that proxies a university’s success in disseminating research – the External Research Income (ERI) measure which currently determines 20% of each university’s PBRF funding.
That covers ERI from commercial sources (firms that commission research), from independent non-governmental sources (such as NGOs and community groups who commission research on issues that affect them), from philanthropic sources, from government agencies who commission research (for instance on social issues like housing, climate impacts, biosecurity, conservation, health or child poverty) and from the three government sources of “public good” research funding – the Health Research Council, the Marsden Fund and the funds administered by MBIE.
While much of the knowledge created by universities is transferred to the society through transactions and funding (and hence, is reflected in ERI), research findings are also communicated more widely without the sort of financial return that affects the university’s ERI total. Research findings are disseminated through the political process, through professional journals and professional associations, through environmental groups, through social services agencies, through arts organisations and events, through advocacy by researchers and academics, through news media …. Through a range of more or less formal mechanisms that make it all but impossible to measure the quantity. In other words, ERI captures only part of the processes of research dissemination. So ERI is incomplete as a measure of knowledge transfer, but it can be quantified. It is a proxy for the transfer of university knowledge.
As the sole easily quantifiable index of knowledge transfer, ERI needs to be retained as a component of research funding; it provides recognition of the importance of this part of the university’s work.
As noted in the Improving Research section of this submission, the government decided in 2013 to weight non-governmental ERI higher than ERI from NZ government sources (ie from MBIE, HRC, Marsden and research contracts for government agencies). That decision, by implication, devalued socially important, non-commercial research in, for instance, health, culture, environment, society. That was a bad decision and should be reversed.
ERI should be retained in the research funding mechanism but with no preference for any type of research or any type or source of research funding.
Endnotes
The endnotes below refer to the readings and research that have informed the analysis and arguments in this paper. The full bibliography is at this link.
[1] OECD (2023), Valero (2021), Hanushek and Wößmann (2021), Hanushek and Wößmann (2007), Scott (2010). Note that the direction of the causality between the education level of the population and national economic performance is not unambiguous – see Sun (2021).
[2] Eckersley (2001). The Ministry of Culture and Heritage argues that “culture is inclusive and reflective, supporting people to connect and engage with each other, their community and society” while the Treasury sees arts participation as an element in the Living Standards Framework and Statistics NZ’s Wellbeing data includes Engagement in cultural activities as an indicator. See also Dalzeil et al (2019).
[3] This is the author’s analysis of 2016 graduation data provided with Smart (2018). It is likely an undercount as it wasn’t possible to identify some vocational fields that are included within broader fields – creative writing is an example. It also misses all those graduates who take a vocationally-oriented programme – such as in business – which isn’t specific to a particular occupation or vocation.
[5] See the WILNZ site
[6] Finnie and Myairi (2017)
[7] Note there is a possibility of selection bias in this study – while the researchers were able to control for GPA, there will be unmeasurable differences between students that may mean those likely to apply to undertake WIL are also those whose personal qualities make them more valuable employees.
[8] Refer to https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/in-full/infographics-e4e69e4de7/. The two listed essential skills not covered in the traditional BA subjects are: technology use, monitoring and control; and technology design and programming.
[9] See Yorke (2006) and Yorke and Knight (2004). See also Smyth (2023e)
[10] OECD (2021), OECD (2017), MoE and MBIE (2016). All three analyses draw their data from the Survey of Adult Skills, part of the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)
[11] Microcredentials is a controversial topic in higher education policy – see Marginson (2023), a rebuttal of Van Damme (2023). See also Wheelahan and Moodie (2022) and Wheelahan et al (2022). Marginson (and Wheelahan, from a different perspective) argues that higher education is about more than skills and employability; rather it inculcates skills while also contributing to personal formation and the development of individuals who are autonomous thinkers and actors. That view is entirely correct. However universities also play a part in preparing people for work; those with higher education qualifications can benefit from skill top-ups, efficiently delivered through short packages such as micro-credentials.
[12] Statistics NZ’s Research and Development Survey 2022 shows that 54% of NZ’s researchers (by headcount – 50% by FTE) are in the higher education sector)
[13] Linden (2008)
[14] Atkinson and Blanpied (2007), Feingold (1999)
[15] Liik et al (2014), Kim et al (2012)
Strategy, Policy, Analysis | Tertiary Education 