Research active

Our contribution to education, health and spirituality cited in equal-access-to-funding article

Avondale is more research intensive than some public universities despite receiving no government funding, claims an academic writing a provocative piece for a national newspaper.

It is “inconceivable to the university lobby that anyone in independent higher education could be intellectually curious or could conduct high-quality research,” writes Professor Paul Oslington in an article published by The Australian. He names Avondale University College and Alphacrucis College—the training college of the Australian Christian Churches, a movement of more than 1000 Pentecostal churches—as being “much more research intensive than the bottom end of the public system, despite receiving no government funding for research.” They have “strengths in areas such as religion, theology, education and social sciences, arising from strong links with industry,” areas that are “generally under-represented in public university research.” The “glaring issue”: exclusion. “Independent higher education is about as welcome at the research funding table as the proverbial pork chop at a Jewish wedding.”

Oslington writes in his role as professor of economics and theology at Alphacrucis and author of a report estimating the economic value—$300 million with a 12.7 per cent return on investment—of Australian religious and theological higher education. “Whatever our view of religion, it remains a powerful influence on Australian life and essential to understanding our world.”

To illustrate, he again mentions Avondale and other private providers as furthering our understanding of spirituality and health, including mental health, through research “that our public universities won’t touch or don’t have the capacity to undertake. It’s hard to argue this shouldn’t be a national priority at the moment. Similarly, religious social services now amount to more than half of Australian social services . . . and Australia has one of the largest religious schooling systems.”

Oslington confines his comments to research with a religious dimension “because this is one of the distinctive research strengths of independent higher education. . . . Researchers at independent institutions are not seeking preferential treatment, merely access to apply for [Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council] and other government research funding, access to funding for their PhD students, access to libraries and other research resources on equal terms to researchers at public institutions. Merit and importance of the research area are the criteria that will generate the biggest research pay-off for the limited taxpayer dollar.”

The article, “Independents deserve shot at research grants,” appeared in The Australian’s Higher Education section on October 7.