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University Becoming a Powerful Generator
29 April 2006
In the last six months a good deal of work has been done to
clarify the range and impact of our regional engagement
strategies.
Well ahead of the visit by the OECD team last November to study
our activities, as one of twelve universities chosen from around
the world, we had established a Vice-Chancellor's Advisory
Committee on 'regional engagement'. That focus is one of our key
pursuits, and has been since we started.
Across most of the last decade, however, we have been busily
building up our engagement activities, but without developing a
framework, and without measuring the impact of those
activities.
So that we can plan an even more concerted series of links with
community, businesses and organisations, we are now refining that
overall plan so that both internal and external people can
understand and respond to the challenges together.
If we attach to those specific activities and links, key
indicators that can be measured, we can then go some way to
quantify the impact of the University in this region, in economic,
cultural and environmental terms.
For example, we know from international studies over a long
period that universities are economic generators that have a
multiplier effect associated with their basic expenditure
pattern.
Thus on a revenue base of $50 million and increasing annually,
USC is already creating somewhere between $100 million and $150
million of economic activity within the region. With over 700 staff
on the annual payroll and around 5000 students, it is becoming the
first generator of both knowledge and jobs that this region could
possibly attract.
There are a diminishing number of uninformed critics of the
university who believe the university 'is not paying its way'. As
we continue to quantify and make explicit our expenditures on
behalf of the region, the data will demonstrate unequivocally that
this University is the best investment in the future that we could
possibly possess. The more support it is given, the more research
potential, for example, we can generate.
The University is already, too, becoming an increasingly
powerful magnet for new economy firms who will themselves become
generators in a transforming economy.
As the plan for further engagement unfolds, I'll provide more
information and invite your continuing support.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast