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Uni pivotal for the Coast's Economic Future
12 September 2009
The news that the Coast is amongst the worst nationally for job losses, with 11,500 jobs lost in 18 months, underscores the urgency of restructuring the Coast economy, creating new jobs in new industries and focusing our efforts in key locations.
The work currently being undertaken to develop a plan for regional economic priorities holds much promise, but the outcomes are still ahead of us.
Across the last few months, my own role has been heavily weighted toward advocacy for the Region and the University.
Up to the present time, the Coast has not been a major beneficiary of any of the stimulus packages. It is an uphill battle to gain the support we need for regional initiatives of scale.
I have been in front of a State parliamentary hearing, a Senate committee hearing, talked with a range of senior bureaucrats from key Federal and State departments, and been in communication with a range of Ministers and Directors General – always to advocate for more regional and university support because the Coast’s infrastructure, services and businesses are languishing relative to the billions of dollars of support that is directed elsewhere.
There is so much potential here, but elsewhere, I encounter ignorance of the seriousness of the issues facing regional Australia.
Next month there will be a defining meeting at the University with Commonwealth officials, where we will seek new funding ahead of the new sectoral environment in transition in 2011 and fully in 2012.
Our aim, with the expansion of the higher education sector, is to double the size of the University across the next decade, from our current 7,000 students to around 15,000 by 2021.
That will mean that the University will become a huge economic driver with over half a billion dollars p.a., and provide thousands of jobs directly, and thousands more, indirectly, increasingly utilising local firms.
But the University will also have a pivotal role in expanding the kind of work undertaken now at the Innovation Centre into the Sippy Downs Town Centre, and we will do our utmost with the Regional Council and local developers to attract and support promising job-generating industries.
We are doing our utmost at the University to counter the job downturn and there is little doubt that the University in the years ahead will become an increasingly important economic as well as intellectual asset for the Coast and the enhancement of its ‘lifestyle’ status.
Let’s all hope that some of the stimulus monies soon start to roll in our direction.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor and President at the University of the Sunshine Coast.