Submission to the Senate inquiry into the capacity of public universities to meet Australia’s higher education needs.

By

Andrew J. Hapel
6 Sullivan Crescent
Wanniassa, ACT 2903
e-mail ajhapel@ozemail.com.au
hapel@rsc.anu.edu.au
Phone 02 6125 8285 (BH)
FAX 02 6125 0750 (BH)

I continue here my thoughts on how a medical school could be established and run by the ANU using funds derived from the JCSMR.  There would be associated benefits for the University of Canberra.   

I have sent similar brief notes on a proposed radical change to JCSMR to the Vice Chancellor, Ian Chubb.  

In essence the suggestion is to use the recurrent funding that goes to JCSMR to instead fund the proposed ACT medical school (JCSM).   In addition, the $69 million proposed for a new research building should perhaps be used for the new buildings required by the medical school.

If a new medical school did go ahead new buildings would be required at the University of Canberra campus and at Canberra Hospital (Woden).   It seems unlikely that funding for both a new research school on the ANU campus and new Medical School buildings will be readily available.   New Medical School facilities would likely be more attractive to both Local and Federal Governments; especially if it was clear to both that the bulk of the ongoing cost of the medical school was to be carried by the ANU.   

The University of Canberra would befit by sharing the new buildings and infrastructure and by expanding its courses to include say, physiotherapy and chiropractics, sports medicine and fitness training, and allied fields.   There could be ready access to the Institute of Sport and to Calvary Hospital covering areas such as physiology, obstetrics and gynecology and so on.   Other areas of medicine could be covered at Woden.

The final details of these proposals would obviously to be negotiated between the parties (Local Assembly, ANU, UC, and the Federal Government).  In the longer term a merger between the two Universities must be considered likely as pressures increase for consolidation of expenditure.  

The outcome would potentially be a new Medical School run by ANU.   It would, as do all such structures, have its own research arm, funded through NHMRC grants.   A percentage of JCSMR funding has already been put into the NHMRC competitive scheme.   Rather than hand over more of the ANU budget to organizations such as NHMRC (it is not clear how this transfer of funds can be done legally under the ANU Act) why not use the rest of the recurrent costs for JCSMR to fund a much-needed Medical School.