UCL opens, while CMU thrown a lifeline

International research powerhouse University College London is open for business in Adelaide and is already outperforming even its own predictions. University College London opened its first overseas campus in Adelaide last week with 13 students enrolled in a bespoke masters course focusing on energy and resources and three PhD students. UCL’s decision to develop the South Australian campus, which will eventually enroll 60 students, was helped along by a $20 million incentive - $10 million from the state government and $10 from mining giant Santos. “It’s a coup for Adelaide and in terms of what is happening in resources and energy,” Premier Mike Rann told the official opening. “It’s great for our intellectual grunt, but it is also great for the mining industry, particularly for resources and renewable energy. We have no doubt UCL will want to expand its footprint in South Australia and we welcome their contribution.” Indeed, UCL’s intellectual grunt is formidable. It is has 8000 staff, 22,000 students and an annual turn-over exceeding $1.3 billion. It is placed at 21 by the Shanghai Jiao Tong world university ranking. Under the agreement, mining giant Santos’s $10 million contribution over five years will go toward scholarships, academic research, a leadership development program, the establishment of the International Energy Policy Institute, and the professorial chair held by Professor Tony Owen. Professor Michael Worton, vice-provost (academic and international) told Campus Review, the course had attracted enrolments from Australia, Russia, Papua New Guinea, Romania, the US, the UK and New Zealand and was already 100 per cent over target for 2010. “We had a target of five masters students for this year and were hoping for one PhD student next year. We have 13 masters students – 10 on Santos scholarships and three full-fee paying, and three PhD students,” Worton said. Eventually, the university will enrol 30 students a year in the two-year masters program and five or six PhD students. Masters fees are $30,000 year – the equivalent of taking a UCL masters degree in London. Worton said UCL’s approach when establishing a presence overseas was to be small, research-led, postgraduate and in countries that are strategically important to the UK and also to UCL. “South Australia is interesting to us because of its resources, because it has a very forward-looking government in terms of new technologies for energy production and distribution, and geographically it gives us access to Asia-Pacific rim countries,” Worton said. “Undoubtedly, we will grow, but we will never be a full university here - so we will never be a threat to the public universities. The master of science in energy and resources: policy and practice was created specifically for Adelaide. It currently has three academic staff and a fourth awaiting appointment and engages UCL’s London based staff for intensive short-term delivery in a specific subject, and also by video link. “We deliver short fat courses – very intensive followed by project work,” Worton said. The second year is spent in a company on a company-driven research project. “Although academics are connected with industry, a research project that is run from industry is quite different in its nature,” Worton said. He said UCL would undoubtedly expand its offerings in future years. UCL’s initial success – and the level of state government support - is a far cry from the experience of Carnegie Mellon, the first international university to set up a campus under Rann’s ambitions to turn Adelaide into a university city. CMU’s initial four-year contract with the state government expired last Friday, with the government committing much a much lower level of support. While the total government contribution to CMU over the past four years is unknown, media reports two years ago revealed that in its first two years, CMU received $39 million. Including $8 million in federal funding, yet had attracted only 166 students. That equated to $236,000 for every student who had enrolled at CMU. The university also attracted criticism for a poor state government regulatory audit and for the price of its fees ($75,000 for two years). The new four- year contract is limited to a maximum of $3.8 million, according to a spokesperson from the Department of Premier and Cabinet, saying the money will be tied to the number of scholarships allocated by the university over the next four years. Four years after opening shop only has 120, the numbers are growing at about 20 per cent a year, according to Professor Mark Kamlet, provost and executive vice-president of CMU in Pittburgh. Kamlet told CR the negative publicity of two years’ ago had not been anticipated by CMU, but it had not overly upset them either. “We had and have a good story to tell for Adelaide and Australia and for ourselves. We didn’t expect it, but as far as we could tell it had a lot to do with politics swirling above our heads,” said Kamlet. He said CMU would continue to actively recruit students, the majority of which are on AusAid or international government scholarships. “The key objective now is to keep the trajectory of growth in students to a target of closer to 200, which is a level that is both sustainable both financially and synergistic in terms of the number of faculty who are here. “The focus in to work on getting scholarships – the majority of students have at least some of their tuition on some sort of scholarship.”