Battling the academic brain drain

DIANA McCURDY investigates if our institutions can attract and keep the high-flying academics they need to maintain international respect.


Rob Allen is a contented man. Sitting in his 16th-floor office at the Auckland University of Technology, he gestures expansively at the cityscape below. "Look at that," he smiles.

In November, Allen left his management role at Greenwich University in London to take up the post of Dean of Arts at AUT. Six months into his new role, he remains exuberant about the move.

In New Zealand, he says, he catches a ferry to work from his home in Devonport. He lives near the sea with his wife and dog. And he works for an institution he admires.

Why, he asks, would he want to work anywhere else?

Why indeed? Well, money for a start.

Allen took a pay cut to come to this country. New Zealand academics' base salaries are lower - even in terms of what they can buy - than in comparable universities in Britain, Australia and the United States.

The reason is simple: funding. According to New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee statistics, our universities have about 60 per cent of the income per student of comparable universities in Australia. Compared with Canada and the US, we fare even worse - at less than half and a third of their funding, respectively.

Some in the university sector are beginning to wonder how many more academics will be willing to make that sacrifice.

Academics already appear on the New Zealand Immigration Service occupational shortages list. About half our career-level academics come from overseas. But Association of University Staff national president Bill Rosenberg fears that without improved funding, our ability to attract academic staff will decline dramatically.

"It's harder and harder to fund big research projects and that kind of thing," he says. "I think there are plenty of fears that New Zealand's place is getting eroded. Its reputation tends to be more the research area than the teaching area at universities and there are fears that the considerably lower funding that New Zealand universities get will erode that reputation."

For the moment, international events have provided our cash-strapped universities with some breathing space.

"One of the things that September 11 has done is produce more interest in New Zealand for its lifestyle and safe-haven approach," says Victoria University vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon.

"We've seen several applicants who are thinking not only about career opportunities but about safety of the environment for their kids. Or they might have a particular political view of what's going on in their own country."

Auckland University deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Raewyn Dalziel agrees. "These are not people who want to come here and have an easy life. They are people who have often got young children and they just want more time to actually do their work without having to travel for two or three hours to do their jobs."

However, charming vistas and the virtues of a small population will stave off problems for only so long. Already, the academic staffing situation varies widely across universities and disciplines.

At AUT, New Zealand's youngest and lowest-ranking university, deputy vice-chancellor Philip Sallis is optimistically pragmatic. "In New Zealand, everyone, including business, has the same problem. All we can do is give them [academics] some scenarios and say, on balance, this is what you get. This is the salary you have, this is how much it's going to cost you for a house and a car and this is what a weekly food bill might look like."

The approach is working for AUT. In the four years since it was accredited university status, it has grown its research-capable staff numbers by at least 140 per cent a year. About half of its appointments at professorial level have been from overseas.

It is sometimes difficult, Sallis admits. "How do we tell someone from the University of Pittsburgh that they are going to get about 25 per cent of what they are earning in the United States?"

In Wellington, MacDiarmid Institute director Professor Paul Callaghan is beaming positivity. "We have suddenly seen a real increase in the calibre of academics applying for positions in our university," he says.

In the past six months, with Victoria University's School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, the institute has hired five internationally recognised researchers. One, Pablo Etchegoin, has been described as the physics equivalent of the soccer transfer of the year.

It is, Callaghan says, a sign we're doing something right. Attracting academics in Etchegoin's league requires more than sunny beaches - or even money.

As Royal Society of New Zealand chief executive Dr Steve Thompson describes it: "Researchers are delightfully perverse in this respect. Yes, they will go for money, of course, but they will go for a good team too."

New Zealand's seven Centres of Research Excellence - including the MacDiarmid Institute - act as magnets for high-level academics, he says.

The funding the centres command has driven a marked improvement in the quality of research in certain areas and some centres are now world leaders in their area.

"The reputation of New Zealand scientists is extraordinarily high and when other scientists come here they have no idea how so much productivity can be achieved from such modest resources," Thompson says.

Back in Auckland, however, Professor Peter Gluckman, director of the University of Auckland's Liggins Institute for Medical Research, is not so happy.

The Liggins Institute, another centre of research excellence, is also a world leader. But in this field reputation is not enough to attract and retain talent. Gluckman sees many internationally renowned scientists slip through his fingers for lack of funding.

Molecular biology and medical science are areas of hot international competition. New Zealand universities simply can't compete, Gluckman says.

New Zealand's public investment in research is low. According to the Royal Society, the Government invests just 0.54 per cent of GDP in research, compared with about 0.8 per cent in other countries.

"People want to come here and work for us. But we just don't have the funds to attract them, and, once they are here, we can't sustain them. There's just not enough medical research funding and infrastructure around to support them."

Most funding systems approve about 25 per cent of applications, Gluckman says. In New Zealand, that proportion sits between 10 and 15 per cent. "If you're a high-class academic, if you've only got a one in 10 chance of getting funded that's too high a risk."

As Gluckman sees it, New Zealand needs to focus on attaining excellence in specific disciplines rather than trying to cover all bases. "You need much larger masses than New Zealand has to have excellence in everything. The issue is ... to build some critical mass so that in some areas we can truly be world class, and in other areas we have linkages to other world-class systems."

This is already happening by default, Gluckman believes. The Performance Based Research Fund report revealed a disparity in research quality across disciplines. That disparity will only increase if it is allowed to drive research funding.

Victoria University's vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon has no interest in crisis talk. "It is certainly not my experience that we are in a disaster situation. But we do, in some areas, find it quite difficult to get people from overseas."

The pull of professional competition in areas such as medical research, business and law is compounding the underfunding.

"Unless we increase the level of investment we make in our universities and we are able to be more internationally competitive in terms of salaries then I think we are going to get further problems developing. The number of disciplines in which we struggle to get good staff will increase."

Auckland University deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Raewyn Dalziel proffers an alternative scenario. "It may be that the amount of money going in is perhaps reasonable ... but some of it is not going into the right areas." Don't get her wrong; she's not happy with the present situation. "We are under extreme constraints and pressures and they are right across the board."

The university simply can't fill some positions. It is embarking on its third round of advertising for a professor of Japanese, a position that has been vacant for 2 1/2 years.

"We get candidates and sometimes you get them right up to the altar and they decide not to come. I think they are making decisions based on salary levels and are they better off where they are."

But there are positive signs. In some cases, New Zealand academic salaries are getting closer to the overseas market - especially for top positions.

Dalziel believes New Zealand's international reputation has solidified in the past two decades. "I think we are doing miracles with our funding. We are regarded very seriously."

Back at AUT, Dr Allen has been surprised by the number of New Zealanders who have asked him whether moving to this country will adversely affect his career.

"When I announced I was leaving for New Zealand, not a single person said, 'Oh no'. Everyone said, 'How lucky you are'.

"People want to visit New Zealand. It's a desirable place to go to.

"There are advantages in saying 'I come from Oxford', but the disadvantages of saying 'I come from AUT in New Zealand' are not as great as you would imagine. It's your reputation as opposed to your university's reputation that counts."

Student funding

University income per student calculated according to relative cost of living ($US).

New Zealand $6645

Britain $9699

Australia $11,539

Canada $14,579

United States $19,802

Source: New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee, using 2001 figures and the purchasing power parity index.