Australia Global challenges and the role of diversity and feminism in critical university leadership

The higher education system has faced challenges of massification, privatisation and corporatisation, which are similar to those experienced in the United Kingdom and selected other countries. Australia has historical strengths in both research-intensive and community-based regional excellence in institutional provision which has attracted significant numbers of international students. However, an increase in the size and powers of institutional corporate management and the focus on industry collaboration and applied research in Australian universities has reduced the influence of academic leadership in university decision-making and led to increases in academic performance management and workloads. Collectively, these raises issues of academic freedom within and outside the academy. Furthermore, these trends point to the paradox that while diversity discourses in policy often mobilised by politicians and university managers regarding the benefits of diverse leadership perspectives in decision-making and diversity in expertise to promote interdisciplinarity, innovation and entrepreneurship, the discursive space for contestation of ideas and positions is shrinking within universities concerned about reputations and ranks and when the popularity of courses determines curriculum provision and pedagogical approaches, increasingly delivered online and in a context of digital surveillance. This paper links to the emergent field of critical university studies and long-standing feminist research on higher education field. The role of feminism in critical thinking on global and institutional challenges around what counts as innovation and what is valued in teaching and research in this context is now even more important to enhance the effectiveness of university leadership.