Editorial

Welcome to the April 2017 edition of The Institutional Researcher, aka your monthly AAIR Newsletter.

Yes, we have a name and, yes, this month’s newsletter is looking a little different compared to previous months, in terms of its overall look and feel. We are trialling some new designs to align with the AAIR’s snazzy new website (drum roll please)! We suspect there will be some ongoing trial and error as we work through the template redevelopment process. So please bear with us and do let us know if you have any suggestions or recommendations! We’d love to hear from you.

Now back to the land of higher education. April has been a relatively slow month, in terms of newsy-ness. Perhaps we are all just waiting for the government to hurry up and unveil its new Higher Education Policy so that the games can begin.

Nevertheless, we are starting to see a renewed focus by several universities in reaching out and supporting the non-traditional and non-mainstream student cohorts, which can only be a good thing.

The recent launch of the National Science Statement has also sparked some excitement amongst researchers, especially if the government keeps its words that it will not just focus on applied research and commercialisation of outputs, but is also committed to blue skies scientific investigation. We will see.

Finally, don’t miss our five quick questions with…Ali Radloff, Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). Ali is this month’s interview for the Institutional Researcher’s Corner.

Happy reading!

Monica and Tracy

AAIR Newsletter Editors