Universities hoping to attract large-scale investment need to become less conservative and more efficient and transparent in their decision-making processes if they are to become equal partners with Government and industry, the president of Dublin City University (DCU) has said.
Parallel to the need to reduce the number of committees and decrease the amount of bureaucracy in universities, future changes should also cover the reintroduction of university fees, according to Prof Ferdinand von Prondzynski.
While acknowledging that the Government has channelled unprecedented funding into the further education sector, Prof von Prondzynski remains critical of the level of funding available for undergraduate study across the third-level sector. He described as "inevitable" a decision to ask beneficiaries to make a contribution to third-level education.
"The only way that undergraduate study can compete at the level of other countries is if we grasp the fact that we need to reintroduce fees. Until that happens, we will remain at a disadvantage. There is a limit to what the taxpayer can pay as long as there are so many competing needs . . . It isn't possible for the Government to allocate preferential sums of money to education," the DCU president said.
Traditionally, universities have been "very conservative" and "very process-orientated", according to Prof von Prondzynski who insists that universities need to reassess their processes.
"Too often universities have tended to focus on academic structures but how decisions are taken is more important. Having five or six layers of decision making is not viable and in DCU we are toying with the concept that no decision should go through more than two stages," he said. "We are far too slow sometimes, even with the most minor decisions. When engaging with an industrial partner, they won't have patience for such a lengthy process."
Universities have multiple checks and controls to ensure no mistakes are made, the system is equally responsible for ensuring a proposed idea might never be implemented, he said.