By Sarah McCrea
The organisers behind the ANU Governance Project revealed their names in a major statement on Monday 25 August. This comes as the project moves through its second stage, with reform proposals to be devised.
The Working Group is composed of 31 staff representing five out of six ANU Colleges, including Emeritus Professor Bruce Chapman, founder of the HECS system.
Purpose and Phases of the Project
Launched on 4 August 2025, the ANU Governance Project is an academic-led and community-based initiative that intends to combat “significant governance challenges threatening institutional effectiveness and public confidence.”
The purpose of the project is to compose “a comprehensive, credible reform proposal that could reshape internal governance and inform amendments to the Australian National University Act 1991 and related external legislation.”
The reform proposals plan to deliver an “enhanced reputation” for the university, “improved staff satisfaction and retention,” as well as improving educational outcomes for students and staff studying and working at the ANU.
The ANU Governance Project sets out its operations in two stages.
Phase 1 – which ended on Friday 22 August – focused on community engagement, with public surveys, Kitchen Table Conversations (KTCs), and a Governance Workshop.
Phase 2 shifts the focus to proposal development. Results from the first phase, plus those from a Governance Workshop, will inform proposed recommendations on changes to governance at ANU. These will be presented to ANU executives and policymakers, with the working group “requesting collaborative implementation.”
Statements by the Working Group
In a statement made on 25 August, the working group introduced themselves as “a group of Australian National University academics and professional staff who believe there is an opportunity to work constructively towards better governance of our national university and the higher education sector more broadly.”
The statement outlined the mission for the ANU Governance Project as not only reforming ANU governance, but also providing the ANU with the “opportunity to lead the sector.”
It described the project as “solutions-focused”, saying that “the ANU community is uniquely well-positioned” to craft and implement reform.
It discussed the response to the initiative so far, saying, “the community’s participation demonstrates an enormous appetite within the university to contribute meaningfully towards governance solutions for the ANU and for the sector more generally.”
The statement concluded, “many members of the ANU community have contributed to this project, but we are led by the ANU Governance Project Working Group”, continuing to list the names of those within the Working Group.
A spokesperson for the working group affirmed that there are student members, who will remain anonymous whilst they continue their studies at the ANU.
This announcement comes shortly after ANU leadership has been criticised for allegedly suppressing academic freedom and harassing staff who have spoken out against governance.
A spokesperson for the ANU Governance Project Working Group said they were “blown away by the level of response” from the community, with over 600 participants in the process and over 1000 recommendations about reform to ANU governance since the project was launched in early August.
The Governance Workshop will be held and reforms devised shortly.
This fast-tracked timeline is a result of external pressures, as the ANU Governance Project intends to provide recommendations as a submission to the Senate Inquiry on ‘Quality of governance at Australian higher education providers.’
Submissions for the inquiry closed on 28 August, but the spokesperson confirmed the Working Group has received a short extension.
The spokesperson discussed the intentions of the project, with the ANU Governance Project intended to be the “voice of the community” when there is “no mechanism for that voice in [university] governance.”
On August 11, the ANU Governance Project released a “first findings report”, detailing the general response from the first two KTCs and the 209 survey responses that had been submitted within the first week of the survey opening.
Discussion Paper for the Project
The ANU Governance Project Working Group also provides a discussion paper, which explains the rationale for the proposed reforms and describes the process underlying the formation of these proposals.
It highlights major issues, including consultant dependency, a “lack of contestability”, and the “limited voice” of internal academics with expertise on relevant issues facing the university.
The focus is then narrowed to ANU’s specific structure of governance, where the discussion paper discusses how the university operates.
ANU operates under several legislative acts, primarily but not limited to The ANU Act of 1991. These acts form the operating protocol of the ANU Council and, to a smaller extent, the academic board.
From this analysis, potential solutions are offered through the outline of two alternative models of governance for the ANU.
The first is ‘Traditional Faculty Governance,’ also known as Academic Self Governance.
This model – similar to those operating at Oxford University and Cambridge University – involves “significant faculty representation on university councils”, rationalised by the underlying belief that academic representatives have the best knowledge and insight into how to run an academic institution. Implemented at the ANU, this would increase the number of ‘internal’, democratically elected members of the Council.
The second alternative model is ‘Collegiality as Shared Leadership,’ also referred to as ‘Balanced Governance.’
This university governance model aims to “rebalance power” between academic and corporate leadership, with a Senate (Academic Board) as the governing authority, and “majority academic leadership” who remain involved in their roles as academics as well as part of the governance team. The paper suggests that for the ANU, this could involve a “formal empowerment of [the] Academic Board” done through Council approval, without needing legislative change.
The discussion paper also acknowledges potential weaknesses in both models, which are to be considered when managing potential challenges in proposal formation, implementation, and monitoring.
Immediate and long-term reforms are suggested. Two immediate suggested reforms, for example, call for the ANU to “publish the revised budget estimates for 2025” and implement “best-practice reporting” for interactions with consultants.
These can be achieved without legislative change. Outlined long-term reforms, however, would require legislative change. One example is changing the nomination process for ANU Council members.
As the project progresses, these suggested reforms will adapt to community response and recommendations, and become final reform proposals to be presented to policy-makers.
More to come.
Graphics by Shé Chani
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