I’ve noticed a trend developing, which has been hammered in over the past few months in back to back examples. That is, universities have not been standing up for intellectual pursuits or the staff that seek them, and/or are abandoning important institutions to focus on innovation and entrepreneurship.

In August, we had the Bendigo Writers Festival fiasco, which was sponsored and subsequently shattered by La Trobe University. Just days from the event, authors were told they were required to sign a code of conduct which aligned with La Trobe’s guidelines and would prevent them from speaking on divisive topics. Of particular concern was a controversial definition of antisemitism which would include criticism of Israel being disallowed, despite the fact Israel has been waging a genocide out in the open for over two years now.

Concerned about the breadth of the code of conduct at a festival where discussing difficult topics is kind of the point, and in solidarity with each other, over 50 speakers pulled out of the event. 21 sessions had to be cancelled. Because the Festival had sent the code at the last minute, it meant all those writers evaporated as the it was about to begin. The City of Greater Bendigo has now launched a review.

In September, Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) announced it would be closing Meanjin at the end of the year. Meanjin is one of Australia’s longest-running literary journals, established in Brisbane in 1940 and named after the First Nations word for the land Brisbane is located on. It moved to Melbourne (Naarm) in 1945. In its time, it has hosted writings from a variety of new and established Australian writers, giving them space to launch careers or play with new forms of writing. Meanjin has hosted important cultural commentary through its tenure; one of its most enduring is a 1950 essay from Patrick White and AA Philips that gave us the term “cultural cringe” to describe the way Australians lack confidence on the world stage.

MUP cited financial concerns for the closure, despite the relatively low cost of running it, general high revenue for the university, and the uncountable cultural value of the journal. Writers pointed out that it’s unlikely Meanjin ever turned a profit, and no one is quite sure why it has been abandoned now. It was appreciated for its cultural significance, which no longer seems to matter to Melbourne University.

In October, it emerged that Monash University would be shuttering their Monash Sustainable Development Institute (MSDI), which I have previously placed within a broader political context. For months, staff had been told they would be folded into another faculty, which was bizarre given the reason the Institute was set up in the first place was to get people out of silos and encourage cross-disciplinary work. I’d had a robust discussion a few months prior with a friend who knew people there, discussing the faculty options and what they might mean for MSDI. The university’s intention was exposed when staff found out the Institute would not be absorbed into another faculty and would simply cease to exist. Staff on temporary contracts are unlikely to be renewed. Climateworks, one of Australia’s foremost climate change thinktanks, was part of MSDI. It will be safe, but the rest of the staff on permanent contracts are going to be scattered throughout the university.

I’ve heard from friends in the sector that other universities are quietly shuttering or defunding their sustainability institutes, too, with nary a press release. I don’t think there’s much left in the country, if anything, now.

Instead, there has been an increased focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, leaning on engineers and scientists to invent our way out of societal problems to put off the changes necessary to make society sustainable. This is to protect the profits of capital; inventing ways to “solve” problems, rather than tackling the root cause, allows capital owners to continue to make money unabated.

Innovation

A cursory scroll of Monash’s LinkedIn page subjects you to a flood of posts on innovation in lieu of posts about scientific research. I laughed as I was scrolling it after writing that last section, and saw this post which literally has “entrepreneurial innovation” in the second sentence. Their annual reports also show a change in focus. Research highlights in their 2024 annual report (page 15) are mostly medical. It contains a mention of Climateworks, which is laughable given they were in the process of dismantling MSDI when that report was published. Contrast this with even just the year before, where there was a wider variety of research highlighted (page 12), including a number of sustainability initiatives.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to support the entrepreneurial innovators or invest in health. But it’s a problem when it comes at the cost of other forms of research universities should be supporting. How will anyone know which projects are worth backing if they stop researching to find out where the biggest issues are? How are we supposed to innovate without incoming knowledge to guide us toward the most pressing issues?

If universities don’t do it, who will?

This strategy aligns universities with the fossil fuel industry’s pivot to technological solutions to climate change. Exploitative companies have claimed for decades that we can offset our way out of the crisis (which is bullshit) so we can keep polluting (and they can keep making money). This holds for a number of other industries, too; tobacco, nuclear power, other forms of pollution, and many more. Corporations downplay the need to tackle root causes, instead proposing research into add-ons to make their harmful product less harmful. It never works. It is always, always a delay tactic.

By dropping hard-hitting scientific research in favour of fostering entrepreneurship, universities are validating that idea in a different form; that the lone entrepreneur can fix all the world’s problems, and the rest of us don’t need to change our lifestyles.

Capitalism

It is not in the interests of capital owners to actually solve problems. Helping people would mean the owners of capital would lose their reserve army of workers, ready and desperate to work for a pittance to enrich their employers and keep themselves alive. Helping people is antithetical to profits, as a world where people are comfortable and happy is a world where workers won’t accept the garbage labour conditions or pay that is essential for capitalism to function. When workers have choices and aren’t going hungry, profits wither.

It is far better for profits if, instead, capitalism’s agents make a spectacle of assistance without real difference. This logic underpins the NGO industrial complex; most NGOs will never actually solve the problems they work on, because if they do, their funding will dry up and they’ll be out of a job. They might help communities and individuals here and there, but never much more than that.

There are some that genuinely fight, but they are few. They should all be aiming to work themselves out of existence and support their staff in any closure, as End Rape on Campus Australia did when they achieved their goals:

Hackathons are a great example of this spectacle. They are highly publicised and often carried out by men in Western countries who are completely removed from the problems they are trying to “solve”. There is no community consultation, as hackathons are often accompanied by a pervasive, arrogant belief that the would-be hackers know best; better, even, than the people who live every day with the issues they are trying to “solve”. They do not recognise that lived experience is legitimate knowledge, as they do not acknowledge anything from people outside their own institutions.

Their “solutions” rarely get implemented and actually help people, as they inevitably miss some aspect of design or implementation due to… not talking to the end user. Anyone looking to launch a product aimed at white collar workers without doing any market research would be laughed out of the room. But when it comes to designing for those of a lower social status, tech bros paternalistically assume they know better than those poor people who need their charity to survive. It makes them feel good to be “doing” something, and it never enters their minds that they are wrong.

That’s not how hackathons began. They got their start in marginalised communities who would get together to solve actual issues they and their communities faced every day. This could involve creating totally new devices, or taking an existing one and modifying it for a particular use. The bulk of innovation on products happens at the margins, amongst minority communities who know they’re too small or not wealthy enough to have products designed for their needs. Hackathons arose out of this reality, so they could build their own. For more on this, as well as how to design hackathons better, check out chapter four of Design Justice by Sasha Costanza-Chock.

This makes hackathons another example of an idea stolen from marginalised communities by those with more money than sense, who are too out of touch to utilise it effectively. Another example of capitalism’s agents taking a concept that genuinely helps people and twisting it into something unrecognisable to its creators. Snatching away a tool from the marginalised and encasing it within the master’s house.

With the increasing focus on entrepreneurship over research, it looks like universities are increasingly falling into that category, too. They’re shedding good staff working on long-term solutions in favour of people trying to fix it now, who are out of touch with the people they’re designing for. Whose creations will not make substantial differences, or tackle root problems. Executives are making decisions that affect people on the ground, with only perfunctory consultation, and that’s bleeding through to the work throughout the rest of the institution.

There are some institutions and programs who are designing well, who are including communities in the design process are doing the hard work of ensuring collaborations are mutually beneficial. But it seems to me they are shrinking, and even then, I doubt all of them would be compensating community members for their time.

Where To From Here?

I’m not sure where to go from here. For now, all I can do is keep focusing on what I’m interested in, and keep an eye out for opportunities to use my skills and carve out a role for myself, somewhere. And keep talking about it, reading about it, writing about it, and the like. Stay with my communities, keep each other safe and cared for.

I noted in a previous piece that America has an outsized influence here, and I’m concerned the Trump administration’s attitude is part of this shift. That their attack on universities has instilled a fear worldwide. Or maybe I’m overthinking it, and they’re just short-sighted executives. Probably a mix of both. I’m looking forward to the next Vantage Point essay on universities. The illustrious Hannah Forsyth released a book about universities a decade ago that I’m interested in reading, too.

On a personal level… I’m looking to get into research in the medium to long term, examining the effects of the climate crisis on queer people. I have no confidence I’d be able to finish any thesis I’d start, as I’d be expecting my funding be cut partway through.

We need collectivism now more than ever, as we are continually pushed into individualism that makes society weaker and prevents us from fighting back against injustice and corruption. Losing universities in this fight is not going to bode well for the rest of us. Which institutions are going to stick up for research and collaboration, if not universities?

None, save for maybe local governments, though that varies between each one, and I’m not confident it would stay that way. It’s going to be more important than ever that we stick together, help each other out, and demand more from the institutions that are abandoning us.

As I mentioned last time, if you’re a Monash alum, sign the petition to save MSDI.

If you have any more information, suggestions on actions, or anything else, let me know.