Special Section: Innovative Laboratory Exercises – Focus on Australia Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and the Changing Tertiary Education Landscape in Australia Received for publication, November 3, 2011; accepted 7 November 2011 Susan L. Rowland‡ From the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia It gives me great pleasure to introduce this special edi- tion on innovative laboratory teaching programs, which features three articles from Australia. As many of our readers may not be familiar with the Australian tertiary education system, I felt it would be helpful to provide some information about the Australian education land- scape first, before I discuss the articles. For such a large country, the Australian university net- work is small, with only 39 Australian universities in oper- ation (Table I). This is far smaller than the system in the USA, although the two are similar in geographical area. Australian universities have two primary mandates (i) their faculty conduct scholarship and research across a range of fields, and (ii) the students who complete their training are generally awarded a bachelors degree as their first qualification (after which they can continue with addi- tional postgraduate study) [1, 2]. Most Australian univer- sities do not operate in the Vocational Education and Training sphere; this market is served by the Technical and Further Education colleges. Five universities, how- ever, are dual sector, with both substantial programs in both vocational training and research [3]. This is particu- larly common for universities that have evolved recently via amalgamations of several smaller colleges. These uni- versities are designated ‘‘DS’’ in Table I. Because there have been multiple recent institutional mergers and renamings, the Australian University system, is heavily populated with Universities of less than 25 years official standing (Fig. 1). The system is self-organ- ized into three major groups. The groups have developed according to the history, age of inception, funding status, research interests, and traditional educational strengths of the institutions. These groups are shown in Table I. The Group of Eight (GO8) is a coalition of the most research-intensive universities in Australia [4]. These insti- tutions employ the highest proportion of PhD-qualified academic staff in Australia, and offer comprehensive general-, professional-, and research-based training. They are the oldest universities in Australia, they gain 70% of the available research funding, and they produce a large proportion of Australia’s high-impact research output, particularly in the basic sciences. Their claim to being Australia’s ‘‘leading universities’’ is supported by national metrics data related to research funding, schol- arly output, research higher degree enrolments, and alumni achievements. Each member university is well regarded in a number of different areas; in coalition the eight form an influential bloc. They enroll about 33% of the university students in Australia. Although the GO8 members are currently the most powerful universities in Australia, this position is not unas- sailable. The education market in Australia is highly com- petitive, and students are attracted by factors other than research capability. Probably foremost on this list of other attractions is employability on graduation. Many students (and employers) value job-focused training over a more holistic (but perhaps less immediately useful) educational experience. Non-GO8 universities in Australia have been quick to recognize this important opportunity. The Australian Technology Network (ATN) is a coalition of five Australian universities that share a common interest in the practical application of tertiary studies and research [5]. The network members aim to build partnerships with gov- ernment and industry, with a goal of conducting focused, applied research (as opposed to more basic or ‘‘pure’’ research that is in the GO8 domain). These universities were FIG. 1. Creation dates of the Australian universities. The past 25 years have seen massive expansion of the university net- work. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.] ‡ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: s.rowland1@uq.edu.au DOI 10.1002/bmb.20577 This paper is available on line at http://www.bambed.org 24 Q 2012 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY EDUCATION Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 24–28, 2012