The Group of Eight

09/09/2026

Great to be at Parliament House today meeting with senior Ministers and Parliamentarians, including Deputy Prime Minister & Defence Minister Richard Marles MP and Industry and Science Minister Senator Tim Ayres as part of the European Australian Business Council Annual Delegation to our capital.

The Group of Eight CE Vicki Thomson is also Deputy Chair of the EABC and together we're working to ensure the major milestones announced this year – the conclusion of the EU-AU Free Trade Agreement, Australia's Association to the world's largest research and innovation programme Horizon Europe and the Australia-EU Security Agreement - achieve their full potential for industry, research and national capability.

Australia's research-intensive universities have a central role to play in this. Collectively the Go8 delivers 20% of the national research effort, 70% of all university research and 60% of defence research at Australian universities.

31/08/2026

The Sydney Morning Herald reports concerns around the Government’s universities’ Managed Growth legislation is being voiced not just by universities but also Business. Sally Rawsthorne writes that the Business Council of Australia (BCA) is warning that it risks jeopardising young Australians’ study options by introducing domestic student caps.

“Managed growth … could constrain growth, limit student choice and reduce the system’s capacity to respond to workforce demand, making the government’s target of 80 per cent tertiary attainment by 2050 harder to achieve,” said BCA CEO Bran Black said in a submission to the Senate Inquiry on the legislation.

The Group of Eight CE Vicki Thomson said the legislation affected student choice, which was replacing one barrier to achieving the Bills goals with another.

“The … assumption that students denied a place at one institution will simply enrol elsewhere is not supported by student behaviour," she warned, "Students choose universities for specific reasons. When access to a preferred institution is constrained, demand is not always redistributed; in some cases it is lost.”

https://www.smh.com.au/national/fears-student-choice-will-be-undermined-by-new-uni-funding-model-20260826-p60rn7.html

Read the Go8 Submission to the Senate inquiry into the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 here: https://go8.edu.au/go8-submission-to-senate-inquiry-into-the-universities-accord-opening-the-doors-of-opportunity-bill-2026

The introduction of domestic student caps will upend how Australia’s largest universities admit students.

28/08/2026

The Group of Eight CE Vicki Thomson (who is also Co-Deputy Chair of the European Australian Business Council (EABC)) attended a very special EABC Farewell Reception for H.E Gabriele Visentin, the European Union Ambassador to Australia.

On behalf of the EABC, Vicki was honoured to offer the Vote of Thanks to Ambassador Visentin, who has been a great friend of both the EABC and the Group of Eight. During his tenure, the EU and Australia have achieved historic progress elevating the relationship as a strategic partnership through the conclusion of Free Trade Agreement negotiations, the establishment of a Security and Defence Partnership, and association with Horizon Europe.

With Vicki and Ambassador Visentin in these photos are EABC CEO Jason Collins, former EABC Deputy Chair and Thales Australia CEO Jeff Connolly, EABC COO Jo Johns and EABC Director, Policy & Institutional Affairs​, Caragh Heugh Johnson.

European Union in Australia European External Action Service - EEAS

27/08/2026

International education is Australia's largest services export, generating around $55 billion annually. It supports jobs across the economy, strengthens our engagement with the world and helps fund research and teaching that benefit all Australians - including cross-subsiding our domestic students.

But it isn't just about a bottom line, it's about what Australia stands to lose: doctors in hospitals, engineers building major infrastructure, researchers developing new medicines and skilled professionals supporting growing industries.

The Group of Eight, representing Australia's leading research-intensive universities which educate more than a third of Australia's international students, says it's easy to turn international students into a political punching bag. It's much harder to explain where Australia is going to find the doctors, engineers, scientists and innovators we need if we stop attracting talented people from around the world.

26/08/2026

Great to be at the National Press Club of Australia with so many colleagues from across the Higher Education sector, and beyond, for a compelling address on the State of the Sector in Australia by Universities Australia Chair and Vice-Chancellor of Griffith University, Professor Carolyn Evans.

The Group of Eight looks forward to welcoming Professor Evans when she takes the reigns at The University of Melbourne later this year.

Read her address on the Universities Australia website here: https://bit.ly/4hVXwBp

25/08/2026

The Group of Eight CE Vicki Thomson told ABC Radio National Breakfast that university students should be able to go to university where they choose, and the Universities Accord (Opening the Door of Opportunity) legislation, in its current form, will take that choice away from them.

“We need to have a system where we're not taking student choice away from the students,” she said, “This Bill tries to redirect students away from universities – whether it is Group of Eight universities or other universities”.

She also explained to Sally Sara the Go8's concern that the legislation does nothing to dismantle the disastrous Job Ready Graduates scheme which was also an attempt to manipulate student choice that not only failed but has saddled students with high levels of debt and may very well prove a disincentive to the very goals of the legislation.

“What you have is an agreement from everybody we need more people from all backgrounds… to study at university, but at the same time you've got a funding model that makes it very costly for those people to study at university”.

https://ab.co/4cbs5iN

Adelaide University The Australian National University The University of Melbourne Monash University UNSW The University of Queensland University of Sydney The University of Western Australia

A Senate inquiry has exposed division within the university sector over the Federal Government's Universities Accord legislation.

24/08/2026

Responding to a question from Independent ACT Senator David Pocock about the failed and disastrous Job Ready Graduates (JRG) scheme, The Group of Eight CE Vicki Thomson told a Senate Inquiry into the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026, that the Bill should urgently provide a pathway removing JRG, because the scheme was providing real financial handbrakes to achieving the very goals of the legislation.

“If we don't actually address Job Ready Graduates, I worry about our ability to grow the system,” she said.

Read the Go8 Submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 here: https://bit.ly/4xZptwZ

And Vicki Thomson's Opening Statement to the Inquiry here: https://bit.ly/4wNJ7uT

Adelaide University The Australian National University The University of Melbourne Monash University UNSW The University of Queensland University of Sydney The University of Western Australia

24/08/2026

"The question before this Committee is simple: are we opening doors for more students, or simply telling students they have to walk through a different door?" The Group of Eight CE Vicki Thomson told the Senate Inquiry into the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026.

In her Opening Statement to the Inquiry, Ms Thomson said the Go8 supports the objectives of the Bill and wants the reforms to succeed, and with a small number of sensible amendments that ensure students (and student choice) are at the centre of the system, thinks it can.

“If a student from any background - regional, remote or disadvantaged - has earned the marks to attend a university of their choice, they should have the opportunity to do so,” she said, “Restricting students by narrowing their study choices or limiting where they can learn doesn't strengthen the system, it weakens it.”

She explained that amendments the Go8 has worked on with the Crossbench would improve transparency, protect student access to funded places, limit overly broad ministerial discretions and provide for review of the allocation framework.

Importantly, Ms Thomson told the Senators that the “single biggest distortion in the current funding system” the disastrous and failed Job Ready Graduates scheme, is not addressed by the Bill.

“Whatever changes we make today, we must not lose sight of replacing it with a fairer, more coherent and more equitable funding model,” she said.

Watch the Opening Statement by Go8 CE Vicki Thomson below or read it here: https://bit.ly/4wNJ7uT

Read the Go8 Submission to the Inquiry here: https://bit.ly/4xZptwZ

Adelaide University The Australian National University The University of Melbourne Monash University UNSW The University of Queensland University of Sydney The University of Western Australia

19/08/2026

The Group of Eight congratulates ALL this year's winners of the 2026 The Australian Financial Review Higher Education Awards - and especially those from The Group of Eight member universities, who have been awarded in the following categories:
▪️Emerging leadership - Dr Aaron Eger, UNSW
▪️Industry engagement - Monash Institute of Railway Technology (IRT), Monash University
▪️Teaching & learning excellence - Monash Virtual School, Monash University
▪️Research commercialisation - Vicebio vaccine platform, The University of Queensland
▪️And the Lifetime achievement award awarded posthumously to former The University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor, Professor Emma Johnston AO.

Read about all the winners here: https://bit.ly/4c058iF?

19/08/2026

“If we're not at the table, we're going to be left in the backyard,” The Group of Eight CE Vicki Thomson told the Financial Review Higher Education Summit during a panel discussion around research security and international collaboration. Explaining the vital importance of research security to national security – and the world-leading research security infrastructure Australia has in place - she reminded the room that despite Australia's 3% contribution to world-wide R&D being “extraordinary given our size”, it still meant that 97% of the world's R&D was done elsewhere, making collaboration with international research partners essential if we want to keep the country at the forefront of research and innovation.

The panel, which included Distinguished Professor Brian Schmidt from Go8 research powerhouse member The Australian National University and Australian Research Council (ARC) CEO Ute Roessner, and moderator Maani Truu, also discussed the unsustainable nature of research funding in Australia, in which the full cost of research is not funded and the shortfall filled with international student fee revenue; the need to increase the percentage of GDP we invest in R&D from the current 1.69% to 3% to catch up with our OECD peers; and the hope that the Ambitious Australia report does not just add to the “dusty bookshelf of past reports on research funding”.

Read more about the panel on the AFR here: https://bit.ly/4zuZvTK