Professor Carolyn Evans, Universities Australia Chair 

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Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 2026 Universities Australia Solutions Summit. I’m Carolyn Evans, I am the Vice-Chancellor of Griffith University and Chair of Universities Australia. 

I begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which we meet today, the Ngunnawal people, and the many lands from which people are joining us, and I pay my respects to elders past and present and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here with us. We recognise that Australia’s universities sit on lands that have been places of learning for tens of thousands of years, and that our future as institutions of knowledge must include deep partnership with First Nations communities, scholars and students. 

Yesterday, we had some profoundly thoughtful and knowledgeable speeches and panels examining how we make our campuses welcoming, inclusive places for all people, including the First Peoples of these lands. 

The Respect at Uni report that was released last week revealed that racism and discrimination on the basis of religion is one reason that our campuses do not feel inclusive or safe to too many of our staff and students. Students, staff and those who come to our campuses should be able to learn, research and engage with one another in an atmosphere that is free from hate, discrimination and racism. 

Reports, including the recent one by the Australian Human Rights Commission and earlier ones by the Special Envoy on Antisemitism and the Special Envoy on Islamophobia, are a challenge to us as a sector to do better. There is a chance to draw those reports together to respond in a principled, evidence-based, trauma-informed way to them. 

Universities Australia is working rapidly to respond in practical, concrete ways to all forms of racism on our campuses, and also to use our expertise in research and teaching to help the broader role and responsibility that we have to our society to take these issues seriously. There is important work to be done, and we look forward to sharing our response in the coming days. 

Can I thank you all for being here. Leaders from universities of course, but also government, industry, the community sector, members of the media, students and advocates. The very fact that we gather from across sectors is a reminder that the questions that face higher education are not questions that universities can or should answer alone. They’re national questions. They deserve national conversations. They are global issues and require international perspectives. 

We live in turbulent times. Around the world, we are seeing rapid technological change, geopolitical uncertainty, economic volatility and profound social and economic transformation. Old assumptions about security, prosperity, social cohesion are being tested. New industries are emerging, others are disrupted. Democracies are grappling with mistrust, misinformation and polarisation. 

And for some, this is a moment to say universities don’t matter anymore; they don’t provide value for the individual student or for the nation. They are medieval institutions. They will crumble in the face of AI. I say otherwise, I say there has never been a time in which a well-educated citizenry, a highly skilled workforce, a deeply expert academy and a commitment to critical, informed thinking have been more vital to facing the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the coming decades. 

Universities, whatever people might say, are actually constantly in the business of reinventing ourselves. Of course, there’s a core of learning and research that has persisted over the centuries, but we have moved in my lifetime from being institutions just for the elite, the lucky few, to providing wide-scale access to education. 

Our universities educate more than 1.5 million students every year. We help people build their skills, their confidence, the sophistication of their understanding and opportunities across their lifetime. We drive research and innovation that underpins new industries, better health outcomes and smarter public policy. And in cities, suburbs and regions alike, universities are anchor institutions, major employers, cultural hubs and partners in the life of the community. 

Universities are being expected to do more. We embrace that. We are being asked to do more for access and equity, to strengthen student outcomes, to accelerate research translation and to contribute ever more directly to national priorities. These are not burdens to be resisted. They are responsibilities to be embraced. They are, for many of us, the purpose that drew us to a lifetime working in this sector. 

But for us to be able to truly fulfill them, they do require honest dialogue about settings, sustainability and shared goals, and that’s why this Solution Summit matters. This is not a forum for slogans, lip solutions or defensiveness. It’s a space for practical, forward-looking, informed conversations. A place to ask the big questions. 

How do we ensure universities remain engines of opportunity open to all students in a more unequal world? How do we fund access and excellence in a way that is fair and sustainable? How do we translate research into real-world impact at greater scale? How do we prepare Australians for jobs that do not yet exist in industries that are still taking shape? How do we keep our institutions open, globally connected and confident in a time when parts of the world are turning increasingly inward? And of course, the big question: how do I become an astronaut when I grow up? 

Universities have always been at their best when they’ve engaged with society, not retreated from it. When we are listening, as well as leading, when we are willing to adapt while holding firm to core values, academic freedom, integrity, knowledge, inclusion and commitment to the public good. 

So, my hope for the next few days is that we lean into the complexity, that we speak candidly, but that we also listen generously and focus on solutions because the stakes are not just about the future of universities, they’re about the kind of Australia we want to be and the kind of world that we want to be part of. 

We want to be part of a country that backs knowledge, a country that invests in its people, a country that understands that education and research are not costs to be managed, but foundations of national strength and sovereignty. A country that has deep partnerships with other countries, underpinned in part by shared educational and research aspirations. A country in short that is ambitious about its future and prepared for it rather than running scared from it. 

Thank you for being part of the conversations and for the role that each and every one of you plays in the shaping of Australia’s future. I look forward to a productive and inspiring Solutions Summit. Thank you. 

ENDS