Student climate change protesters failed to derail the Wollongong visit of Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan on Wednesday.
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Mr Tehan dropped by UOW Innovation Campus where he had a very "fruitful" conversation with many of the country's vice-chancellors about performance-based funding for the university sector.
UOW Vice-Chancellor Paul Wellings chaired the expert panel of five vice-chancellors who devised the model which will require universities to demonstrate success across four new performance measures to unlock funding increases from 2020.
Universities will be measured for how well they perform in graduate employment outcomes, student success, student experience and enrolment of Indigenous, disadvantaged and rural students, under the new scheme expected to be adopted by the Morrison government.
Government spending on bachelor-level courses will rise by about $80 million annually from next year, with the increase pegged to the population growth rate of 18 to 64-year-olds.
"I think it is a model which is a very distinctive Australian model," Professor Wellings said.
"We've looked at the international framework and we've actually built something which is special to Australia and one which I believe will actually enhance the performance of the sector over this next medium period.
"We are pretty certain in the way we've constructed the model that it is fair and it's feasible and can be operated safely by all universities irrespective of the catchment of students they've got or the subject mix they have coming in.
"It will certainly protect regional and rural students and universities because of the way we've both contextualised the circumstances of every university and the fact we've used the national average for population growth across all universities.
"I think we've done a really good job actually for regional universities in this report."
This view was shared by Minister Tehan.
"The wonderful thing about the model that Paul's [Wellings] group has put together is that it is not a carrot stick," he said.
"What it does is it says we want to reward you where you are performing well but then we want to work with you and help you where you are not performing well, and there will be a financial payment to help you improve your performance."
The scheme aims to increase accountability for spending of public money on national higher education priorities, encourage assessment of teaching quality at universities, and spur improved performance.
The university sector claimed to have lost $2.1 billion in 2017.
The government will lift the two-year freeze on support for undergraduate places, with Mr Tehan saying the government was providing a record $17 billion to the sector.
"What we've agreed here is a way forward when it comes to performance-based funding," he said.
"The university sector can be a key driver of productivity growth in this nation. The university sector can be a key driver in making sure we fulfill our election commitment to provide 1.25 million jobs in the future.
"To create those 1.25 million jobs into the future I want to work with the sector because I see them as playing a key role in helping set our nation up for the future.
"If we have job-ready graduates that can fill the needs of industry going forward then we can make sure that the sector is proving the economic future this nation needs."
Mr Tehan added being able to adjust the model for unforeseen circumstances over time was a big plus.
'There can be some unintended circumstances with any model that you put forward. The feedback we got from the sector is they understand that," he said.
"They are very keen to work with government on that but they largely like the simplicity of the model and the way it rewards those who perform well but also then works with those who don't perform well."
Meantime, UOW activists were "appalled" they were denied entry into the conference headed by Mr Tehan.
"We gathered to send a message to Dan Tehan who notoriously claimed in March that high school kids striking for action on climate change were manipulated by professional activists," WUSA general representative Darcy Turner said.
"We wanted to have a peaceful protest and it was appalling that the AFP, Police and security refused to let us enter the conference."
Read more: Experts help unis beef up cyber security
University vice-chancellors today received a cyber security briefing from the Australian Signals Directorate, to ensure strong defences are in place to protect information.
The gathering in Wollongong discussed the 13 Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes at Australian universities and the threat of cyber attacks.
Universities across the nation were taught how to beef up their cyber security, months after the Australian National University realised hackers had accessed nearly 20 years' worth of its data.
Before the meeting, Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan told the Mercury he was looking forward to hearing from the vice-chancellor of ANU.
"He has very kindly offered to talk about his experience with what happened at ANU and to provide lessons for other vice-chancellors about the type of steps you need to be putting in place to make sure that you are cyber secure," Mr Tehan said.
"As a former cyber security minister this is an area that I take very seriously and I know it is something vice-chancellors take very seriously so we want to make sure that they've got the latest information in that regard.
"Whether it be government, whether it be higher education sector, whether it be businesses, cyber security is something we have got to take incredibly seriously.
"The threat evolves over time. If you think you are cyber secure today, that does not mean you are cyber secure tomorrow.
"We all can improve when it comes to cyber security. No one has it right at the moment.
"We've all got to understand that it is a threat that continues to evolve. We have got to understand that we've got to continue to put in place the defences that we need to keep ourselves cyber secure."