Ministerial approval for changing PhD topic ‘unworkable’

Australian universities have been blindsided by a federal government decision to make foreign postgraduates obtain ministerial endorsement of changes to their thesis topics.

The change, foreshadowed in a “legislative instrument”, forbids international students from altering their study, thesis or research topics without the approval of the home affairs minister.

The rule will apply to international students who lodge applications after 1 July for visas to undertake PhDs, master’s degrees, graduate certificates, graduate diplomas or bridging courses required for master’s or doctoral study.

“This approval can only be given after the minister has obtained an assessment from the competent Australian authorities that you are not likely to be directly or indirectly a risk to Australian national security,” a webpage explains.

A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said the change would help the government assess and mitigate national security risks. “Australia has a strong native research capability which provides a strategic advantage to both Australia and our education sector, but this must be balanced with the risk of unwanted knowledge transfer that enables foreign, dual-use applications of critical technology,” they said.

But critics said the change was unnecessary, because students from countries on sanctions lists already need ministerial approval to change study topics. The new regulation extends this requirement to all nationalities. “If you want to change your topic from German semiotic verbs to 18th-century fashion, you’ll need approval,” said UNSW Sydney deputy vice-chancellor Nick Fisk.

Professor Fisk estimated that about 2,000 overseas PhD students sought to change their thesis topics each year, usually for “very genuine” reasons such as scarce resources, departure of supervisors or “roadblocks” in their research. A minister’s office would struggle to process such requests in a reasonable time frame, given that visa applications often took well over six months and the government was yet to approve or disqualify any university agreements under veto powers legislated over a year ago.

Delays of that scale would have severe consequences for the students, Professor Fisk said. “Do they expect these people to just keep sitting there twiddling their thumbs on a scholarship paid for by our universities or government? Or are they supposed to go on leave? If they go on leave, they lose their visa and have to leave the country.”

He warned that the change would make Australia a “much less attractive destination” for the international students who underpinned the country’s higher degree research effort, particularly in science and technology disciplines. The new rule should be restricted to sensitive fields and a “timeline” should be mandated, he said, so that approval to change study topics was conferred automatically if students had not received ministerial responses within reasonable time frames.

So far, the department has only discussed the change with other government agencies. But it has pledged to consult “impacted sectors” before July and “provide further guidance around the operationalisation of these changes”. 

The new arrangements will be “targeted” and their “administrative impact” will be minimised, a spokesperson said. The University Foreign Interference Taskforce will help ensure they “are proportionate and fit for purpose”.

Australian National University “thesis whisperer” Inger Mewburn said the new rule demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of the nature of doctoral studies. “Many PhD students change their topic dramatically in the first year,” she blogged. “The whole first year of the PhD is meant to involve refining a topic.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com