Universities eye postgraduate stipend

UNIVERSITIES will claw back some of the extra living money they have been paying research students if the federal Government boosts the postgraduate stipend, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations has warned.

CAPA president Nigel Palmer said he believed "a number of institutions" already had decided to recoup any such savings by reducing top-up payments to research students with commonwealth scholarships. He said the savings should be reinvested in university-funded scholarships.

Last week at the launch of Victoria University's postdoctoral fellowships, Innovation Minister Kim Carr again encouraged hopes of a more generous Australian Postgraduate Awards program, saying it was the Government's "ambition to increase the value of the postgraduate stipend as budget circumstances permit".

The APA annual stipend is $20,427, near the poverty line. "It's madness to be losing tomorrow's researchers due to inadequate income support today," Mr Palmer said.

There is a sector push for a 30 per cent increase, which would bring the stipend close to the APA-industry level of $26,669.

Meanwhile, more universities were making top-up payments, and the trend was most pronounced in Western Australia, where three of the four public institutions gave APA top-ups across the board, Mr Palmer said.

Curtin University dean of graduate studies Graeme Wright said he believed his institution's $10,000 across-the-board top-up for APAs was the most generous in the country. "If the APA went up to $26,000, then we might provide a $4000 top-up so (students would still) get their $30,000. We'd be looking to at least maintain the level of income support," he said.