By Cathy Fussell[2] is a Sir Roland Wilson PhD scholar at the Australian National University
How to…establish an academic secondment[1]
Under APS Reform Priority Two, the Australian Government has committed to building genuine partnerships and engagement—including with academia—to help develop policies and services that reflect the needs and aspirations of the people they affect.
Supporting the secondment of public servants into university schools is one mechanism to build bridges between the two sectors, enhance research applicability, and knowledge transfer. Public servants can be seconded into a school for defined period from a few months or a year, or on a parttime basis. Secondments are one strategy highlighted by the APS Mobility Framework that enable employees to learn new skills and experience new environments.
A secondment is where an employee works for a period of time in a host organisation, while remaining employed by and connected to the original employer. Secondments can be facilitated by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or Secondment Agreement. A secondment agreement should be tailored to the needs and circumstances of the situation, in consultation with relevant experts in agencies’ corporate and legal areas.
The APS Mobility Framework provides a range of issues to consider in establishing a secondment. These include working through how the secondment will be funded and costs attributed, how leave requests will be handled, whether salary advancement will be affected, addressing any conflicts of interest or work health and safety issues, and being clear about the secondment role, communication arrangements, and any training and development needs to support secondee performance. It is also important to ensure that APS employees consider their responsibility to uphold the APS Values and APS employment principles while on secondment.
Short secondments can provide the opportunity for a rapid review of research insights. For example, early in her career Rebecca Gibb, spent six weeks as an APS 6 ‘offline’ to undertake a literature review on seasonal labour mobility, which was an emerging topical issue at the time for her team. She surveyed current literature and connected with Australian and international academic experts which enabled her team to provide rapid policy advice to the minister at short notice. The knowledge gained in this short period provided the baseline for continued learning and shared policy dividend for her team for at least two years. While more of an informal arrangement rather than a secondment per se, Rebecca’s experience demonstrates the potential value of a short secondment. It is a straightforward way to add depth to APS advice and policy development.
The Tax and Transfer Policy Institute (TTPI) at the Australian National University has been hosting government secondees since 2013. The secondment program is one mechanism TTPI uses to build the evidence base on the tax and transfer system and promote greater collaboration between TTPI and policymakers.
Through TTPI’s partnerships with government departments, participants are selected through a competitive process to spend time at TTPI to carry out a research project designed in close collaboration with their sponsoring government agency. The duration of TTPI secondments is mutually agreed upon between TTPI and the relevant home agency of the secondee. In practice, these agreements have ranged from a minimum of one day per week for six months to a maximum of one year, full-time. Secondees are provided with access to ANU ICT and library facilities and academic support services. The projects they undertake enhance the capabilities of the secondee (which they bring back to their home agency), as well as the methodological rigor of the joint research. Further information is available here.
TTPI’s secondment program continues to be extremely successful and active. For example, a joint research program with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) for secondees to work on projects in business innovation and tax, using BLADE data has been established. An example of this joint research was presented at a seminar at Crawford School on Friday 31 March 2023. TTPI has had considerable success in maintaining connections with its secondees beyond their secondments, resulting in a network of researchers able to work together across academia and government.
Please reach out if you have been or hosted a secondee, or are aware of other opportunities for establishing great Australian Public Service and academic partnerships. We would love to hear about it. Contact the team at the Academy.
References
[1] This article is part of a ‘How to…’ series aimed at increasing awareness of APS-academic partnership opportunities.
[2] Thank you to the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute and Rebecca Gibb for their assistance in preparing this article.