Has Australian Education minister Julie Bishop been reading this blog? If so, she needs to read it more carefully. It has been reported in the THES (p. 11 of the print edition, August 18th) that she has argued recently that Australia needs only 12 universities, rather than its current 37. But with a population of about 20 million, Australia clearly needs 20 universities.

Bishop’s argument is that Australia is spreading its resources too thinly to have the major global impact it ought to be able to achieve. Perhaps she has a point. In yet another survey of the world’s leading Universities, from Newsweek, the highest placed Australian University is ANU, at 38, although there are, I think, 8 in the top 100.