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If you’ve been thinking where best to explore the current issues facing institutional research (IR) staff in Australasia in 2013 then it’s time to consider AAIR’s Annual Forum. This year we head right across to the beautiful west coast of Australia to Scarborough on Perth’s northern beaches. The Rendezvous Grand Hotel Perth Scarborough will be our host from Wednesday 13 to Friday 15 November 2013.
On behalf of the Australasian Association for Institutional Research (AAIR) Forum Organising Committee I’d like to extend a warm invitation to you to participate. This year the Organising Committee has chosen the theme, ‘Insights from Institutional Research: Exploring New Shores’ and for many it may be your first trip to the distant shores of Western Australia. So there’s certainly scope to explore new shores along the western coastline as well as discovering the rich diversity of topics pervading IR.
As usual we expect to attract the leading IR practitioners from across Australasia. There’ll be a range of sub-themes that will further be explored from the student experience, through planning and budgeting to equity and diversity and research performance to name just a few. Every year seems to bring new challenges to our sector and the need to provide better institutional analysis to support sound decision-making is becoming increasingly important. That’s good from a professional career perspective but it does mean that we need to develop our networks and share our knowledge more than ever to keep ahead of these changes.
Technology of course assists us to do our jobs more cleverly and efficiently. But how do we keep abreast of that quickly changing environment? Our sponsors over the past few years have been assisting IR staff to explore these new prospects and we look forward to seeing them again in Perth. Take the opportunity to speak with these vendors as they’re working closely with many of your colleagues in other universities. We’re very grateful that our valued sponsors’ continued support enables AAIR to offer the best experience to our delegates at a reasonable rate.
We’re also hoping to again have representatives from the government departments with which we closely work. In an Australian election year it is likely that whoever is in government will want to change the policy landscape once again so it will be timely to have their perspective closely on the heels of the election.
If this will be your first time at an AAIR event or your first time presenting, the AAIR Executive will again be hosting a ‘meet-and-greet’ session to make you feel welcome and to pass on what little wisdom we think we have. Watch the Forum website as we release more details in the regular program updates.
As the peak Forum for institutional researchers in Australia and New Zealand, mark this event in your calendar. This Forum continues to be run by practitioners for practitioners so it can’t run without your participation. Come and join me and explore the many new insights that the Perth Forum hopes to offer.
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Dave Marr
President, AAIR 
Forum Organising Committee
Robert McCormack, University of Western Australia
Luke Minchin, University of Western AustraliaSandra Ng Wing Lit, University of Western Australia
Ploy Tangtulyangkul, University of Western Australia
Wayne Griffiths, University of Western Australia
Dean Ward, AAIR
Don Johnston, AAIR
Bruce Guthrie, AAIR Committee, Graduate Careers Australia
