Presented by SA Futures Agency and MOD.

What are universities actually for? And are they fit for what comes next?

In January 2026, Adelaide University opened its doors as one of the largest university mergers in the anglophone world. Flinders University launched Agenda 2035, a bold new strategic plan focused on impact and access. The higher education landscape in South Australia has never shifted so dramatically. But the bigger question goes well beyond any single merger or strategy. Across the world, universities are being asked to justify their existence in new ways. Are they the civic infrastructure our societies need to navigate the next 50 years of complexity, disruption, and change? Or are they legacy institutions, structurally unable to evolve fast enough to serve the public good?

This is not a question with a simple answer. It deserves a proper debate.

The SA Foresight Community of Practice invites you to a public debate framed around a single, provocative statement:

“The university as we know it is not fit for the collective learning our societies need over the next 50 years. We need to reimagine it from the ground up.”

Six speakers from Adelaide University and Flinders University will face off in three rounds of debate, following the traditional format of first speakers, second speakers, and third speakers from each side.

This is a debate designed for serious ideas and good humour. Come ready to think, laugh, and change your mind.

The Speakers

Professor Simone Dennis | Adelaide University

Intellectual collaborator on the design of this event. Simone brings deep critical thinking about the institution from within, with genuine affection for what it could be and sharp clarity about what it currently is not.

Verity Kingsmill | Director, Entrepreneurial Growth and Development, New Venture Institute, Flinders University. Oxford Said Business School (Scenarios Programme)

Verity works at the boundary of what a university can be when it turns outward, connecting students, researchers, and industry to solve real problems. She brings an entrepreneurial lens and a scenarios-trained eye to the gap between what the world needs and what universities currently deliver.

Professor Chris Brebner | Pro Vice-Chancellor (Curriculum Impact), Flinders University

Chris leads curriculum transformation at Flinders, including the pioneering degree apprenticeship programme. She can point to evidence that universities are already reimagining how they work from within, and argue that evolution is more powerful than revolution.

Professor Craig Batty | Pro Vice-Chancellor, Adelaide University, creative practice research

Craig works at the intersection of creative arts and academia. He can argue that the university’s unique value is precisely its capacity for long, slow, non-instrumental thinking, and that “reimagining from the ground up” risks losing the very thing that makes universities irreplaceable.

Rachel Toop | Business Development Manager, Adelaide University.

Rachel sits at the intersection of university, industry, arts, and community. She has worked across cultural programming, philanthropy, and enterprise partnerships, and can argue that the connective tissue between universities and the outside world is already being built.

Professor Ryan Baker | Adelaide University
Ryan works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, learning, and human behaviour. A pioneer in educational data mining and learning analytics, he brings a deeply evidence-based perspective on how institutions can adapt in an era of rapid technological change, and what happens when universities fail to evolve as quickly as the systems around them.

Event Details

The MOD. galleries will be open from 5 pm where you can view BEGINNINGS. The debate will commence at 5:45 pm.

The Foresight Community of Practice is jointly hosted by Professor Ariella Helfgott, Director of Foresight, SA Futures Agency, One Basin CRC; and Dr Lisa Bailey, Director: MOD.

Entry is free, with drinks available for purchase.

If you have any questions please contact mod@mod.org.au

Contact the host of SA Foresight Community of Practice Event: The Future of Universities