Innovation guru Aleks Subic has been lured back to his adoptive Australia to run the country’s only for-profit university, following a four-year stint as vice-chancellor of Aston University in Birmingham.

The Balkan-born engineer and long-time Australian resident will succeed Alwyn Louw as vice-chancellor of Torrens University, which has campuses in four states.

Torrens has seen enormous growth since its 2013 establishment as the only private for-profit, investor-owned university in Australia. The institution changed hands in 2020, sold by US-based university owner Laureate Education to fellow American corporation Strategic Education.

Its enrolments have doubled since 2018, when it was smaller than all but one of Australia’s publicly funded universities. It now exceeds 10 public universities in size, boasting more than 25,000 students.

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It attracted better-than-average student satisfaction rates in the latest Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching surveys but has among the lowest full-time employment rates for recent graduates.

Subic, who joins Torrens in April, said he was excited to lead a “vibrant and innovative institution with a strong social purpose and entrepreneurial spirit”.

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His priorities will be “expanding global reach, enhancing digital and industry-integrated learning and applied research, and positioning Torrens as a model for inclusive, future-ready education”.

Subic spent 25 years in leadership roles in Australian academia, mostly at RMIT University, where he rose to the position of deputy vice-chancellor. He took over at Aston in 2022, swapping places with previous vice-chancellor Alec Cameron who had returned to Australia to run RMIT.

Subic has made his mark during a relatively short stint in the UK, chairing the – an arm of the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils (GFCC) – and the , a network of institutions involved in developing regional innovation ecosystems.

Last year, he collected the GFCC’s Global Competitiveness Award in recognition of his “transformational leadership” in higher education, research and innovation.

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He faces a challenge at Torrens, which is Australia’s second most internationalised university – with 54 per cent of its enrolments from overseas – at a time when the Australian government is limiting foreign student numbers.

Torrens had a commencing load of 3,485 equivalent full-time overseas students in 2024. The federal government has allocated it 2,800 places for new international students this year and slightly more next year.

The higher education regulator, Teqsa, also when it renewed Torrens’ registration in early September. The university was given four months to show that it had put in place governance arrangements to manage “institutional risks” related to its pre-admission, post-admission and agency management practices, as well as its “high” rates of student attrition and casual staffing.

Torrens has also been given until the end of next year to bed down an independent review of its research performance and research training activities, and until late 2029 to demonstrate “progress”. It is currently the only Australian university with conditions on its registration, although more than a dozen other institutions are due for reregistration.

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Governance at Torrens is likely to be strengthened by two new appointments to its board: former University of Newcastle vice-chancellor and South Australian chief scientist Caroline McMillen; and investment banker Mark Baillie, who chaired the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre for a decade.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com