Long bypassed by fee-paying international students and disproportionately disadvantaged by the capping of domestic places, Australia’s regional universities now find themselves in the middle of an economic upsurge that in some ways dwarfs the last decade’s mining boom.

Covid-19 has created new opportunities for non-metropolitan universities by accelerating an exodus from the big cities. Canberra thinktank the Regional Australia Institute said rural areas were experiencing a “one-in-100-year transformation” as a pre-pandemic drift from the major cities – Sydney and Melbourne, in particular – escalated into a “seismic shift”.

“One in five city dwellers wants to make the move,” chief executive Liz Ritchie told the . “We cannot squander this opportunity that Covid in some ways has triggered.”

Australians’ appetite for the regional lifestyle has surged as work-from-home arrangements remove the need to live within commutable distance from city offices. This in turn has increased demand for services in large regional towns.

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Ms Ritchie said job advertisements in regional Australia had doubled to record numbers following a Covid-induced slump in April 2020, with almost 70,000 positions now on offer. This was “well above the mining boom job numbers”, with the fastest growth in professional areas such as medicine, accounting and engineering.

She said the “net inflow” from major cities had reached almost 45,000 over the year to March 2021, more than triple the levels of the first half of the decade. Universities had a role in attracting these urban refugees by anticipating local skill needs and enhancing the “liveability” of regional towns. “It’s a competitive marketplace,” she told the forum.

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Australia’s national skills commissioner, Adam Boyton, said the pandemic’s impact on population patterns was evident in the past 18 months of labour market data. “So much economic activity has shifted to regional areas,” he told the conference.

“It is more difficult for employers to get the people they want in regional Australia than in capital cities. That’s a reversal of the trend that we’d seen over the previous five years. Whether that continues, if things get back to normal, is an interesting question.”

Mr Boyton forecasted particular demand in health, aged and disability care and digital, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and robotics skills.

But the Business Council of Australia warned that regional universities needed to specialise. “You’re going to have to collaborate and coordinate on an unprecedented scale,” chief executive Jennifer Westacott told the conference.

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“Australia is too small to have everyone being a centre for excellence in the same things.”

Ms Westacott said regional communities were forever hatching plans to “lead the way” on defence, aerospace, robotics or advanced manufacturing without researching the markets properly. She said regional universities had two choices.

“You compete with each other, not to drive innovation but to survive. Or, you drive coordination, networking, productive competition, deep industry collaboration – so that you and our nation thrive.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com