Anthony Welch

Tony specialises in national and international policy and practice, principally in education, and cross-cultural analysis and research. He has extensive experience in many countries, including in the Asia Pacific, and has published widely, contributing numerous analyses of issues such as cross-cultural interactions; rural education, comparative research methods in education; and practical reform affecting multiculturalism, indigenous minorities, international students, higher education reforms, internationalisation of higher education in the Asia Pacific, and changes to the academic profession.

After working as a school teacher in Australia and the UK, Tony completed both his MA and PhD at the University of London. He has been Visiting Professor at universities and think tanks in the US, UK, France, Japan, China and Germany. His work has appeared in numerous languages including German, Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Extensive international contacts with organisations such as the OECD, UNDP, UNESCO, World Bank, ADB, CEDEFOP (Europe), BIBB (Germany), IREDU (France), the Fulbright Commission, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT), has allowed Tony to contibute to major projects and reforms in various parts of the world. He has consulted to governments in Australia, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and Europe; to foundations in the USA and to international agencies, principally in the area of higher education reform.

Among other projects, Tony was part of an international team engaged on a major 14-nation study of the academic profession (published in 1996 as The Academic Profession. Portraits from Fourteen Countries). He was recently involved in a multinational study of Academic Salaries, and a major Higher Education project focused on Asia, for the ADB.

Tony was a Fulbright New Century Scholar for 2007–8, in a year devoted to higher education research. His recent works include: Counting the Cost, Financing Higher Education for Inclusive Growth in Asia (ADB 2012); Higher Education in Southeast Asia. Blurring borders, Changing Balance (Routledge 2011) and ASEAN Industries and the Challenge from China. (Palgrave Macmillan 2011)