Spare a thought for Professor Denise Bradley. As the chair of the Rudd Government's Higher Education Review, Bradley is almost at her October deadline for producing the first priorities of a plan to extend Labor's so-called education revolution to the hallowed halls of university learning.

It's a far from easy task, with more than a few vice-chancellors sympathetic to the breadth of her assignment. More daunting still is that she prepares it under a sobering 20-year precedent governments regularly commission higher education reviews and just as quickly shelve them.

Not since John Dawkins produced his white paper in 1988 has the university sector witnessed anything even approaching real reform.

Dawkins merged a multitude of colleges of advanced education with universities and introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme ending the notion of free university education in Australia by forcing students to pay back some of the costs of their degree. It was huge.

Skip forward a decade to the plight of Rod West, a retired grammar school headmaster hand-picked by then education minister Amanda Vanstone to find a way around rapidly expanding university enrolments and even more rapidly shrinking public dollars.

After travelling the length and breadth of the country seeking input, and coming up with a comprehensive ''Learning for Life'' paper in 1998, West's central proposal of student-centred voucher funding was politely but promptly buried.

When Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson took over the portfolio, the same problems were still plaguing the system and the chorus of complaints from disgruntled vice-chancellors had only grown louder against a background of successive Howard government funding cuts.

Nelson too sought to produce the magic bullet his 2002 review receiving 728 written submissions and holding more than 48 forums around the country in which more than 800 interested parties took part.

In effect, however, little changed, save for allowing universities to charge students higher HECS fees for their degrees in order to top up their dwindling bank accounts.

Twenty years on there is overwhelming desire, perhaps even desperation, that something substantial be done.

Vice-chancellors may be known to rival state premiers for their dogged pursuit of the Commonwealth dollar but it seems to have gone beyond that now. At issue is not only how to do more with less, but how to remain internationally competitive after years of sliding down the pole of global university rankings.

The academic jewel in Australia's crown, the Australian National University, struggles to make it into any top-20 international university list. Australia is being overtaken by countries such as Canada, Sweden and Switzerland.

Something big and bold is required before the gap widens further. Something really revolutionary. And soon, all eyes will be on Bradley.

The ferociously intelligent former vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia has the most amorphous terms of reference.

When announced in March by Education Minister Julia Gillard, the reviews set task included not only informing the Government's policy agenda through the 2009 and 2010 Budget cycles, but developing ''a long-term vision for higher education into the next decade and beyond''.

Bradley's review is also being conducted alongside the Cutler report on research and innovation both of which have given the incoming Labor Government valuable breathing space.

The Rudd Government will have had almost a year in power before having to say or do anything significant about Australia's 40 universities, 59 TAFEs, and the country's varied research bodies.

Just how brave and revolutionary Julia Gillard decides to be will be seen in her response to the Bradley recommendations more so when she decides the 2010 education Budget priorities. In the meantime, Vice-Chancellors wait and hope.

Earlier this month Gillard gave some hint at what is in store for the vocational education and training sector with talk of student-centred funding or vouchers by any other name.

Labor is obviously keen to address the nation's skills crisis and provide opportunities for the blue-collar workers of the future by attending to the largely neglected VET sector.

Bradley is believed to be considering a more dynamic or market-driven system, and Gillard recently suggested TAFE students shouldn't be beholden ''to what providers want to teach. We want it to be about what students want to learn and what industry needs''.

University funding will prove more tricky, with universities far less responsive to market forces than training providers. Labor is also far less inclined than its predecessor to shift more of the burden on to students and more likely to require structural reform from institutions themselves in exchange for more taxpayer funds.

Perhaps the big idea lies in one of the 300-odd submissions Bradley has spent the past few months poring over. But what is clear at this stage is there is a stunning lack of consensus, and Bradley, as much as Gillard, will need to find courage in her convictions.

Both the ANU and University of Canberra have submitted thoughtful proposals which are not opposite in their approaches.

Vice-chancellor Stephen Parker's plan to remove the strict boundaries between universities and TAFEs and to form systems between all post-school institutions would promote specialisation and reduce duplication. A system could include one or more research universities, universities focussing on first degrees and professional masters programs, polytechnics to provide white collar training and vocational instutions to run trade and technical courses. Obvious synergies and efficiencies of scale would exist while each institution retained operational autonomy.

It is a notion clearly supported by the Group of Eight, which expounds a very similar reform path in its own submission.

ANU Professor Ian Chubb, a member of the Group of Eight, largely agrees, although his own submission is obviously angled from the ANU's unique, research-centric and national perspective.

Chubb is clearly frustrated with the current system, which seeks to fund all universities broadly at the expense of high-class research and specialisation.

He regularly gets attacked by his peers for appearing greedy on behalf of his own patch of turf, but Chubb maintains he doesn't care who performs the nation's best research, just as long as they are funded adequately to do it.

''Denise Bradley just needs to turn on the television and have a look at China's performance in the Olympics,'' he said this week.

''Over the past five Games they have made selective and substantial investments in their athletes they picked a few and ensured they are best placed to win.

''We need to fund institutions to reach the peaks of performance, not flatten out peaks in the hope the troughs rise up.''

Both Chubb and Parker are optimistic to a point. They feel tinkering around the edges would not be the style of Bradley, nor a fresh government which won considerable electoral support for its education agenda.

They also feel 20 years since the last big shakeup is a long enough time to wait with no obvious change in direction.

Of course, the final stage of any reform process assuming you can put together the right ideas and receive the requisite political momentum would be the participation of the institutions themselves.

Big changes necessitate losers as much as winners. And with universities currently operated like independent fiefdoms, it is unclear how much they would be prepared to sacrifice individually for the greater good.

Failure to get them on board may be the real decider in getting any revolution off the ground.

Emma Macdonald is Education Reporter.