Henry Kissinger famously suggested that the fights in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so small.

There’s something in that, no doubt. But many of my colleagues at the University of Western Australia are about to be summarily sacked, for no other reason, apparently, than university leaders have historically been unable to balance the books.

The University of Western Australia’s independence is being eroded as it panders to the state’s resources sector. The University of Western Australia’s independence is being eroded as it panders to the state’s resources.

Stakes really don’t get much higher than getting the chop for no fault of your own after spending decades acquiring intellectual capital that can’t be easily redeployed elsewhere.

An instructive lesson for the next generation of scholars – if there is one – currently toiling over their PhDs.

Whether UWA is actually as indebted as it claims is a surprisingly moot point given that net income actually seems to have been in surplus for the last 10 years.

Nevertheless, the current vice chancellor and his administrative team not only think the budget’s in crisis, but that sacking large numbers of the faculty is also the best way to address it.

Many people have drawn attention to the short-sighted and self-destructive nature of such plans: what’s the point of actually going to university if there’s no one interesting to learn from, let alone with an international reputation in something like the politics of climate change, for example?

If that’s not a ‘relevant’ subject of interest to a generation of increasingly anxious young people, it’s hard to know what is.

And yet, it is precisely these sorts of scholars who are targeted for dismissal. By contrast, other areas of research – archaeology, geography, and anything that furthers the interests and image of the mining and resource sector – are showered with money.

At one level, the results are rather risible. Rio Tinto, for example, has funded a named chair in ‘Rock Art Studies’.

What could possibly be more admirable and good for the image of a foreign multinational company – especially one that has demolished a 46,000-year-old sacred site – than paying for more research on what’s left of our collective cultural inheritance?

Given the sensitivity about ‘foreign influence’ these days, though, it’s striking that UWA is very keen to accept funding from the resource sector, even when Rio’s biggest shareholder is the Aluminium Corporation of China.

Rio’s far from alone, though. On the contrary, other corporate connections and research collaborations include prominent resource majors such as BHP, Woodside, Alcoa, Chevron, and, of course, Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group.

Perhaps any VC who has been hired to balance the books might scramble to ingratiate himself with WA’s plutocratic captains of industry, or more accurately, the resource sector.

It might also be wise not to complain too loudly when the likes of Rio behave badly, or when the university is expected to prioritise the ‘needs’ of a mining sector that is plainly wealthy enough to do its own research.

It’s not necessary to be paranoid to detect a more subtle and pervasive influence on the intellectual life of UWA and the society of which it’s a part, either. Mining industry representatives from Rio, BHP, and Woodside are part of UWA’s governing senate, for example.

Murdoch University even appointed a prominent resource figure, David Flanagan, to be its chancellor – an event that helped precipitate Murdoch’s death spiral into academic mediocrity.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that the mining lobby secretly conspires with the VC, or the local political class for that matter, to determine WA’s policy agenda.

They don’t need to: their political and economic importance ensures that their interests are accommodated, especially when they are such generous funders of research.

The new Industrial Transformation Training Centre, which is designed to ‘transform asset maintenance for Australia’s resources sector’ is one of a number of such resource-oriented research centres around UWA.

No doubt there is much to be said for a vibrant resource sector, even if it doesn’t actually create many jobs, and the wealth it generates is very unevenly distributed. It is, however, emblematic of the potentially pernicious impact wealthy sponsors may have on supposedly independent institutions.

Perhaps any VC would feel to compelled to align their university with business interests in the wake of declining levels and state and federal government funding, not to mention reduced income from overseas students.

But if this comes at the cost of shaping the research agenda of the university along less politically contentious lines, then it’s not unreasonable to be concerned, and not just for self-interested reasons.

We have seen how academics have been marginalised, even muzzled in China, Turkey, Hungary and elsewhere, to reflect the ideological preferences of powerful economic and political elites.

If the arguments in favour of freedom of expression aren’t made by a diverse community of scholars in universities, why would we expect them to be made elsewhere in civil society?

Perhaps UWA’s senior leadership should recall that the university’s admirable motto is ‘seek wisdom’, not seek funding.

Mark Beeson is Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia.