For more than two decades, CAUDIT’s analytics and insights portfolio has helped the higher education ICT community understand performance, priorities and emerging needs. What began as a small set of comparative exercises has grown into a trusted, sector-wide capability that supports evidence-based decision making, transparency and shared learning across Australia and New Zealand.
At the centre of this work is benchmarking. In 2025, the program captured more than 15,000 data points across investment, workforce, services and capability. That collective view helps members compare with peers, identify areas of strength and improvement, and support planning, business cases and executive conversations with clearer evidence.
Laying the foundations
Much of this work was shaped under the leadership of Steven Wonjarovski, whose influence was central to establishing CAUDIT’s reputation in analytics. Over more than a decade, he helped expand the datasets while building the consistency, rigour and trust needed to make them meaningful to members.
Under his guidance, benchmarking evolved into a structured, repeatable program through the State of ICT report, supported by clear definitions, robust methodology and strong member participation. He helped position benchmarking as a shared endeavour that reflected the diversity and complexity of the sector.
Developing the Complexity Index
With wide variation in budget, scale and operating context across Member Institutions, the CAUDIT Complexity Index was developed to group universities by relative size and complexity. This enables more meaningful comparisons across areas such as investment, staffing and cybersecurity performance, helping members interpret results in context rather than relying on simple averages.
The model has also informed international benchmarking work, including collaboration with Canadian higher education partners to improve comparability across jurisdictions.
Expanding the analytics portfolio
As member needs have evolved, so has the scope of CAUDIT’s analytics work. The portfolio now includes ICT benchmarking, cybersecurity benchmarking, the annual Top Ten Report and survey support services. Together, these outputs give institutions a clearer view of performance, emerging priorities and the trends shaping strategic decision making, while providing a shared evidence base for planning and discussion across the sector.
Building on strong foundations
Following Steven’s passing in early 2025, Dr Kate Tickle joined as Director of Analytics and Insights and has continued this work with a focus on preserving the program’s integrity while evolving it to meet changing sector needs. There is now stronger emphasis on making outputs accessible, clear and actionable, and connecting insights more closely with capability development, procurement strategies and community activity.
Continuing to inform and connect
CAUDIT’s benchmarking and analytics portfolio remains one of the organisation’s most enduring contributions to the sector, providing a consistent and credible foundation for understanding the changing role of ICT in higher education.
As the sector continues to evolve, the principles behind this work remain as relevant as ever: collaboration, transparency and shared progress. With strong foundations in place and new leadership guiding the next phase, CAUDIT’s analytics capability will continue to help the community understand where it stands and where it can go next.
