GEA’s & Monkeys’ thanks to ‘Not cookie-cutter’: Nous boss explains $2m ANU job in Senate
By Nieve Walton
Updated November 12 2025 – 7:55pm, first published 4:35pm
Nous Group has explained the money and decision-making behind advice given to Australian National University, denying it uses a “cookie-cutter” approach.
Nous Group executives appeared before a Senate committee into university governance on November 12.
Chief executive Tim Orton said the consultancy group did $2 million worth of work for the Australian National University between 2024 and the start of 2025.
In previous years, the university had spent $190 million on different consultants, a decision which was criticised after job cuts were announced.
Mr Orton said Nous was first asked by ANU’s former vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell to complete a $50,000 analysis about strategic drives of Australian universities.
They had no contact with Professor Bell prior to her appointment as vice-chancellor.
The general analysis included research, performance, teaching and learning, student wellbeing, campus design and financial sustainability.
After the initial general analysis, Nous Group was not involved with ANU until after Renew ANU was announced, Mr Orton said.
Nous Group was then asked in October 2024 to do three “unusually complex” projects for the university.
The three projects:
“Design the way ANU would look towards the future arrangements of their academic portfolio”
“How to design academic services around the research and innovation portfolio”
“How to combine marketing and communication efforts into one centralised capability team”
This work was done between October 2024 and February 2025.
When discussing how much ANU had paid Nous Group, Mr Orton said the work done in the past two years was “in the order of 0.04 per cent of the revenue of universities”.
“Relatively small, perhaps.”
Independent ACT senator David Pocock asked whether Mr Orton’s company used a “cookie-cutter approach”.
“We don’t put cookie-cutter models to universities because every university is different,” Mr Orton said.
“It would be unwise, it would be silly to provide a simple single model for any particular university,” he said.
“Their circumstances, even apart from financial circumstances … are very different.”
“What we do is provide them with the information and options so that will inform them, to make those decisions.”
Over the past five years, Nous Group has worked with 34 Australian universities, making between $4 and $11 million each financial year.
The consultancy group has also had multiple contracts with the federal Department of Education and has worked with some states and territories.
Specifics about government department contracts were taken on notice.
An ANU spokesperson confirmed the university had no further contracts with Nous.
“Any work [Nous] had previously been commissioned to undertake for the university is now concluded.”
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