VCs get different policy juices flowing IF you ask four vice chancellors the same question you will get four different answers. At least that is what the business types lunching at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia in Melbourne last week may be forgiven for thinking. University of Tasmania vice chancellor Peter Rathjen talked up the need for smaller, more research intensive universities warning of looming mediocrity in the sector. Swinburne's Linda Kristjanson, with an eye on the international market, took exception at ``mediocrity" and talked up the sector's overall high quality and strong representation in the Times Higher's top 400, only for Professor Rathjen to dismiss the Times Higher as exaggerating the quality of Australian institutions.