Into the third decade: Some suggested strategies for AARE in the 1990s

Conclusion

Well, colleagues, I have demonstrated that AARE was born into optimism in the early 1970s and that alas, it lost its way in the wilderness of economic rationalism and despair in the 1980s. I am aware that the pall of gloom of the 1980s is still with us. However, I hope that several of the strategies which I have advocated — especially those of the permanent secretariat and the national research agenda may prove to be the light at the end of that long tunnel which stretches into the 1990s. I leave it to some future President to assess, with the benefit of historical hindsight, whether any of these suggested strategies were adopted and proved successful. I leave it to her, too, to declare whether it was in fact the light at the end of the tunnel which I saw or merely another metaphorical steam train bearing down on our troubled Association.