Reporting by Julie Hare in the Saturday Paper has today revealed that former ANU Vice Chancellor Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell has been suspended from her role as a distinguished professor over allegations of serious misconduct.

Bell was the face of Renew ANU – the controversial restructure that saw millions of dollars in cuts last year – and resigned last year after sustained criticism of the restructure from staff and students. Only weeks ago, the ABC reported that a draft of an upcoming Australian National Audit Office report questioned the restructure’s necessity. In 2025 the Australian Financial Review and this masthead reported serious concerns about the School of Cybernetics, which Bell created in 2021 and heads.

These revelations are yet another scandal facing the ANU’s governance, coming only weeks after The Saturday Paper reported allegations of bullying and unprofessional behaviour at a recent ANU Council meeting, which Hare’s article alleges concerned the disciplinary process against Bell.

The Paper reports that, in early January 2026, Bell was presented with a ‘show cause’ notice alleging “serious misconduct” concerning her involvement in the promotion of former Sydney Morning Herald photographer and cybernetics program convenor Andrew Meares. 

Meares was made a tenured professor in the School of Cybernetics despite a promotion panel recommending against his promotion. Meares has no university qualifications, with his highest qualification being a Certificate IV in Photography from TAFE NSW.

The breadth of the allegations against Bell are vast: trying to change employment records, breaching conflict of interest rules, using her position at the university to benefit Meares, and overruling ANU’s central promotions committee.

The notice warns that if the allegations are substantiated, “there may be a finding that you have engaged in serious misconduct warranting disciplinary action up to and including termination of your employment.”

Meares was hired by Bell in 2019 as an academic senior fellow in the School of Cybernetics. The five-year position had not been advertised. In January 2022, Bell supported Meares’s application for associate professorship (Level D), and in August of the same year again wrote in support of Meares becoming a full professor (Level E). 

Meares’s application for full professorship was considered by the ANU’s promotions committee in 2023 and rejected. The primary issue was Meares’s lack of an academic record as he was applying for an academic professorship, rather than a professor in practice position. These professorships were introduced by former Vice Chancellor Professor Brain Schmidt to recognise people with notable careers who lacked specific university qualifications, but were untenured five-year positions. In late 2023, Schmidt and then-Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Grady Venville advised Bell that Meares would be better suited for a professorship in practice.

In June 2024, Bell overturned the promotions committee’s rejection and gave Meares a full professorship. The allegations against Bell further detail that she instructed HR to remove “in practice” from Meares’s title and falsify employment records to show regular academic appointment since 2021.

Neither Bell nor Meares responded to The Saturday Paper’s request for comment.

The ANU declined to comment to The Saturday Paper in the interests of procedural fairness, and noted that Bell “remains a distinguished professor at the School of Cybernetics.”