Science careers need lift

THE Australian Academy of Science has called on the Rudd government to improve career opportunities for the nation's scientists to complement extra infrastructure spending detailed in the May federal budget.

In a formal response to the government's emerging-science policy, the academy welcomed the budget's 25per cent funding increase for science and innovation but questioned the spending priorities.

It said the budget's focus was "almost entirely on material infrastructure" and that the "human infrastructure" required to support the effective use of this expenditure "is yet to be properly addressed and future budgets will need to provide associated additional funding".

It added that about 43 per cent, or $730 million, of the extra money for science in 2009-10 had gone to industry grant programs. "It is unclear at this stage whether either scientific endeavour or R&D will be a significant component of that activity," the academy said.

The academy also noted that most of the budget's funding commitments were back-ended and would not be delivered until 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Bob Williamson, the academy's policy secretary, said it was imperative that Australian researchers be given the same career opportunities as otherprofessionals.

"In Australia engineers and accountants can expect to have a career of 10 to 20 years after graduation," he told the HES. "But Australian science is unique. Unlike other countries, much of our scientific research is done by people who are on three-year renewable grants from research councils even when they are senior and in their 40s, which greatly increases the feeling of job insecurity."

Professor Williamson also lent his support to the call for concentration of limited research funds, rather than their dispersal among a large number of institutions and researchers.

"The academy supports generous funding to a smaller number of groups of true international quality, with the ability to act as national centres for research and teaching, as in the centres of excellence schemes offered by the ARC(Australian Research Council) and NHMRC (National Health and Medical Research Council), rather than sharing manifestly inadequate support between many groups," Professor Williamson said.

"The government must play a part in setting these priorities and be particularly aggressive in ensuring that innovative research, which is often interdisciplinary and may not fit into existing boundaries, is allowed toflourish."

The academy, which has analysed the budget commitments in the context of its own research and innovation policy statement of 2007, concluded that commonwealth spending on science and innovation had fallen 22 per cent as a share of gross domestic product since 1993-94.

"Australia's business R&D collapsed in the late 1990s," it said. "While it has grown since then, it will lag many of our competitors and is in danger of remaining behind unless the government implements policy that drives greater innovation and R&D expenditure."

Professor Williamson, an internationally renowned geneticist and honorary senior principal fellow of the Murdoch Institute and the University of Melbourne, said the budget outlays for science and innovation were a step in the right direction, especially in the light of the financial situation. He stressed, however, that Australian spending in those areas still lagged other countries.

"The academy welcomes any initiatives that cut across departmental, state and federal boundaries to allow funding at a level that will allow development of a critical mass in Australia," he said.

He also stressed the need to strengthen mathematics and science from primary school to university.
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17/07/2009