Whether or Not a Re-shifting of Emphasis Will Occur When Peter Høj Takes Over as ARC CEO is a Moot Question. (September 10, 2004)

    The following item (in italics) is reprinted from the September 10 issue of Science.

    A Danish-born biochemist has become the new chief of the Australian Research Council [ARC]. Next month Peter Høj, who has headed the Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide since 1997, will succeed endocrinologist Vicki Sara, the council's inaugural CEO.

 

Høj, 47, created "an excellent model for bringing science and industry together" at the wine institute, says environmental physiologist Snow Barlow, president of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies. He has also served on the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering, and Innovation Council.

 

Høj, who moved to Australia in 1987 for a postdoctoral fellowship, says he hopes to boost national spending on research by "demonstrating the benefits to society from R&D investment." Australia ranks in the lower half of industrialized countries in research spending as a percentage of its economy.

During Professor Sara's term as CEO the ARC was kept on a short leash by the Coalition Cabinet with the percentage of its funding going increasingly to applied research at the expense of non-medical fundamental research -- a matter of considerable concern because the ARC funds virtually all non-medical basic research in Australia.

Whether or not a re-shifting of emphasis will occur with Professor Høj as CEO is a moot question. So far, despite a general federal election due in four weeks, the opposition Labor Party has yet to declare its research and higher education policy nor has Professor Høj made known his specific intentions and whether or not he will be able wheel greater influence with the Australian Federal Cabinet than his predecessor is of course a mystery.