One Story, Two Headlines and a Hub. (April 10, 2008)

There are worse things than being trapped by your own analogy, but when you're as public a figure as the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and  Research, Senator Kim Carr, it can become unpleasant and if persisted with, lead to undesirable consequences.

Guy Healy of The Australian had a ring around the university and research sectors the other day and what was most evident was that just what Senator Carr meant by a hubs and spokes model for Australian publically funded research was, to put it kindly, unclear. What constitutes a hub, who/what would be aligned on a spoke?

According to Mr Healy: "Victoria University's deputy vice-chancellor Linda Rosenman said her institution supported the minister's model, which she understood to be based on networks of researchers rather than universities. 'I would say many universities have one, two or three areas of excellence that make a significant contribution nationally.'"

So which researcher, designated by what criteria, constitutes a hub, and do those deemed inferior reside on the spokes connected only to him/her or will a spoke resident be connected to more than one hub master?

Or is Senator Carr considering universities per se as hubs for specific disciplines/sub-disciplines, or perhaps specific departments will be positioned within universities with the ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia) scores determining the hub/spoke hierarchy?

Is the senator's intention to press gang research groups into collaborations with designated hierarchies to be determined by DIIRS bureaucrats?

If Senator Carr doesn't see himself as a benevolent despot, just what is he on about... as in "the devil is in the detail"?

Several respondents to Mr Healy's phone calls pointed out the difficulties that would be posed in multidisciplinary research initiatives.

Senator's Carr's analogy would be best put back into the closet, and if he must have an analogical model, how about this one to play with?

As for those two headlines -- On April 9 the online version of The Australian's Higher Education Section headed Mr Healy's article Scientists savage Labor hub plan; on April 10 it had morphed into Academics sceptical of ALP hub plan. No, not one word of the article had altered, but had anyone got at the "national broadsheet"?