"Science as a Solution". (April 11, 2008)

On April 2, 2008 the Chair of the Group of Eight, University of Western Australia vice-chancellor Alan Robson, met the press^{1, 2}. In answer to a question by Simon Grose, Professor Robson replied: "My view is quite straightforward; excellence should be funded wherever it occurs [our emphasis]. And it should be fully funded wherever it occurs. We’ve got a competitive process, we run the competition and when there are - the people who win in that competitive competition after peer review they need to be adequately supported. So it’s not an argument, and I’ve never heard the Group of Eight argue that we should by right be given anything. It’s about in the competition when we do win we shouldn’t be penalised by not having adequate research infrastructure to support the research mission of the university."

Now, not for the first time the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, has sounded an ambivalent note. In an address to the University of Ballarat Mt Helen Campus, Victoria the Senator told his audience:

[W]e are adopting mission-based compacts – a new funding model that will drive structural reform, cultural change and international competitiveness. The compacts – covering education, research and research training, community outreach and innovation – will give universities a greater say in setting their own priorities.

Australia simply can’t afford to fund every research option at every institution. We must get smarter about how we use our public research dollars.

That’s why the government wants to see university researchers organising themselves into research networks and disciplinary clusters – and multidisciplinary clusters, too.

We want to see a number of hubs established for each research network, with researchers of elsewhere linking into the hub to access colleagues and resources.

There will be no hub universities. Individual departments and research centres will be the hubs.

A department in a regional university may be the hub for one discipline, and a department in a metropolitan university may be the hub for another.

Both departments will have to justify their place in the system. People will be judged on their performance, not on their history – however venerable they may consider themselves to be.

But the fact is no one knows what Senator Carr really means. For example, will there be "rural" universities which will do research and teach agricultural engineering without an inferior mathematics department?  Quite apart from any other considerations there are 38 public universities in Australia, and if all the compacts are to be drawn up by, say a month before the May 2009/10 budget is brought down, the mean time per compact agreement will be about 9.6 days.

And where this leaves the granting decisions by the ARC and NHMRC peer review mechanisms really ought to be clarified.

DIIRS and the universities had better get their rocket skates on.

In the meantime the group of  sixty American research universities, the AAU have released an offering to the US' presidential candidates: Science as a Solution: an innovation agenda for the next president. (www.aau.edu/reports/SAAS_08.pdf). According to Science, President Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, thinks it's a good idea.

Below are excerpts which would seem to have some relevance to Australia, its Prime Minister and his Cabinet, even though we are a twentieth the population and are governed under the Westminster system.

At the core of this great national innovation matrix is our system of higher education and research. This system sets the standard for the world, in part because of the autonomy and extraordinary diversity of its 4,000 institutions. Our colleges and universities educate the men and women who, in turn, create the ideas that spark innovation. Among these institutions, America’s research universities serve particularly as drivers of innovation because they fully integrate research with education. With strong government support, these institutions have made America the world’s leading incubator of innovators and innovation.

In the next few pages we offer Presidential candidates and the next administration a vision for science, technology, and education that can help ensure that the nation remains strong and capable of answering the daunting challenges we face.

[Basic] research is aimed at increasing fundamental knowledge and understanding rather than developing a specific device or application. But new products and processes would be impossible without basic research. The competitive system of merit review—or peer review—ensures that most federal support for basic research is based on scientific merit.

One of the most comprehensive analyses concluded that the average annual rate of return to society from academic research ranges from 28 to 40 percent.
[Edwin Mansfield, “Academic Research and Industrial Innovation,” Research Policy 20, no. 1 (1991); 1-12; and Edwin Mansfield, ““Academic Research and Industrial Innovation: A Further Note,” Research Policy 21, no. 3 (1992): 295-96.]

Moreover, this system is a “twofer.” U.S. universities use their research activities not only to create the new knowledge that provides the foundation for new products and processes but also to educate the next generation’s scientists, engineers, teachers, and leaders in government and industry. More likely than not, the next significant advance in technology will come from the federally supported research of scientists and engineers who earned their degrees working as graduate students in university laboratories substantially funded by federal research agencies.

In fast-moving fields, competitive advantage accrues to those nations that make research breakthroughs. Others are investing heavily in scientific research and facilities because they recognize the benefits of building a strong internal science capacity. We need a long-term plan to keep America in the forefront of scientific advancement and innovation.

To ensure a robust system of science and innovation, AAU calls upon the next President to do the following:

  --  Harness the nation’s innovation matrix to help address major national and international  challenges;

  -- Expand and nurture U.S. talent in science, mathematics, and engineering to create a workforce ready to meet the innovation challenges of the 21st century;

  -- Reaffirm and strengthen the government-university partnership; and

  -- Elevate the role of science in White House policy decisions

University research and the people who conduct this research are an important part of the solution to nearly every major challenge facing our country. Recognizing this, AAU calls upon the next President to use interagency, multidisciplinary scientific initiatives to coordinate and harness the tremendous resources and talent at our universities and elsewhere.

The next President should cultivate talent by launching a major science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education initiative. Among other things, this initiative should:

  -- Increase graduate fellowships and traineeships.

  -- Encourage the best students from around the world to study and live in the United States.

  -- Provide adequate resources for basic research... The nation's innovation system cannot afford another year of dismal basic research funding, as the FY08 appropriations process produced.

  -- Support continued university technology transfer -- The Bayh-Dole Act, which provides universities and companies an effective incentive for developing new knowledge generated with federal funding, should be preserved.

  -- Establish a new federal government advisory committee (composed of a select group of university presidents and key administration officials) [to deal with] the university-government partnership [and reverse the] increasing federal regulations and associated compliance costs; arbitrary restrictions on reimbursement to universities for the costs of conducting federal research; and growing restrictions on communication of, and access to, scientific results.

  -- Raise the status of the President's science advisor -- The science advisor should be designated as an Assistant to the President and/or sit with the President’s cabinet. The President needs a science advisor with the authority to ensure that Presidential programs include appropriate components related to science, research, and technology and to ensure that administration officials and agency heads respect the role of science in making decisions.

The next President should see that only individuals with strong scientific credentials are assigned to serve on these advisory committees. The President should heed these committees’ advice and recommendations and encourage Cabinet officials to use their recommendations as well.

He should Enhance coordination of scientific research across the government -- Many of the next major scientific discoveries will be multidisciplinary, and the foundational research that goes into them will be more effectively sponsored by coordinated programs of multiple federal agencies.

Just when the broad strokes of Senator Carr's rhetoric will be exchanged for meaningful policy remains unclear, the bringing down of this May's budget is by no means expected to be the dividing line.