About That US$21 Billion for Science in the US Economic Stimulus Package. (March 6, 2009)

The podcast from the journal Science this week has an item discussing the US$21 billion (A$32.9 billion) slice of the US economic stimulus package, passed last month by the US congress, which has been allocated to US science.

The discussion between Science's Robert Frederick and Jeffrey Mervis should be of interest to Australians -- including our parliamentarians -- because it looks beyond the immediate effects for the funding injection toward the longer term benefit.

The recent equivocation on university funding by the Minister for Education, and the Minister for Science and Research on the subject of budget allocations is disturbing in the light of the positive approach taken by the US president and congress.