Education Minister Says Australia Will Upgrade Recruitment of Overseas Students to Aid Nation's Research. (March 17, 2009)

In what appears to be a response to US universities gearing up to attract more of the best overseas students to retain the United States' lead in research and technology, the Federal Minister of Education, Julia Gillard said that Australia will set out to recruit  more overseas students to aid Australia's research efforts.

Ms Gillard said recently: "I would like to stress the economic and educational benefits that flow from increasing the proportion of international research students in the tertiary sector. They become both the source and conduit of the new knowledge, ideas and technologies that Australia will continue to need, if we are to meet the local and global challenges that lay ahead."

However, the question remains just what means the government intends to put into place to realise that goal. If the minister means what she says just how persuasive will she be in cabinet to sequester the means to upgrade the ability of Australia's universities to seduce a significant proportion of the world's best and brightest (academics as well as tertiary students) to the land of Oz.

You might say that the flip side of the recruitment drive (i.e. the immediate foreign currency earner) is as The Age's Dan Harrison  puts it "a $3.5 million push in the next nine months, which will target Australia's best sources of students, including China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand".

According to Ms Gillard: "Our 2009 enrolments are holding up, but the challenge is maintaining our position in a tough financial climate... International students tell us that word of mouth is one of the most common ways they make their study in Australia choice."

What Ms Gillard along with the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, and their cabinet colleagues ought to keep in mind is the effect of US President Barack Obama's stimulus funding on US research. Nature reports that "US federal agencies are scrambling to prepare for a wave of research proposals from scientists eager to win funding offered in the nation's economic stimulus package". In fact they are worried that the online system for handling applications may become overwhelmed. But those grants also mean an increase in attractive graduate student and postdoc positions.

Currently there are 26 federal US agencies that accept submissions through Grants.gov. They include the Department of Energy (DoE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Sheila Conley, acting deputy assistant secretary in the office of grants at the Department of Health and Human Services told Nature that the system received 200,000 applications in 2008 but that's expected to jump to 275,000 this year.