Minister Announces the Awarding of the Inaugural Australian Research Council Future Fellowships. (September 9, 2009)

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, to announced the awarding of the first 200 of the ARC's Future Fellowships.

The announced aim of the ARC Future Fellowships is to attract and retain the best and brightest mid-career researchers and to this end "[o]ver a five-year period (2009 -2013), ARC Future Fellowships will offer four-year fellowships of up to $135,000 a year to 1,000 outstanding Australian and international researchers [200per year] in the middle of their career. In addition, each researcher’s administering organisation will receive funding of up to $50,000 per year to support related infrastructure, equipment, travel and relocation costs".

The government has emphasised that "[p]reference will be given to those researchers who can demonstrate a capacity to build collaboration across industry and/or research institutions and/or with other disciplines. Although international experience is important for Australian researchers, it is also important they have the opportunity to return home to continue their work. ARC Future Fellowships will aim to encourage outstanding Australian researchers currently based overseas to return to Australia".

Senator Carr in making his announcement this morning at Parliament House in noting that "[e]ach fellow will head up a project that promises to deliver very substantial benefits to Australia and the wider world – whether economic, environmental, cultural, or social, singled out three in example:

 
 Dr Amin Abbosh is directing a project that will seek to improve the quality of life for women diagnosed with breast cancer. Dr Anthony Richardson will put Australia at the forefront of understanding the way marine ecosystems adapt to climate change. And Dr Vedi Hadiz will review Australia’s responses to Islamic radicalism in Indonesia, and provide a better understanding of the social forces impacting on democracy in the region.

The senator also went out of his way tho acknowledge the contribution to the commonweal by the humanities and social sciences saying : "The biggest challenges we face today demand responses that draw equally on our knowledge of how the physical world works, and our knowledge of how human beings work. We cannot answer these challenges without the humanities, arts and social sciences."

Interestingly, and perhaps in answer (if only in small part) to a criticism made by the president of the Australian Academy of Science, Kurt Lambeck on last night's 7:30 Report* Senator Carr told his audience: "The Government is increasing opportunities for international collaboration throughout the research community. The first round of the ARC Future Fellowships scheme sees 19 Australian mid-career researchers return home, and 22 international researchers come to our shores.

____________________________________________________

*ALI MOORE [7:30 report anchor]: If you listen to what the Government has said repeatedly, really, over recent times, there seems to be a great deal of commitment to international collaboration. Do you see a disconnect between policy and funding, if you like?

KURT LAMBECK: I think there is a disconnect at the moment. The Minister, Senator Carr, and the Prime Minister, have both talked about the importance of it, but we haven't seen that filtering through yet into actual actions.

And what we have seen instead, for example, is the effectively the closing town of many of our Commonwealth science officers in our overseas postings.

Now, I think that's unfortunate, because these are the people who've been our listening posts, these are the people who serve as the gateway between Australian technology and the overseas technology, particularly when it comes to the turning the technology into products.

And I think the closing down of these postings overseas. I think it's an unfortunate one. And the cutting back on the funding for some of our international bilateral exchange programs likewise is really making it difficult to develop, to maintain these ceding grounds that have been so important in the past.

So the actions are not necessarily compatible with what the ambitions are of the Government.