News & Views item - January 2010

 

 

Governance of Australian Synchrotron Continues to be at Issue. (January 3, 2010)

This past June Australia's synchrotron won funding for a new science centre and a complex for housing visitors. September saw it  hosting a major conference. But on October 30, the facility's governing board informed the synchrotron's founding director, the professor of chemistry at The University of Melbourne Robert Lamb, that his services were no longer required.  Then a majority of the international scientific advisory committee (SAC) resigned; and staff began a work-to-rule slowdown, demanding that the board chair, attorney Catherine Walter, be removed.

 

Completed in 2007 the Australian Synchrotron is a third-generation instrument. Science's Elizabeth Finkel reports that according to Jeff Corbett, a synchrotron scientist from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, and an Australian Synchrotron  adviser, it has been a "smashing success".

 

Amidst increasing tension being exhibited by both staff and SAC on 9 December three members of the governing board, including Ms Walter met with the organisation's staff. "According to a text obtained by Science, Walter said that 'legal and confidentiality constraints' prevented discussion of Lamb's firing. She spoke of the board's 'deep concern about progress with the science and investment cases, which are crucial to obtaining funding for further development and expansion after 2012.' An audit by the Victorian government last year praised AS science but raised a red flag over the lack of long-term science and business plans, according to one insider. In an e-mail response, Walter said that the review 'highlighted a priority that was also a concern of the board,' but she denied that it prompted the 'scapegoating' of Lamb."

 

At this point matters get murky. Frank Larkins, chief scientist for energy of Victoria and SAC chair until his resignation on 9 December, says that a "clash of cultures" separates the board from the scientific staff and SAC. "Our consistent problem has been the silence in response to our [SAC] recommendations". And he is adamant that it is the board that has been dragging its feet on long-term science and business plans. He has urged the Victorian government to replace Ms Walter while Michael Grunze, a professor of applied physical chemistry at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, in his letter of resignation from SAC concurs: "[The SAC's advice] has been either consistently ignored or not acted upon in a timely manner by the leadership of the AS Board."

 

Janet Smith, a protein crystallographer at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor although a continuing SAC member is also critical: "The board is much more involved in the administration than is necessary or good."

 

In her penultimate paragraph Ms Finkel writes:

 

Several SAC members have spoken about their concern for the synchrotron's future. Soichi Wakatsuki, a continuing member and director of the Photon Factory in Tsukuba, Japan, wrote in a 12 December letter to the board that being a member of SAC had been "the most distressing period in my career," and that the status of AS "as a world class synchrotron" is now "in danger." Ted Baker, a University of Auckland professor of structural biology and the new SAC chair, also warned the board, "if the level of disclosure and trust are not improved, radically, and fast, the AS will lose key staff and its use base will evaporate."

 

So far the Victorian government remains removed from the conflict so whether or not Ms Walter and the board are able to learn from what appear to be serious errors in their methods of governance or remain simply in denial is unresolved.