Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences: A Strategy for Recruiting a Tertiary Education Workforce. (April 27)

 Helen O'Neil, Executive Director of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) editorialises in the Council's recent CHASS News that: "A successful workforce strategy [for tertiary education student enrolments] is crucial for Australia to realise its ambitions as a knowledge economy, because researchers will be the key creators and translators of the knowledge produced in Australia and an important part of productivity growth for the future," and notes that the CHASS executive has concluded that expansion and new funding for the Federal Research Training Scheme, currently set at $600 million, is vital.

Ms O'Neil refers to figures showing that the numbers of Australian students enrolling in PhDs are stagnant and there is little likelihood of a quick turnaround considering the "five to six year period of training for new and potential researchers; [therefore,] the research workforce strategy will have to concentrate on medium to long term changes".

Unfortunately, the way matters seem to be shaping up with an election in the offing, getting the federal government to focus on "medium to long term changes", particularly ones that involve complex issues with little vote catching appeal is a challenging prospect.

Perhaps it is not entirely a non sequitur to ask were Albert Einstein to seek 10-year funding today to extend his theory of Special Relativity to include gravitational  phenomena would he have even got past immediate rejection?