National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Review Scheduled for 2011. (September 1, 2010)

The National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS)  provided $542 million over 2005-2011 to make available to researchers major research facilities, supporting infrastructure and networks to increase their competitiveness with cohort nations. In November 2006, funding for twelve priority NCRIS areas of investment totalling $500 million was announced.

While the allocation of over half a billion dollars was very welcome the methodology used received mixed reviews. Bob Williamson, science policy secretary for the Australian Academy of Science, told The Australian's Bernard Lane: "the scientific community felt the NCRIS funds were spent very wisely", while Les Field, deputy vice-chancellor (research) at the University of NSW and research spokesman for the Group of Eight universities, believes a longer-term commitment to funding infrastructure is essential telling Mr Lane: "It is ridiculous that the NCRIS program, where we invested heavily in major infrastructure, simply fell off the end of a cliff at the end of five years."

Furthermore, he believes the process of determining priorities and funding allocation is in need of reform: "The original roadmap and decision-making process was criticised heavily for not involving the existing research frameworks (universities, CSIRO, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) but attempted to harvest information and direction through informal user networks," and added, "There were strong criticisms of bias, favouritism and a lack of transparency of process."

That process was in fact the strategic roadmap, which has guided funding in fields outlined in the table above and was last revised in 2008. Now 2011 will see a new review which is expected to take six to eight months. Cathy Foley, president of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, told Mr Lane she welcomes the review: "So far, the roadmap has been very successful in breaking down silos, enabling Australia to make strategic investments in areas of need, which would not have been possible without a collaborative approach."

That all may not be smooth sailing in working up the revised roadmap as indicated by the suggestion made to Mr Lane that: "When next year's roadmap is put to use, results from the new quality measurement system, Excellence in Research for Australia, could help to identify where expertise is concentrated and thereby influence the siting of facilities."

That possibility is disturbing to Andrew Cheetham, Universities Australia spokesman on research and pro vice-chancellor (research) at the University of Western Sydney. He had a reservation about this: "ERA was not designed to identify strong areas in multi-disciplinary research. Since nearly all of the really interesting research these days is multi-disciplinary . . . you want to make sure you don't lose that [when siting infrastructure]."

The upshot of the matter is that whether or not our next government will support the funding of a revised roadmap for an NCRIS is problematic. In any case the 2011 roadmap will be drawn up without a specific allocation of funding in mind, and the fate of what remains in the Education Investment Fund is unclear. In addition the decision-making process looks to be contentious which includes the possibility of using an ERA, clearly flawed in regard of its immediate purpose, being considered as a proxy for critical site determinations of major infrastructure.