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Nobel Laureate Peter
Doherty has said the Excellence for Research in Australia exercise shows
the existing competitive funding mechanisms are working well, but argues
that another funding boost is required if Australia is "really serious"
about developing the careers of emerging young professionals.
"It's absolutely crucial to get them coming through the pipeline, given
the ageing academic workforce,"
[H]e endorsed the work of the Australian Research Council and the
National Health and Medical Research Council, the conduits of federal
research grants. He said while a number of fellowships had been created
to support young scientists, "the problem is maybe there aren't enough
of them and not enough money in the project grant pool".
"One way that government could [implement a new funding initiative] at
no cost is to identify dollars that are being used to support research
under the various ministries and, where appropriate, bring the
allocation of those resources under an expanded ARC."
He favours as much of the spend as possible being subject to a
competitive review mechanism.
"The NHMRC also does a great job and, given the difference in focus, is
best left as a separate entity."
He said of the league tables devised by The Australian based on
the ERA data: "The listing is pretty much as expected".
And on "...what drives research: resources and talent."
"My view is that such stratification [as in the California system] is
appropriate. It acknowledges the reality of how science works while
serving different needs within the community at large,"
"We need diversity in the Australian university system..." but Professor
Doherty said, there was no need to specify and label such institutions.
"I wouldn't designate them as teaching only and exclude them from
competing, but we should give those that don't have a breadth of
research due credit for excellence in teaching. A rural university that
has, for example, both the location and faculty to have real excellence
in an area like dry land management or water sustainability may have
what it takes to build real research capacity in that area, though
across the board it won't rank high in any overall research excellence
assessment exercise."
Professor Doherty concluded that Australia required: "investment,
long-term career opportunities, engagement with industry and ensuring
that we have the high quality, imaginative science teaching in our
public high schools that interests young people in pursuing careers that
emphasise discovery and technological advance".
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Federal Industry and
Innovation Minister Kim Carr says he has warned Australia's university
chiefs that they need to pick up their game in crucial research areas
such as education, business and management,
"The Australian Government invests billions of dollars in research each
year and it is important that we justify this expenditure to the
Australian taxpayers. We cannot afford to fund second-rate research.
"When I spoke to senior university officials yesterday, I told them
there are weaknesses in the clusters of education-related disciplines,
business and management disciplines and applied economics disciplines.
This does not mean we lack pockets of excellence in those fields, but
these are areas we need to address.
"And we will address them.
"Likewise, some universities are underperforming in areas that elsewhere
are fields of national strength. This needs to be addressed as well."
According to Mr Thomson Senator Carr says the report will be used to
help the Government and the universities better focus their research
spending, although the Government provides universities with funding in
blocks – it is then up the universities to allocate these funds to
specific research programs.
"I expect that some universities are already in the process of looking
at how they can use ERA to reposition their institution."
Terry Cutler, who authored the report on Australia's innovation system
for the Government in 2009 noted: "The decline of humanities and social
sciences in Australian universities is a real weakness," but he
questions whether the report provides the best way to measure research
outputs and success, and argues that the "bureaucratic" scorecard
approach tends to measure only traditional research efforts, and
struggles to monitor innovative research approaches that cut across
disciplines.
"For example, if you're researching environmental issues, you want
social sciences to be as involved as technology. These sort of
scorecards tend to favour really traditional, silo-like areas and they
are really hard on emerging cross-disciplinary areas of research."
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Views of the Nobel Laureate and the Cabinet Minister. (February 2, 2011)
