Australia's Chief Scientist Gives Some Cautionary Advice at Sydney University's  Association of Professors' Annual Dinner. (September 17, 2012)

Below are excerpts from the address given by the Chief Scientist, Ian Chubb, immediate past vice-chancellor of the Australian Nation University on September 6. The full text is available here.

I wanted tonight to touch briefly on an issue that will be close to top of mind in the coming weeks. And that is, how well we perform and what we might do about our performance.

Let me say at the outset that my focus is on science – naturally... But let me also say that I recognise the importance of the humanities and the social sciences and their role in the building of what I hope will be an advanced, enlightened, prosperous and secure community.

Professor Chubb went on to deal with the matter of comparisons:

[We can] as a nation – select a group of comparator countries whose average performance is low enough for us to be above it.

In some respects, that is what we do. We compare ourselves with world averages – and of course as a developed and wealthy country, we do all right using that yardstick.

You often hear that we punch above our weight: that we are 0.3% of the world’s population but we produce 3% of the world’s research output. If you look carefully we should say that along with many others, we punch above our weight. In science, our output is 2.15% of the world’s outputs (over 1995-2010) which gives us a ratio that places us at number 9 in the world: just ahead of Belgium and just behind the UK and Canada.

If we look at citations per scientific paper, we do well against the world, but only because the world average is low enough for us to be above it. If we compare with countries that we would like to be like, we are below them all but well above the developing countries.

Australia has 5 fields of research with citations above the average of a selection of developed economies

Sweden has 19 above, 0 between and 1 below;

Denmark has 20 above and I between;

UK has 19 above and 2 between;

Switzerland, 19 above and 2 below;

Canada has 14 above and 7 between;

US is 19 and 2 between.

Australia comes in at number 12 of 13 European countries plus the US– but well ahead of the others: Japan has 1 above, South Korean one, China none.

[But] we are above world average in many fields (which is true in 18 of 21 fields.

[I]s that good enough? I would argue that it is not. I would suggest that there are several actions we need to take:

• Benchmark selectively – there is little value in world averages;

• International collaboration – must be actively encouraged. There is no doubt we benefit from an increased quantity, increased citations and increased standing of journals when we do. And we need some selectivity – choose where we need to collaborate and where we each get benefits. Not collaborate just because we can;

• Set priorities for funding – we are not big enough to do everything well, so we must ensure that we allocate funding to encourage work in particular areas - say, national interest. It is notable that nearly all the countries that perform better than us set research priorities. We have begun the discussion in Australia. We have to;

• Examine our education system – it is reasonable to ask whether we prepare people the right way for the unpredictabilities of the future. I suspect that we pigeon-hole people early in Australia. We have some 70% of our researchers in higher education – unlike the countries I used earlier to illustrate our relative performance. We should systematically analyse what our education systems offer, and what they encourage. Likewise, employers seem not to value highly the skills and talents of a sound education – too much focus on whether or not they need the discipline knowledge?

Now, the list is doubtless much longer. But taking action on those that I have identified will do for a start.

And the Chief Scientist's take-home message?

...it is important not to draw grand conclusions from low benchmarks.