It's a Zero Sum Game in Which Australia Loses. (March 25, 2013)

The other day The Australian called upon its higher-education, R&D Op-Ed columnist Stephen Matchett to have a chat about university research funding with the Australian Research Council's relatively new CEO, ANU's nuclear physicist, Aidan Byrne.

"We will get to the point where we can’t give enough money for projects to be viable. We are not there yet but it is a tricky issue."

Professor Byrne continued:

The demand for research grants is going up but the amount of money isn’t. To date we have maintained the success rate of applications but this means the return rate per grant is going done. It’s a zero sum game – you trade one off against the other. Some vice chancellors say we are at the point where grants are already inadequate. The sector's push for full research cost recovery shows universities are feeling the pressure. Applications will continue to increase. We will still get requests to fund quality research that are beyond the resources envelope.

And when the ARC's head asked grantees and prospective grantees which would they prefer in playing this zero sum game of resources he was told: "The general view is to award larger [but fewer] grants,"

But as Bill Press -- the newly retired past president of the AAAS and member of Mr Obama's President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) -- directed his audience to ponder last month: beware of destroying the seed corn.

As Mr Matchett points out: "Even for the winners [of ARC grants] the sums are not spectacular. Just 20 per cent of applicants are successful and they only receive an average 60 per cent of what they ask for."