Is Being a Basic Research Freeloader Good Policy?

The past several weeks have seen some Australian scientific and academic heavyweights thumping the table in favour of basic (curiosity driven) scientific research at our public universities.

First Graeme Laver and two colleagues, Arno Müllbacher and Paul Waring, fronted the Senate Committee looking into "The Capacity of Public Universities to Meet Australia’s Higher Education Needs" on August 13^th and stated, "[B]asic research in Australian universities should be funded by the Australian government - that is, by taxpayers - and not by commercial interests. We say this not for any ethical or moral reason but rather because we believe that commercially funded basic research is simply downright inefficient."
    And later, "Basic research forms the backbone of any centre of higher learning in terms of new knowledge created for the training of young minds, students and particularly graduate students. It is also required for applied research to build on, but it is essential that the two be separate. We cannot allow market forces to dictate the direction of basic scientific research, and there is a very real possibility this will happen if we continue along present paths. Market values are not the same as scientific values [our emphasis], and we are concerned at the blurring between applied and basic research." A lengthy rather unedifying discussion followed between the three ANU staffers and Senators Carr (Labor) and Tierney (Lib). For example Senator Tierney pointed to work at Bell Labs that was basic research but neglected the point that Bell Labs together with the IBM research centres were outstanding exceptions to the rule, as well as utilising many discoveries made by university employed scientists (and of course Bell Labs' basic research policy is currently under significant pressure).
    Laver et al. not content to let matters sink into oblivion in the Senate Committee's Hansard submitted a 570 word letter to Nature (23 August 2001, p 765) focusing on "How commercialization puts a blight on research" at Australian universities and wrote, "Australian universities are in a parlous state, mainly because they have had little or no increase in real funding since the present right-wing government was elected in 1996. Lacking a tradition of private endowments, they are being encouraged to an unprecedented degree to seek commercial finance for projects." The ANU researchers conclude, "The ideal situation is vastly increased government support for curiosity-driven basic research and a mechanism, including an enforceable code of ethics, to commercialize any discoveries that are made in this way."

By way of contrast on the same page Nature includes a letter, "Biotechnology gets big backing in Australia", by Sandy Radka of Biotechnology Australia, an arm of the Australian Government, extolling governmental support for biotechnology and taking Nature to task pointing out, "For example, the Commonwealth government gave A$296 million (US$150 million) in the year 1999-2000 to biotechnology through funding schemes such as the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council and the R&D Start programme. This expenditure represents more than 9% of the government's total R&D funding and is separate from the initiatives discussed in your editorial [Nature 412, 765 (2001)].
    "In limiting your article to individual initiatives, you did not discuss the coordinated nature of the Commonwealth response to biotechnology. This is best exemplified by the creation of Biotechnology Australia, a body that implements and evaluates national biotechnology strategy, and manages the government's non-regulatory biotechnology activities."
    Though not intended the letter points to the fact that significant resources of Australia's NH&MRC and ARC are given not for mere curiosity-driven research but for what is essentially a technology, albeit a very significant one.

Meanwhile, Peter Doherty in his lecture last month sponsored by the Alumni Association of the University of Queensland reminded his audience that, "The balance between more practical, vocational training and university education became hopelessly confused when the Australian higher education sector was vandalized by the Hawke government under the so-called Dawkins reforms of the late 1980’s. Since then, both government and the educational institutions themselves have spent a great deal of time trying to cope with the disaster that followed. Many teaching colleges that had a sound, practical mandate suddenly found that they were expected to function as universities. The universities were loaded with responsibilities for areas where they had no real competence."

Laver, et al.'s plea for support for curiosity-driven research at Australia's universities is certainly not in isolation, the vice-chancellors of all Australia's major universities have pleaded with the government to recognise that Australia's intellectual and economic wellbeing require a robust foundation of knowledge. For example the day before the publication of Laver et al.'s letter the Group of Eight said, "The highest priority for public funding should be to secure and expand the basic research effort which forms the foundation on which the rest of the innovation system is built and where the ratio of public to private benefit is highest."

And yet our Government's attitude appears to be one of assuming that all before it will contend that they are not getting enough in their begging bowls. The comment passed by Senator Brandis when cross examining Mairead Browne, the former Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, is telling, "...may I say, Professor Browne, that most people who have come before this inquiry - and, indeed, I daresay most people who come before any Senate hearing into the allocation of Commonwealth funds who are stakeholders - would say, 'We are not getting enough.'" For a member of a Senate committee inquiring into the capacity of our universities to do their job to come out with such a glib remark is shocking and suggests a disquieting mindset. If it is representative of government thinking regarding the current problems of our tertiary institutions it is disastrous.

There appears to be an almost pathological lack of comprehension by the Government about what it is perpetrating on the nation and the people it represents. So far as research and development are concerned we see an overriding emphasis on a superstructure of technology and immediately applicable science with little if any positive thought about the foundations on which they must rest. Without the rebuilding of our university structure to provide a vital heart for education at all levels together with a basic research effort of world class through which to educate and train our scientists and innovators we shall not only have to import an increasing percentage of high technology goods and services, we shall have to attempt to attract secondary scientists and technologists from overseas while being able to offer only increasingly run down facilities and an unsupportive milieu.

In short we shall become basic research freeloaders and Australia will pay the price.

Noted in passing:

IBM maintains eight research centres, five outside the US - Switzerland (pop. 7.3 mil), Israel (5.9 mil) as well as China, India and Japan.

The Group of Eight have called for an increase in funding R&D of $13 billion over the next five years which includes contributions form both government and the private sector. It is interesting that Japan has recently developed guidelines for upping government investment for research by 5% in the coming year. On a per capita basis that would be A$2.7 billion for Australia this year, far in excess of the five year $6.75 billion suggested by the Go8 that the Commonwealth Government should be investing and a bit above the overall amount of $13 billion.

Alex Reisner
The Funneled Web