The Group of Eight's Executive Director, Virginia Walsh, summed up the Australian Labor Party's research and development package, "[It] contains many positive proposals in the areas of research scholarships, fellowships, infrastructure and quality. It is not a bucket of promises; it relies largely on an effective reallocation of funding from existing programs."

The 13 page policy document is available online.

On the face of it, it is an extraordinarily deft political instrument, in that it takes funds already allocated by the Coalition Government and redirects them in ways that have been well received by all in the sector. The President of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, Stephen Horton, said bluntly, "The ALP have done what Minister [for Education, Science and Training Brendan] Nelson has been too scared to do - dump the Research Training Scheme and other messy funding measures and start afresh." That sentiment was echoed, if somewhat more politely, throughout the higher education sector.

The quietly outspoken, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, Ian Chubb, extended Horton's views, "It is a good policy initiative to scrap the flawed RTS and IGS schemes. Linking funding for research infrastructure directly to competitive research winnings is the simplest and most effective way to allocate funds. Australian universities must be evaluated for quality if they are to assume and maintain a significant role in the global research community."

And while the scrapping of the Federation Fellowship scheme drew some flak from the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Associations, "[T]he loss of the current Federation Fellowship scheme will reduce capacity to attract and retain our best researchers in the intense global competition for 'high fliers'," FASTS also observed that "Expanding early and mid-career fellowships will improve career paths and help rejuvenate the ageing academic workforce."

Up front, Labor if it forms government, has promised to provide 4000 new research scholarships, $275million to "save" the CSIRO, $92 million for 4 new national centres of excellence in Tropical Research, Bio-terrorism and Pandemic Containment, Advanced Manufacturing and Childhood Development, and $2,300 million over 4 years for university infrastructure.

As regards the question of university governance the ALP promises that "Labor will not micro-manage universities, but will expect universities to measure up to national and international benchmarks for quality. Federal Labor expects every university to have at least one area of national research excellence," and goes on to advise the sector, "The quality assurance guarantee applies both to institutions and to individuals with a renewed quality assessment system for universities and a new merit test for researchers."

No details are given as to the mechanisms that Labor intends to implement to provide quality assurance but the pronounced intent appears to have been well received by the sector.

FASTS president, Professor Snow Barlow, speaking for the Federation said, "There are holes in Labor’s approach, not least of all in environment R&D and a lack of detail in key programs such as the student-driven postgraduate scheme, which will need very close analysis." and the abandonment of the Federation Fellowships seems to be discarding the baby while redirecting the bathwater rather than improving on a worthwhile but badly under resourced approach.

And if Labor is serious about improving Australia's decaying university system it needs to address the matter of academic staffing. That will require not only significant upgrading of university infrastructure but also more salubrious conditions for staff to undertake research. As one highly placed academic has remarked the increasingly heavy teaching loads placed on academic staff are ultimately self-defeating as regards the quality of academic staff institutions attract and keep.

With regard to the upgrading of universities' infrastructure just a year ago in a TFW opinion piece we wrote:

[I]t is noteworthy that in 1992 the then Minister for Employment, Education and Training, Kim Beazley, requested the National Board of Employment, Education and Training to report on Higher Education Research Infrastructure.  The Board invited the Boston Consulting Group to assist it in its determination, and in May1993 it forwarded its final report to the Minister.

    The Board recommended an immediate increase above the then $342 million dollars provided by the Commonwealth for university research infrastructure of 37%, i.e. an additional $125 million per annum (1991 dollars, consumer price index (1991) = 106.5). In September 2002 the cpi = 142; so in 2002 dollars a simple calculation yields ((342+125) / 106.5) x 142 = $623 million dollars the amount in current dollars that would have been the recommendation for maintaining university research infrastructure of the 1995 university system, i.e. the year the changes were recommended to begin. The year the Coalition assumed government.

 

Remarkably, in the current submissions made to DEST in regard to  Evaluation of the Knowledge and Innovation Reforms and the National Research Infrastructure Taskforce only six of the 194 sent even refer to the  National Board of Employment, Education and Training and its work, and in those instances only cursorily.

 

It would seem that at the very least we might ask:

1. Was the recommended increase of $125 million per annum (1991 dollars) seen as the amount needed to prevent further erosion of the universities'  research infrastructure? If not, what proportion would have been allocated for improvements beyond merely holding the line?

2. What were the effects of the Board's recommendations?

3. Allowing for increases in the demands for research and research training how would that $623 million (2002 dollars) translate to 2003 requirements?

4. Having moved on eight years since 1995 what in fact is the current Commonwealth support for university research infrastructure?

5. In hindsight did the Board and the Boston Consulting Group properly do the job they undertook for the Minister?

Eleven years have passed since the NBEET review and yet the current assessment directed by Dr. Nelson shows no sign of the thoroughness attempted in 1992-93.

The $2,300 million over four years proposed by the ALP for overall university infrastructure upgrading is significantly above the Coalition's proposed allocations. On the other hand it should be evaluated with respect to what is required to not only stop the rot but to fully repair the damage.

Even as it stands with its lack of detail and no commitment to future real increases in resourcing to allow Australia to approach the investment in R&D made by the more advanced OECD nations, it is a marked advanced on the Coalition's approach of less than benign neglect.

Note: October's Pockley's Razor in Australasian Science has some thoughtful insights into Labor's research mindset.