One of the problems for any government as it moves toward a decade in office is a tendency toward senescence intensified by metastasising  tunnel vision. For example while the Federal Coalition breaths a sigh of relief that it has not only been returned to office but will, as of July, effectively control both houses of parliament, it takes little notice of events outside what it sees as its immediate political interest.

One result of this myopia is that the increasing problems being faced by US academe has had no impact on Australian government's higher education and research policies. While the European Union is moving toward becoming an increasingly potent challenger to US research supremacy as the EU reworks its Framework program and China and India come closer to becoming major players in research, development and innovation, Australia at best treads water.

The seventh European Framework Program (FP7) will cover 2006 - 2010. One goal is to increase the FP7 budget to €30 billion (A$52.7 billion) which is in addition to the budgetary allocations by individual member nations for their national R&D programs.  On December 17, 2004 the EC released:

    [t]he results of the Commission's consultation on the future of European research policy [which] show[s] widespread support for the Commission's proposals, but a need for clarification on certain aspects.
    In June 2004, the Commission published its 'guidelines for future European Union policy to support research, which outlined a six plus two structure. The six major axes are:
- creating poles of excellence;
- launching technological initiatives in key industrial areas;
- stimulating competition between fundamental research teams;
- reinforcing human resources;
- developing research infrastructures of European interest;
- reinforcing coordination of national programmes.
    The 'plus two' refers to the two relatively new areas to receive EU research funding - space and security.

TFW has also reported on the efforts to develop a European Research Council to foster basic research based on merit irrespective of national boundaries. Certainly matters won't progress at relativistic speed but it is likely to progress significantly, particularly as Europe sees the US attempt at hegemony as an undesirable by-product of its superpower status. And it is probable that a similar view is shared by India and China.

As matters stand it may be already too late for Australia to avoid turning into a research and academic backwater over the next decade. Earlier this month the OECD's Dr. Vincent-Lancrin opined that in the 1990s Australia and New Zealand, began pursuing a "revenue generating" approach, treating higher education as an industry, charging foreign students full tuition. "They compete effectively in the world market because they offer quality education and the costs of attaining some degrees in those countries are lower than in the United States." But the rise in value of the Australian dollar relative to the US dollar together with a significantly less immediately mercenary approach by Canada and European nations to attract graduate and postdoctoral students is having a deleterious effect on attracting foreign students to Australia.

The additional factor of a progressively decaying academic infrastructure combined with a private sector which poorly supports research and development produces a less than attractive environment for either keeping or attracting the best of the world's potential or practicing researchers or innovators.

In the December 24 issue of Science Alan Leshner, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) contributed the Journal's final editorial for 2004, "A Dangerous Signal to Science" in which he saw that --

The recently passed U.S. budget for fiscal year (FY) 2005, finalized in a scurry to complete the congressional lame duck session, did more than just shortchange science. Perhaps worse, it sent a dangerous message that will reverberate throughout the global science and technology enterprise for a long time to come...

    [T]he National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Environmental Protection Agency actually had their funding reduced from FY 2004 levels.... Other agencies received flat budgets or increases below the level of inflation. This is the third decrease for NSF research funding in its over-50-year history, a decrease that comes, embarrassingly, in the wake of a resolution passed in 2001 to double the NSF budget over the next 5 years...

    [Analyses by the] AAAS of the Bush administration's budget projections show the purchasing power of R&D investments declining over the next 5 years in all areas except homeland security, defense, and space (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/guioutyr.htm).

Dr. Leshner then goes on to observe, "The decrease in NSF funding will not only hurt basic science research programs but will seriously hamper efforts to improve science education, in which NSF plays a key role."

But perhaps most importantly he offers this advice to the US scientific community. "Scientifically sympathetic members of Congress advise us again and again that messages from constituents about the importance of science have more political leverage than the occasional scientists who come to testify... Congressmen Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) and Rush Holt (D-NJ), two scientists currently in the U.S. Congress, frequently remind us that we really need grassroots support... Alliances with leaders in local industry have a special kind of leverage, and science/industry partnerships can convince government representatives of the need to support science and its use for the benefit of society at large."

It might appear that the situation is such that it is past time that Australia's political leaders reassess how they might take full advantage of the Bush administration's unbalanced and ultimately self-defeating support for science and technology. It hasn't happened. Instead we have a prime minister who eschews setting goals with regard to research and development and a Minister for Education, Science and Training who busies himself setting terms of reference for multiple reviews but in the manner of the Queen of Hearts who decrees sentence first, verdict afterwards.

Instead of fighting to reinvigorate the deteriorating higher education and public research sectors Brendan Nelson appears preoccupied with abolishing what he deems to be compulsory student unions, curbing university staff unionism, redesigning university governance mechanisms in the image of corporate free enterprise, as well as attempting to reorient public sector research so that it becomes as much as possible a for-profit private sector consultancy and in so doing creates a group of mongrels which will do nothing well and is supported by inftrastructures resting on quicksand.

The Financial Review's Lenore Taylor tells us (29/12/04) that Dr Nelson fancies himself an idealist. If so, he sports an idealism which foreshadows disaster.

Alex Reisner

The Funneled Web