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A Nation Worth Defending |
Alex Reisner argues that the government¹s current emphasis on international concerns must not excuse the continuing decay gnawing at Australia¹s knowledge infrastructure.
Almost 30 years ago, financial responsibility for Australian higher education was ceded to the Commonwealth. The consequences have been appalling. The de facto repudiation of state responsibility removes competition between them to cultivate the best.
A direct consequence of the Commonwealth¹s budgetary control was the nationwide "Dawkinsisation" of the university system by the Hawke Labor government under the guise of providing universal higher education. Yet former Labor Science Minister, Barry Jones, told a Melbourne University audience last year: "I have little doubt that Dawkinsisation will prove to have been the greatest single mistake of the Hawke-Keating years."
The current government has exacerbated the decline in the quality of higher education, and with it the relative standard of Australian science, by reducing public support for universities in absolute terms.
Our government emphasises that Federal support of R&D is 0.70% of GDP, compared with 0.54% for the UK and 0.59% for Canada. The Coalition therefore claims that the private sector is at fault. However, objective analyses of the causes are lacking, as is a comparison of public funding for basic research.
In the mid-1990s, total national expenditure on R&D was virtually identical in Australia and Canada (~1.75% of GDP) but in 2001 it was 1.54% and 1.93%, respectively. Canada¹s Chrétien government has set a target of 3% of GDP to support R&D by 2010, and the Minister for Industry, Alan Rock, remains adamant that he intends that target to be met.
Now, Canada¹s 2003-04 budget has allocated an additional A$139 million for three science granting councils and A$250 million to institutions to support research. In contrast, Australia¹s Group of Eight universities projects that support for Australia¹s R&D sector will decline to 1.39% of GDP by 2005-06 compared with the OECD predicted weighted average of 2.45%.
Despite this we are told that Australia "punches above its weight" when it comes to its international research standing, but what this means is ill-defined. However, a table recently published by the US National Science Board shows a worrisome decline in the importance, relative to population size, of our scientific literature over the past decade.
In 1990 we ranked equal ninth in the world. By 1999 we had slipped to 14th. (Switzerland held first place in both surveys ahead of the United States.) Unless there is a common will to markedly increase resources in quality as well as quantity, Australia will slip further behind during this decade.
Prime Minister John Howard recently highlighted the importance of the enabling sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry), but there has been an alarming decline in their staffing during the tenure of the Coalition government.
The most serious concern is what appears to be self-delusion on the part not only of the Minister for Education, Science & Training, Dr Brendan Nelson, but the Cabinet as a whole over what constitutes an outstanding national system of higher education and the nexus between basic and applied research, teaching and the welfare of the nation. Between 1995 and 2001 the government grant to higher education relative to average weekly earnings decreased by $535 million per annum.
Compare this with the US environment. When Robert Wilson, the first director of the American research giant Fermilab, was soliciting funds for a high-energy particle accelerator he was asked at a Senate hearing: "How will the project contribute to national defence?"
He replied: "It has nothing to do with defending our country, except to make it worth defending." He got the funds.
Australia's mindset is different. In its editorial of 12 December 2002, the science weekly Nature noted: Australian science takes pride in wringing high-quality research from scant resources... Australia's universities are cash-strapped. Now [the research community] risks slipping further behind as the price of research rises.
This continuing neglect of our knowledge infrastructure will cost our children, and theirs in turn, dearly.
Dr Alex Reisner worked in molecular biology at CSIRO and Sydney University, founding the Australian National Genomic Information Service (ANGIS). He inaugurated the-funneled-web.com to report and comment on science and higher education policy. conScience is a column for scientists to express forthright views on national issues. Views expressed are those of the author.