Australia's $210 Million Synchrotron Gets Its Official Opening. (July 31, 2007)

    Australia's first synchrotron was officially opened today by Victoria's newly anointed premier, John Brumby. Once all of the beam lines become operational (it's to start with four of its total of 13) some 1200 researchers (a third from overseas) are expected to use the facility, and Dean Morris', the physicist who has directed the instrument's construction and tuning, hope is it will go someway, "to put Australia on the scientific map for big international collaborations". He makes the point that Australia wasn't asked to join ITER, the international fusion initiative now being built in Cadarache, France: "We have the expertise to take part in these sorts of projects, but without any world-class research facilities of our own, we're not considered as being in the same league." And he hopes that together with the newly commissioned research nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights which provides neutron beams for materials science experiments, Australia will now be considered to have a place at the table.

It's interesting to go back six years to July 2001. On July 4 the Senate Committee for Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education References held a public meeting in Adelaide, one of 14 held through out Australia, to assist them to report on the "capacity of public universities to meet Australia's higher education needs".

That Australia has finally obtained a world class synchrotron is a significant forward step. Nevertheless the concern voiced by professor Marlin still has currency.

Below is the transcript of one short exchange.

Professor Christopher Marlin, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), Flinders University of South Australia
    I can explain later how some of the recent experience with the programs under the innovation action plan, Backing Australia's Ability, illustrate this frustration. That information is as recent as the last few days.

CHAIR, Senator Collins (Labor)
Professor, could you please elaborate what you indicated earlier?

Prof. Marlin
Do you mean the research and infrastructure in particular?
 

CHAIR
Yes.

Prof. Marlin
A couple of the programs under the innovation action plan have been implemented so far. There are the major national research facilities and the federation fellowships. They are both in progress at the moment. With the major national research facilities, what we saw was approximately 160 expressions of interest in putting in proposals, which they developed into 86 full proposals, and now 37 of those have been short-listed in the last few days. What is clear from looking at the expressions of interest and the level of activity that went on within universities and other research organisations to develop those 86 proposals that went forward is that there is an enormous range of areas in which our research infrastructure is clearly inadequate by international standards. It is a pity, in a way, that it is all going to boil down to what is in the first year $5 million worth of expenditure and $155 million projected over five years when in fact there is clearly a run-down in our research infrastructure that means that a great deal more expenditure is required.

 

A particular concern of mine is the extent to which researchers have put their research to one side for the last few months in very large numbers in order to produce these proposals of which only a very few are going to be successful, given the size of those facilities. You would have at least seen the price tag on something like a synchrotron in the press, but some of the other facilities being projected are certainly of the order of tens of millions of dollars. We are not going to get very many of these things in the end. What it does illustrate is that there has been a decline in the research infrastructure. There is a huge shortfall, and we need to address that if we can.