UK Chief Scientific Advisor, David King, to Head Oxford Institute for Finding Private Sector Solutions to Environmental Problems.    (30/11/07)

    Professor King ,who will shortly relinquish the post of chief scientific advisor, will remain in his post as research director of Cambridge University's chemistry department. [More]

Dynamic DEST Duo Get Opposition Nod -- New Deputy PM gets Education Portfolio.    (30/11/07)

    If it weren't for the decisive victory of Kevin Rudd and the Australian Labor Party the elevation of Brendan Nelson and Julie Bishop to leader and deputy leader respectively of the federal Liberal Party, ought to have struck terror into the tertiary education sector. [More]

Sahara Desert Could Become Home to Solar-Power Plants -- Red-Hot Australia Just the Spot for Solar Energy Projects.    (29/11/07)

The first part of the headline comes from Today's Nature, the second from today's Age. [More]

Gillard Gets Education, Carr Science and McKew is Rudd's Parliamentary Secretary.    (29/11/07)

    What remains unclear is just what is the Rudd government's concept of an education revolution. [More] 

A Scientist's Wage and Purchasing Power Parity.    (29/11/07)

    A quick check of the graphic shows that average Australian salaries for its researchers adjusted for cost of living is on a par with the best on Earth. [More]

Nature:  "Newly Elected Prime Minister Intent on Changing Australia's Climate Stance".    (27/11/07)

    NatureNews reported today: "Australia’s new prime minister Kevin Rudd has wasted little time getting to work on an election pledge to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse-gas emissions." It went on to analyse Rudd's victory from its perspective. [More]

 Chair of the Royal Society's Working Group on Stem Cell Research Comments on Recent Progress.    (27/11/07)

    "It is essential that scientists continue to undertake research using the full range of available options." [More]

PMSEIC and the Chief Scientist.    (25/11/07)

    In fact PMSEIC has been little more than a biannual talkfest in the ten years of its existence. [More] 

Britain's Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) Continues to Tie Itself Into Knots Over the RAE.    (25/11/07)

    The latest statement from the council's director is a wonderful exercise in bureaucratic double speak. [More] 

Research and Education -- While Labor and the Coalition Have Little to Learn from Marcel Marceau, Outgoing AD Senator Stott Despoja Gives Them Something to Chew On.    (22/11/07)

    It may be a bit late in the game, but Australian Democratic Senator Natasha Stott Despoja has a take home message that ought to give those who may be leading the nation in a couple of days pause to take her message to heart and mind. [More]

IPCC in Its Synthesis Report has Raised the Tone of Urgency with its Latest Report.    (20/11/07)

    The Aim of the IPCC is to give policy-makers a concise summary of the findings of all three of its detailed research summaries which were released earlier this year. [More]

Challengers for Australia's Research and Development.     (16/11/07)

    In the fourth of its background statements in an attempt to influence Australia's parliamentarians and would-be parliamentarians the Group of Eight has presented its take on what the nation is confronting to catch up with its cohort with regard to supporting research and development. [More]

Research Grant On-Costs US Style.    (16/11/07)

    One of the most significant factors negatively effecting basic research in Australia is the appreciation by the granting agencies of the expenses entailed by universities and research institutes in supporting researchers who are awarded grants to further their investigations. [More]

Australian's Perform "The Most Accurate Measurement Ever Made".    (15/11/07)

    While unintended, work carried out over the past year at Griffith University, Brisbane is a salient reminder that not all work of scientific brilliance is a product of Australia's Group of Eight. [More]

Shallow Thinking or Building a Sydney Opera House: Kevin and the Universities.    (15/11/07)

    When would-be prime minister Kevin Rudd officially launched the Labor Party's yesterday when he got to spruiking the party's education revolution as it affected universities had a good deal to say about increasing its clients... [More]

Executive Director, Group of Eight Comes Out Swinging.    (14/11/07)

    In a previous incarnation Michael Gallagher was first assistant secretary, higher education division, in Dr. David Kemp's old Ministry of Education, Training and Youth Affairs which later morphed into the Department of Education, Science and Training. [More]

Desalinated Water Quality and Agriculture: A Science Policy Form.    (13/11/07)

    It puts before readers matters that would seem to be worth careful consideration for those designing desalination facilities in Australia. [More]

Coalition Pledges Aid for Remote Tertiary Students No Mention of Addition Funding for Universities.    (13/11/07)

    Speaking at the joint Liberal/Nationals campaign launch in Brisbane yesterday Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of The Nationals, Mark Vaile announced 1,000 students a year from remote and very remote parts of Australia with a $4,000 bursary if the Coalition is re-elected. [More]

U.S. Scientists Fall Behind Europe in Publication Numbers but Retain Citations Lead.    (11/11/07)

    It's old news but has its interests not least the comments from Science readers. [More]

Bibliometrics and the RAE Are Again Making News in the UK.    (10/11/07)

    It's patently obvious that the Michael Gross Professor of Politics & Contemporary History at the University of Buckingham is fed up to here with the UK's Research Assessment Exercise, and Universities UK have now published a forty page report, which argues that the use of bibliometrics could end up skewing the data used to judge research quality. [More]

And the Dearth of Higher Degree Researchers.    (10/11/07)

    The Group of Eight, in publishing its third paper on the requirements for upgrading Australia's university sector, has addressed the growing shortage of higher research degrees. [More]

CSIRO Finds Central Victoria Can Realise All Its Electrical Energy Requirements From Renewables.    (10/11/07)

    "...vast resources for electricity from large scale solar thermal, solar photovoltaics, wind or biomass..." [More]

The Dearth of Language Studies - A Quartet Calls for Action.    (08/11/07)

    The Australian Academy of the Humanities, Group of Eight, Australian Council for State School Organisations (ACSSO) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry are calling for concerted action from our parliamentarians to bolster language education in Australia. [More] 

Generating Profit from Becoming Green: the Thomas Friedman Prescription.    (07/11/07)

    The New York Times' columnist, Thomas Friedman reminds his readers of India's role in laying the Y2K menace (remember the millennium bug). [More]

A World Class Education: Mcgaw, Welch and Marginson Talk with Keri Phillips, Discussing Where We Really Fit as an OECD Nation.    (05/11/07) [More]

Science Policy in the Election of 2007 --Peter Pockley Reports.    (04/11/07)

    Yesterday on the ABC's Science Show Peter Pockley gave his assessment of where science fits in the proclamation of the science policies of Australia's political parties as they manoeuvre to gain or retain power. [More]

For the Benefit of the Nation, Government Should Make Scholarships More Equitable.    (04/11/07)

    The Group of Eight today issued its second federal election policy paper, this time addressing the financial constraints facing matriculating students from low socio-economic backgrounds. [More]

The Integrity of Chief Scientific Advisors.    (02/11/07)

    This past week an editorial in the journal  Nature and a News of the Week article in Science have focused on the question of the independence of scientific advice given by the UK's chief scientific advisor, David King and the US' presidential science advisor, John Marburger. [More]

Democracy in Action: The Physiognomy of Choice.    (02/11/07)

    Just in time for Australia's federal election the Journal Science today reports on the correlation of electability and candidates' countenance. [More]