CSIRO Gives Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister the Finger.    (28/12/07)

    Over the years that he was shadow science spokesman Labor Senator Kim Carr took every opportunity to forcefully hold CSIRO's executive to account, and Labor, when in opposition, was vehement in its condemnation of the Howard Coalition government's pressuring CSIRO to censor its staff. [More]

If We Keep Doing Business as Usual, We’re Going to Get Our Lunch Eaten -- MIT Former President Charles Vest.    (25/12/07)

    The America COMPETES Act, with strong bipartisan US Congressional support was signed into law by President George W Bush this past August, but what has the budget wrought? [More]

A Small But Firm Step Toward Reason: the RQF Laid to Rest.    (22/12/07)

    Just four weeks after being elected to government, the federal Labor Party announced through the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, that the government had cancelled the Research Quality Framework (RQF) because it was fundamentally flawed. [More]

Anathema With Good Reason?    (21/12/07)

    Former Prime Minister, John Howard, may have had good reason for viewing academia with a jaundiced eye. [More]

European Research Council Awards 300 Young Researchers €290 million.    (21/12/07) [More]

Treasury Secretary Ken Henry to Chair the Joint Commonwealth and State Working Group on Education.    (21/12/07)

    Specific reform programs we are told are being directed by the Prime Minister to get results. [More]

Statutory Bodies Told to Get Ministerial Approval Before Utterances Relating to Government Policy.    (21/12/07) [More]

A Cautionary Tale for Australia's Physicists and Astronomers?    (20/12/07)

    The UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is facing a funding shortfall of about £80 million (A$186 million) over the next three years. [More]

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Senator Kim Carr Has Something to Say But Gives Little Away.    (19/12/07)

    If Julia Gillard as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Education and Minister for Social Inclusion has a full plate of responsibilities, Kim Carr as Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research isn't that far behind. [More]

2007 Nobel Laureate Martin Evans Criticises the UK Government and Civil Service for Not Sufficiently Valuing Science.    (19/12/07)

    "Science has not been regarded with the same level of appreciation as things such as politics and economics as a basis of government and government service..." [More]

The Bali Conference on Climate Change and a One Paragraph Assessment.    (19/12/07)   [More]

Former President of US National Academy of Sciences to Take Over as Science's Editor in Chief.    (18/12/07)

    Bruce Alberts, president emeritus of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, will take over the editorship of Science on March 1, 2008 from Donald Kennedy. [More]

US Scientists Call on Would-be Presidential Candidates to Debate Scientific and Technological Issues.    (15/12/07)

    As Bob Park put it: "Instead of candidates debating who loves Jesus most, the proposal is that science be the subject of a debate." [More]

Five Years in the Making MIT Courses Fully Online.    (14/12/07) [More]

The RAE, The RQF and Those Metrics Again.    (14/12/07)

    The matters of the format of the UK's Research Assessment Exercise and the reformatting by the newly installed Australian Government of the Research Quality Framework, continue to reappear. [More]

Tel Aviv University Professor Gives His View of the Prolonged Dispute Between Israel's Academics and the Government.    (14/12/07)

    Tel Aviv University's Professor Menachem Nathan in the School of Electrical Engineering earlier this week published the following opinion regarding the prolonged dispute between Israel's academics and the Olmert government. [More]

Will Australian Science and the Kangaroo Help Save the Planet?    (13/12/07)

It's not really a recent revelation, but with recent progress it's now made the pages of the journal Nature [More]

Gillard and Carr Meet with Withers, Sutton and Larkins -- Anxieties Ease but Faith Required.    (12/12/07)

    One way of the universities and public research sectors of gauging the election of Kevin Rudd and Co to the leadership of the nation is that that can't be any worse than their Coalition predecessors. [More]

Royal Society Issues Critical 100 page report: The UK’s Science and Mathematics Teaching Workforce.    (12/12/07)

    Yesterday the Royal Society published its assessment of the quality and quantity of the UK's "science and mathematics teaching workforce"  and in its media release it opens with: "Who is teaching science and mathematics? Don’t ask the Government". [More]

What We Need To Do Is To Deliver Our Promises [as regards the universities] And We Will --  Julia Gillard.    (10/12/07) [More]

NIH Peer Review System Under Critical Scrutiny.    (08/12/07)

    The peer review at NIH as elsewhere is under increasing strain. [More]

Former Dean of Education at The University of Melbourne Gives His Prescription for an Education Revolution, and an Adjunct Professor of Science Communication at UTS Gives His for Science.    (06/12/07) [More]

Pressure Mounts for Rudd to Clarify Higher Education Policy.    (05/12/07)

    Although the Labor Government led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was sworn in barely two days ago, there are increasing calls for the Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, to clarify just what the new government intends to do for and with higher education. [More]

ANU'S SkyMapper Nears Scientific Productivity.    (04/12/07)

    In a sense it's a phoenix risen from the ashes of the bushfires that engulfed Mt Stromlo nearly four-years ago. A 1.35 Meter (53 inch) reflecting telescope has risen from the Great Melbourne Telescope, destroyed on January 18, 2003. [More]

Ms Gillard Issues a Sweeping Policy Statement and Explains Why Her Super Ministry is a Good Thing.    (04/12/07)

    Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told an Australian Industry Group conference in Canberra yesterday that productivity was the common thread connecting her sweeping ministerial responsibilities. [More]

Australia's Ratification of the  Kyoto Protocol Makes the Times.    (04/12/07)

    Both The Times (London) and The New York Times reported the news that Kevin Rudd inaugurated his prime ministership by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. [More]

Physicist Bob Park Lays Out the Ground Rules for Science vs Religion.    (01/12/07)

    As the first News and Views for December, we reprint in full Bob Park's November 30, 2007 column What's New which deals with The War Between Science and Religion. [More]