Editorial
- 11
March 2001
It
has been and continues to be a running sore. For at least the past fifteen years
successive Labor and Coalition governments have inexorably eviscerated CSIRO
giving every indication that if they could find a buyer, they would be relieved
to sell it off. Bryan Gaensler, the 1999 Young Australian of the Year and
an astrophysicist now working at MIT, could just as well have been speaking of
CSIRO as of the universities when he addressed the National Press Club in
Canberra sixteen months ago. "...It's almost as if the Government has announced a
'Going Out of Business' sale, and the results have left our higher institutions in crisis --- typical across the country are forced redundancies, major staff reductions across the board, increased class sizes, and the merging and, even closing, of various research departments."
[Full Text]
CSIRO has been under ever increasing pressure to obtain more
and more of its funding directly from the private sector. As a result, the
organisation has become increasingly committed to immediately applicable research
at the expense of basic and strategic investigations. So what? Isn't it right
that the premier governmental research facility should be doing work of
immediate social and economic relevance? Of course but not in such a manner
that it precludes obtaining and maintaining the highest quality of research and
administrative personnel. And that is precisely what has happened and
continues to happen. CSIRO has been forced into a position of being neither an
efficient organ of applied industrial research nor an organisation capable
of sustained world class strategic and basic research. The government must
take action in the near future to allocate truly sufficient funds as well as
allowing a reasonable degree of autonomy to Divisional Chiefs so that it can
attract outstanding scientists to lead its divisions, individuals who can
attract top class research staff. Otherwise it might as well do with CSIRO what
the American Congress did with the Super-Conductor Super-Collider - scrap it
and/or have a fire sale.
What we are really witnessing in this country is the slow, relentless
strangulation of Australian science. If fundamental science is not strongly
supported and fostered the quality of applied research will suffer as well. Mightn't it be kinder to just kill it with
a quick blow; if nothing else, it would look cheaper.
Just
a year ago The University of Sydney News announced, "One of the University's most illustrious former professors and graduates is about to be appointed as President of Britain's Royal
Society, one of the most esteemed positions in the world of science.
Sir Robert May has been Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Government and Head of the Office of Science and Technology since 1995."
Obviously yet another brain drained from Australia, but that occurred many years
ago and is hardly news. Of more immediate interest is the fact that the Royal
Society chose him to succeed to its Presidency. As the journal Nature
pointed out in a news feature of March 1, "In choosing an outspoken former government science adviser as its president, the Royal Society has departed from
tradition." Peter Aldous in his write-up goes on to say, "Since taking over at the Royal Society on 1 December, May has been uncharacteristically quiet. But last week, after
chairing his first meeting of its governing council, he was happy to talk about his plans. Pitching the Royal Society
into the centre of debate over scientific controversies is top of his agenda."
And herein lies the point. Isn't it about time that our
professional societies such as the Australian Academy of Science to name just
one, began to go public, go public emphatically, and advise and lobby the
government and opposition parties as well. Isn't it about time that our political
leaders genuinely sought their input. Scientists and the societies that
represent them, engineers and the societies that represent them, are the
only ones that can speak authoritatively to the public and its leaders. No one
else can do it and no one else will do it, but let Robert May have the last
word, "There were those who felt that I'm insufficiently dignified," he says.
But Peter Aldhous goes on to report that he is not too worried about causing offence. "With respect to the interaction with some people, it will make things
easier."
Australian Robert May has the reputation of calling a spade a shovel, it mightn't be a bad thing if some of his local counterparts were prepared to do the same.
Alex
Reisner
areisner@bigpond.com