Peter Hall^* examines the revised set of our national research priorities as enunciated December 5^th by the Prime Minister.

According to Prime Minister John Howard's media release, "Following extensive consultation the Government has selected four National Research Priorities to focus our investment on research in key areas that can deliver significant economic, social and environmental benefits to Australia:

• An Environmentally Sustainable Australia;
• Promoting and Maintaining Good Health;
• Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries; and
• Safeguarding Australia."
   

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It'll be quite some time before the full implications of these priorities are clear, but they seem to offer opportunities that go beyond what is usually expected from "research priorities." Many Australian scientists, indeed many Australians, if asked to list the areas of science and technology that are of greatest strategic importance to Australia, would answer "the environment, health, security, and developing an industrial base in new technologies." However, very few of us would have thought these would be considered research priorities by the government's taskforce, in that very broad form.

To treat them as such is a significant piece of lateral thinking. They give considerable wiggle-room to both scientists and politicians. Many scientists are already working in these areas, although I doubt our political leaders are aware of the great deal of effort that is being directed there. They will find out, when (as seems to be inevitable) we as scientists are forced to discuss many of our activities in the context of these four broad subject areas.

Perhaps that will be the major contribution of the new priority areas -- providing a device for communicating, from scientists to politicians; what it is that (in many cases) we are doing, and have long been doing, for Australia. Much of our existing work is related in one way or another to solving Australia's significant environmental problems (we work to ensure the quality of Australia's water, or to overcome our nation's dauntingly high levels of salinity, etc), or enhancing our health (entailing much more than merely medicine), or enhancing our security (for example, Australian mathematicians have raised this issue in a number of recent submissions to government).

And if there is one thing that Australian scientists and engineers have prioritised for decades, it's that Australia must develop an industrial base in new technologies, a proposal put more interestingly by the Commonwealth government as developing "Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries." Each time I read those words I have to remind myself that "frontier technologies" here must mean "technologies at the frontier of contemporary knowledge," not "technologies in the sense of Davy Crockett's wild frontier." God knows how long we, as scientists, have been urging Australia to develop an industrial focus on thinking and creating, rather than digging and sowing. It seems that our call has been heard.

Of course, there is a lot of very important, pure research which doesn't fit the priorities well, but as long as that work can be properly supported, the "new" priorities might be employed to both focus many of our existing activities and communicate our work to Canberra.

We should remember, however, that "As a first step towards implementation, all Commonwealth research and research funding bodies will be asked to submit plans to the Government by May 2003 outlining how they propose to support the four priorities." So, the new priorities are unlikely to be part of ARC, NH&MRC, etc, programs until the 2004 round of grant applications, which won't fund the work of Australian researchers until 2005. Nevertheless, the priorities will be widely discussed, and have influence, between now and then.

In summary, there is a lot to take heart from in the new research priorities. We must keep basic-science agendas alive, but we can embrace the fact that, to an important extent, our calls for widespread support of Australian aspirations in science and technology have apparently been heard.

^*Peter Hall is Professor of Statistics, the Australian National University, Chair of the National Committee for Mathematics and current President of The Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability.