I take great pleasure this month in warmly welcoming our newly elected 2023 Fellows to the Academy. These 20 exceptional scientists from diverse disciplines are among the nation’s most distinguished scientists and I’m confident they will make great contributions to the work of this Academy. I also welcome two new Corresponding Members, both eminent international scientists with strong ties to Australia.
The Academy has just published our annual report for 2022, and I encourage you to read about the many ways we supported, celebrated, promoted and championed science in Australia. In particular, we provided an influential and independent source of scientific evidence in a range of fields, and you’ll know from our newsletters in recent months that we are continuing to grow our capacity and impact by providing scientific evidence to decision-makers.
For example, this month saw the final of three expert roundtables on the likely impacts of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef. The Academy is now working on a report on the roundtable outcomes that will be considered by the Reef 2050 Independent Expert Panel in their advice to government on the current and likely health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef in the face of climate impacts and potential reef interventions.
Also this month, we launched The Ukraine-Australia Research Fund thanks to funding support of $800,000 from the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. This fund is allowing two ways for Ukrainian scientists who are impacted by the war to collaborate with Australia so that their research efforts can continue. I fully support the view of His Excellency Ambassador of Ukraine to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko when he says the connections that will be built through this program will help Ukraine in the future, and I encourage you to share information about the fund within your networks.
The Academy’s response to the Federal Budget welcomed the government’s ongoing support for science and research, but made clear that despite this spending, Australia’s overall investment in science remains the lowest on record at 0.49% of GDP. We also acknowledged that it will take a decade or more of commitment and effort from government, industry and the higher education sector to boost total investment in R&D.
And for the first time, we developed an interactive data report that provides a snapshot of the government’s science and research expenditure estimated in the budget—I encourage you to jump in and explore the data.
Finally, a warm congratulations to Academy Fellow Dr Graeme Moad, one of two Australians elected to the Royal Society this month.
Professor Chennupati Jagadish AC PresAA FREng FTSE
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
