Science at the Shine Dome President’s Address: Professor Suzanne Cory
Celebrating Australian Science: Past Present Future
To be delivered 9.00am Wednesday 28 May, Shine Dome, Canberra
Distinguished guests, Fellows, friends of the Academy – welcome to Science at the Shine Dome 2014.
This annual event is always a wonderful opportunity to welcome our new Fellows and medallists, catch up with colleagues, and rejoice in vibrant and inspiring stories of Australian science. And on this 60th anniversary year it is a particular pleasure to welcome you all here, to celebrate the Academy’s great tradition and vibrant future, and to celebrate the outstanding contributions to the world made by Australian science.
In the 1950s, Australia was a nation filled with hope and activity. After decades of suffering through the Great Depression and World War II, the 50s were prosperous and vibrant. Employment was high, and technology was advancing rapidly. In some ways it was a golden era for science and technology in this nation – televisions linked us culturally with the rest of the world, mass-produced cars enabled greater mobility. The Australian scientist Florey’s work on penicillin had paved the way for greater control over infection. Myxomatosis had been released, wreaking havoc in feral rabbit populations.
It was in this atmosphere of optimism and innovation that Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London decided to establish an Australian academy of science. Sir Mark Oliphant had recently returned to Australia to help establish the Australian National University, following his wartime work on radar research and the Manhattan Project. Dr David Martyn was Chief of the then CSIR Division of Radiophysics, and Chief Scientist with the Radio Research Board. Both wanted to establish a national outlook for science.
The two men proved a powerful team. They enlisted the support of Sir Robert Menzies, then Prime Minister, and together with the Governor General, Sir William Slim, Menzies promised to help prepare the new academy’s charter for the impending visit by Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh.
By the time she visited in February 1954, Elizabeth had become Queen. She presented the Royal Charter to the founding Fellows at Government House: the first time since 1662 that a reigning monarch had presented the Charter of such a body in person.
At the laying of the Dome’s foundation stone in 1958, Menzies said:
If there’s one thing that shines out in the history of this century it is the enormous capacity of science to expand its boundaries. …he would be a very dull soul, I think, who didn’t realise that by the end of this century … the boundaries of knowledge will have been pushed back to places as yet unseen and unimagined.
This Academy, established by the finest body of scientists this country has ever had, adding as it will in the future to its own numbers men and women of corresponding gifts and enthusiasm, is going to make a contribution to the body of scientific knowledge in the world.
Menzies was a great supporter of science and a visionary and strategic thinker. He shepherded the foundation of the Australian National University and established the Australian Universities Commission, saying:
The scientist is of great and growing importance, and what we propose to do will, I believe, enable many more scientists to be trained in proper circumstances and with improved tuition, buildings and equipment.
The commission’s recommendations were enthusiastically embraced by government – almost in their entirety – leading to an injection into the university research sector of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Menzies also oversaw the greatest period of expansion in the life of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), with a tenfold expansion in its budget over the 15 years to 1965, and government-funded building of important infrastructure such as the giant radio telescope at Parkes and the phytotron in Canberra.
Australia’s socio-political, economic and research landscape has changed considerably since the 1950s.
More than at any other time in our recent history, we face a host of challenges – any single one of which poses a strong threat to our long-term social, economic and environmental sustainability, and our quality of life.
Starting now, we must prepare our economy for the end of the mining boom.
We must develop innovative new companies to replace failing traditional industries - companies that will grow Australia’s economy sustainably in the long term and deliver the budget surpluses envisioned by the government.
We must address our environmental challenges and the health challenges posed by our ageing demographic.
We must equip our children with an education that is rich in science and maths skills, to prepare them for jobs that will increasingly rely on such skills.
When the Academy was established, Canberra was just starting to coalesce into a town, from a handful of landmark buildings scattered across a vast paddock. The town was small enough that the social pages of the capital’s newspaper reported the holiday plans of the Academy’s first chief executive Charles Burleigh. Menzies’ Cabinet met a number of times in the Dome, and Oliphant and his peers made no bones about stridently advising the Government on matters of scientific importance.
These days the geographic and political landscape of Canberra is very different. Hundreds of professional lobbyists clamour for the attention of the nation’s leaders. It’s a changed game but the Academy continues to make frank, fearless and independent representations to government through a host of mechanisms.
We continue to lay out recommendations for strategic investment in education, research and development; that we prepare for a knowledge economy; that we continue to produce and support some of the best research and researchers in the world.
In our pre-Budget submission to Treasury, and in our pre-election and pre-Budget meetings with political leaders, the Academy asked our nation’s political leaders to show leadership, to set high expectations, and to signal that Australian science is open for business. We asked the Government to help make Australia the best place in the world to conduct world class research and innovation. The Academy argued for continuing the future fellowships scheme, strategically funding research infrastructure, re-establishing an international science linkages program and supporting quality science education.
I met a month ago with the Prime Minister to put the case for a long-term strategic approach to research and development in Australia. And I was heartened by his positive reaction.
I emphasised in that meeting that Australia’s relatively low – and falling – level of investment in research and development is of real concern – that it threatens the nation’s long-term prosperity.
Right now we are languishing at 13th place amongst other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations in terms of the percentage of our gross domestic product that we invest in research and development: We are at 2.2 per cent and falling, compared with 3.3 per cent in Japan, and 4.4 per cent in Korea. And yet our neighbours have had far more difficult financial and economic problems to contend with over the past six years than Australia has.
When he took power, Prime Minister Abbott said his government would:
“… provide the long-term stable policies and vision that our nation’s scientists and researchers need to excel in their work.”
Sadly, the budget handed down two weeks ago did not fulfil this promise.
There was, of course, some good news. The Academy is very welcoming of interim funding for national research infrastructure. We also welcomed new ongoing commitment to the Future Fellowships program for mid-career researchers, and the additional support for Agricultural Research and Development Corporations.
Happily the Academy’s education programs have been supported and the pre-budget concerns about cuts to Australia’s Antarctic Research also were not entirely realised.
Of course as a medical researcher I could not help but be thrilled by the proposal for a big new Medical Research Future Fund, although I do question the means proposed to support it.
But sadly this kind of long term and visionary thinking was not applied elsewhere.
Instead the budget brought cuts of more than $420 million from vital Australian science agencies – the CSIRO, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Geoscience Australia, National ICT Australia, the Australian Research Council, and the Cooperative Research Centres program.
On top of this, the environment will suffer: clean energy, water research, and climate change research have all been subjected to substantial cuts.
The vision promised by a future fund for medical research needs broadening. The pipeline must be strong from the fundamental sciences all the way through to development and application. Even if the government regards medical research as an investment priority, this kind of research is not carried out in isolation. It depends on, builds upon and integrates with the work of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists, engineers and researchers from many other disciplines.
As well, this Government’s intention to ask PhD students to pay tuition fees is essentially asking the next generation of scientists to pay to undertake a highly skilled apprenticeship. This will make PhDs unobtainable for many and become a huge disincentive for many more. Our students are critical to the research enterprise; diminish them and Australian research will lose its engine, its powerhouse.
On the whole, for science this Budget appeared to be about pulling money from lots of different programs and agencies and then reallocating a fraction of it to others. While acknowledging that science is not alone in its pain, this is not the long-term, stable approach this Government promised science before it took power in September.
In 2013/14, total science spending will come to about $8.6 billion – compared with a peak of $9.1 billion in 2011/12. With no central science portfolio and the science budget itself spread across multiple agencies and portfolios, it’s difficult at this stage to accurately pinpoint the total spend for the coming year. But it appears on first blush as though it will slip below $8.5 billion – its lowest in five years.
As I mentioned earlier, nations with economies in much worse shape than ours are investing more heavily in science – not less – because they recognise that research and development represents the best hope for a healthy population and environment, and a strong and innovative economy in years to come. In marked contrast, recent Australian budgets have the potential to set science, and Australia’s productive future, back by several years.
A strategic approach to science in Australia would pay careful attention to how investments in major national research infrastructure and major research facilities are maximised to deliver value for money as well as outstanding research outcomes.
It is a great relief to have an additional year’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy funding but this is only a stop-gap measure. We need a long-term sustainable approach to properly operating and maintaining Australia’s major research facilities and agencies – these are fundamental to the national research effort.
The Budget also failed to make any major provision for international science collaboration and diplomacy. Australia’s bilateral relationship with China is extremely important and the $10 million allocated to the Australia-China Science and Research Fund is very welcome, but what of Europe, the Americas, the rest of Asia?
Australia does an enormous amount of high quality research, and certainly holds its own internationally, but with a comparatively small population of researchers and geographic isolation, we run the risk of missing vital leaps forward if we have no strategic mechanism to engage with the international research community and access important research facilities overseas.
In the absence of a coordinated national approach to international science diplomacy, linkages and collaborations, the Academy has worked hard to maintain relationships. We do this through direct contact with science attachés in the embassies and high commissions of other nations in Canberra, and through the Australian embassies elsewhere. We do this through formal and informal meetings and agreements with the science academies of other nations. Through bilateral and multilateral seminars and conferences. Through hosting research exchanges and ensuring representation by young Australian researchers at the annual Lindau meeting in Germany of the Nobel laureates.
In fact at the next such meeting – thanks to the great efforts of Foreign Secretary Andrew Holmes and Brian Schmidt – we’ll host a special celebration of Australian science and culture.
We actively participate in and lead a range of international science organisations, including the International Council for Science, IAP (the global network of science academies), the InterAcademy Council, and the Association of Academies and Societies of Science in Asia.
And our 22 hard-working National Committees for the different science disciplines link us to the International Council of Science (ICSU), its scientific unions and interdisciplinary bodies.
The Fellows, the National Committees, and our staff do an outstanding job. But we are a small fellowship and an even smaller secretariat working within a budget that has contracted over time. We cannot do this alone.
The Academy continues to call on the Government to deliver on its election promise of an urgently needed long-term plan for international science collaboration. We argue that this must include an integrated international science program with an investment of $25 million per year for 10 years.
Global competition for talent makes it essential that Australia is an attractive place for our brightest researchers to work. This means providing opportunities at different career stages, which is why the Future Fellowships program for mid-career researchers is so important, and why we are glad to see it continue.
Here at the Academy we have a long and proud history of recognising excellent early- and mid-career researchers: you’ll be hearing from some of Australia’s best such researchers this morning.
We also have a young but robust and growing program - the Australian Early- and Mid-Career Researchers Forum - to support their professional development and develop the ancillary skills critical to career success. Already the Forum’s submissions to inquiries and reviews have been recognised as of high value; it’s assisted the Academy to better incorporate early career perspectives into our own approaches to Government, and to develop policy around working towards gender equity in science.
The nation’s scientific strength is vitally dependent on the quality of its education, at every level. The Academy’s school education programs first began 50 years ago with an acclaimed series of text books. We’ve moved with the times and our primary and junior secondary school education programs – Primary Connections and Science by Doing – continue to develop world-class interactive curriculum resources – completely digital in the case of Science by Doing. Our programs are fully aligned with the national science curriculum and, most importantly, are paired with professional development for teachers. Students and teachers alike are extremely positive about them and I’m proud to say that we’ve come a long way since the first Primary Connections units were trialled in 2005. Primary Connections units are now in more than 70 per cent of all Australian primary schools, and in the past year alone we’ve trained more than 1,000 teachers in more than 500 schools. Science by Doing was officially launched in December last year: since then more than 12,000 people have registered to use it from all states and territories, and Australian international schools.
These programs are teaching children critical thinking skills – which will become a lifelong asset – as well as teaching them science, numeracy and literacy. They are demonstrably increasing interest and competence in science amongst school children. One of our goals is that more children will elect to study science and mathematics in years 11 and 12, deepening Australia’s pool of intellectual potential and enhancing the quality of undergraduate science students and – eventually – the scientific research workforce of the future.
I am very pleased that the government fulfilled its commitment to continue support these programs, by allocating $5 million over the next four years. We are still in discussions to determine how this money will be allocated, and are hopeful that some of the funds will be able to be used to support our ambition to train a science leader in every primary school in Australia.
Tomorrow we’ll hear from some of Australia’s best-known scientists about great achievements in fields as diverse as astronomy, geoscience, chemistry, medicine, environmental science, quantum computing, agricultural science, life science and genomics. They’ll paint for us a picture of the future – the possibilities for Australia and the world as we continue to push back the frontiers of human knowledge.
Menzies predicted that by the beginning of this century the boundaries of knowledge will have been pushed back to places as yet unseen and unimagined.
History has proved him correct. In that great far-sighted spirit of drive and optimism, I call on the Australian Government to work with us to ensure that Australia continues to be a nation of vision; of endeavour; of knowledge creation. To create the conditions in which science may flourish for the benefit of all society; in which those exciting possibilities for the future may become reality.
We are supported in our vision and our commitment to science by sister academies around the world, many of whom have written in recent months to congratulate us on our six decades of good work.
By comparison with the world’s oldest continuing scientific academy – the 354-year-old Royal Society – this Academy is in its infancy. But we have come a long way, and achieved much, in our 60 years. This Academy has been, and will continue to be, a strong and independent voice for science in Australia. We will continue to champion scientific excellence, to promote and disseminate scientific knowledge, and to provide independent scientific advice for the benefit of Australia and the world.
Thank you.
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
