Delivered 8.30am Wednesday 27 May 2015, Shine Dome, Canberra
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Australian Academy of Science President, Professor Andrew Holmes
Fellows of the Academy, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
As President of the Academy I have the privilege of delivering this annual address.
I do so this year in the knowledge that a shift has occurred in the past year; a shift in the way in which the Australian public, Australian politicians, and Australian business, talk about science.
Scientists are no longer considered to be ‘precious petals’. We are being taken seriously. We are being heard.
At the end of last year we welcomed the reinstatement of the word “Science” into the portfolio of the Minister of Industry and Science. It seems like a small thing, but it’s symbolically significant, and it was followed by further indications from the government that it is listening to science.
The three key federal government portfolios of Industry and Science, Health, and Education and Training all speak to important pillars for the scientific community, and central elements of Academy activities, and we are pleased that these three Ministers join the Prime Minister, the Chief Scientist and others at the Commonwealth Science Council. It’s a Council, I might add, that has five Academy Fellows as members and has already met twice this year. We are heartened at the interest that the Prime Minister has shown in this body.
The Government has also committed to working with the Council and the Chief Scientist to develop a science strategy, and will be consulting broadly with the sector over the coming months. This is important for Australian science and research and I encourage every researcher and science organisation with an interest in Australia’s scientific future to provide considered input into the consultation.
In March, Science Minister Ian Macfarlane made a positive, respectful and forward-looking speech at Science Meets Parliament, in which he made it clear that he believes science is fundamental to our national prosperity, and that our scientific institutions have the capacity to provide a strong platform upon which to build the Australia of the future.
We are making headway. The political narrative about science is starting to shift.
In preparing my address I began to reflect on the purpose of the Australian Academy of Science in this shifting narrative. I reflected also on what we as an Academy can do to demonstrate a worthwhile contribution to the scientific affairs of the nation and the planet.
I was asked recently by a Corresponding Member (these are distinguished overseas scientists whom we recognise): “What is the Academy all about?”
Unquestionably, a key reason for our establishment and continued existence is to recognise excellence in science in Australia and contributions to Australian science abroad. However, although recognition is necessary it alone is not sufficient for the discharge of our obligations to society.
In our strategic plan for 2010-2015 we have focused on three key areas - promoting excellence, developing a national scientific culture, and providing independent scientific advice. We have four major activities that underpin these key areas: to disseminate, to give direction, to educate and to promote.
We aim to disseminate the best scientific knowledge and understanding, and to provide advice to government and to civil society to underpin science policy.
We give direction. We are uniquely positioned to provide a road map for the national research agenda, particularly in the area of curiosity-driven research.
We educate. It’s increasingly important to contribute to the improvement of science education in Australia, and we do this with well-regarded programs at both primary and secondary school levels, using an inquiry-based approach to instruction.
We promote. Success in science relies on networks. Through the connections of our Fellows we are very well placed to promote the best Australian science in Australia and abroad, and to create opportunities for our scientists to show their wares and to be favourably placed both to collaborate and to compete with the most able researchers within and outside this country.
So how have we been doing on these core activities of dissemination, direction, education and promotion?
During the mid-term review of our 2010-2015 Strategic Plan, Council asked ourselves what we should be doing to improve our profile in the community. We agreed that the single most significant thing we could do was to establish a strong communications and media office to disseminate our activities to the community. We have now done that. I believe we can clearly demonstrate that it has made a difference.
I’d like to take you through a concrete example that illustrates the way the Academy has tackled a science project, making extensive use of the skills of the Fellowship, developing science policy, delivering advocacy and providing the best scientific advice to the nation.
The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers was published in February this year. In 2010 government funds (provided without strings) enabled the Academy to publish the first edition of this document. The 2015 publication is an updated version of the document. This update incorporates the latest findings from the IPCC and provides a particular focus on issues relating to Australia, using Australian research results.
The update was supported by the then Department of Climate Change but I must note that the agreement with the Department carried no obligation to support existing government opinion. We formed an Expert Working Group of scientists (with a majority of members being Fellows of the Academy) who could deliver the most comprehensive and up to date understanding of the science in language that could be followed by the majority of Australians. In other words they disseminated information and provided opportunities for non-scientists, as well as scientists, to increase their knowledge and understanding. The work was overseen by an Oversight Committee comprising distinguished Fellows in the field, and the first draft was peer-reviewed by many other eminent scientists who represented a broad range of views and expertise on climate change. The project was led by the late Professor Mike Raupach, who was enormously respected across the globe, both within and outside of his field.
When the updated publication was launched in February this year it was noted in numerous news stories in Australia and internationally, thanks to the involvement of learned members of the Expert Working Group and from very eminent scientists in the Academy who were willing to be strong advocates for the message. Paramount to the success of the distribution of the document was the involvement of the communications and outreach team from within the Academy’s Secretariat, from the outset.
Why am I relating this at such length? Because it is evidence of the success of our ability to present the scientific case as accurately as we can, while recognising that there are still questions to be answered. To achieve this everyone pulled together. We had strong commitment from Fellows, other scientists and institutions, supported by the Secretariat.
Of course, climate change continues to be an issue of public contention. After release of the publication I was not surprised that we had to respond to a small number of critics.
In developing these responses I was strongly influenced by a recently published book by the British author George Marshall entitled Don’t Even Think About It; why our brains are wired to ignore climate change. In this book Marshall makes many points. Most importantly he argues evolutionary psychology makes it hard for us to deal with climate change; that the human brain has not evolved to deal well with events in the distant future. ‘People are divided by what we all share - our evolutionary origins, our perceptions of threats our cognitive blind spots, our love of storytelling, our fear of death and our deepest instincts to defend our family tribe.’ We are hard-wired to deal with the here and now. Marshall also argues that rational debate on this topic will only make progress if we try to see the opponent’s point of view.
He quotes the message that Nobel Laureate Steve Chu wrote to his former employees on leaving the White House. Chu, who was energy secretary in the last Obama administration, said this to his staff. It will be familiar to many of you, but I wonder if you realise why it is so familiar. “We don’t want our children to ask, ‘What were our parents thinking? Didn’t they care about us?’”. After all, he continued, “we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”. As with so many of the folk quotations that gravitate to the climate issue, this wisdom, usually ascribed to the Amish or a famous Native American, Chief Seattle, is actually nothing of the kind. It originates in a speech given in 1974 by the then Australian Minister for the Environment, the Hon Moss Cass, but don’t expect any bumper sticker to give him the credit. Marshall makes the point that we need conviction as well as reference to the scientific evidence.
We the scientific community must continue to work positively and constructively with people who do not have a science background, as we strive to raise public awareness of science. The immediate past-President of the Royal Society, Lord Martin Rees, described this as conveying a ’feeling for science’.
So what has the Academy achieved in this direction? How have we conveyed a ‘feeling for science’?
It was recently observed by a new Corresponding Member of this Academy that Australians appear to care little for science and do not place it as importantly as some other activities in the nation’s life (the word sport comes to mind). While this observation may have some currency I can think of a number of events driven by our better ability to communicate science that are changing the way in which science is viewed in Australia.
There is no doubt that the Academy has helped raise the awareness of science issues in the past year. Our publications and press releases have been reproduced by the mainstream media and we now have a strong following in social media. Our media presence has grown to an average of almost 30 stories per week being picked up by mainstream media quoting the Academy. In some weeks this figure numbers in the hundreds.
In a recent highlight, our past President was invited to deliver a wonderful Boyer Lecture series last year: “The Promise of Science; a Vision of Hope”. It was the most recent of just seven Boyer lecture series which have been delivered by scientists and technologists over the 53 years since its inauguration – and the first such series to have been delivered by an eminent woman scientist.
The inaugural lecture in 1959 was delivered by Dr David Martyn – a Fellow of the Royal Society – on “Society in the Space Age”. Since then the Boyers have featured Sir John Eccles on “The Brain and the Person”, Sir Macfarlane Burnet addressing “Biology and the Appreciation of Life”, and Sir Bruce Williams on “Living with Technology”. In 1989, Max Charlesworth spoke of “Life, Death, Genes and Ethics; Biotechnology and Bioethics” and in 2007 Professor Graeme Clark addressed “Restoring the Senses”.
In the past year not only has the Academy – and of course science – featured in the Boyer Lectures, but four of our Fellows have appeared on the popular ABC television show, Q&A – including on the first Q&A program to focus specifically on science.
We have contributed in many other ways.
As I mentioned earlier, our science education programmes continue to play a leading role in inquiry-based learning at both primary and secondary levels, with Primary Connections and Science by Doing.
I was lucky to visit Fadden Primary School with the Executive Committee of the Global Network of Science Academies in late 2013. There, I saw 6-year-olds being taught the basic concepts of a Venn diagram. The teacher had two intersecting circles. In the one circle there were toys that could be pushed and in the other circle there were toys that could be pulled. And in the intersecting common section there were toys that could be pushed and pulled. So there you have it and the penny dropped (for me). It was the first time that I really understood what a Venn diagram was!
Both Primary Connections and Science by Doing have earned a strong, loyal and growing following in Australian schools. Both of them have the benefit of being created and developed by experts in education and reviewed by Fellows and other experts in science. And there is growing public interest in supporting our education and other community outreach programs through philanthropic donations, for which we are very grateful.
Later today Fellows will have a sneak preview of our re-imagined public science education website, Nova: science for curious minds. Thanks to a most generous donation from Telstra we are revitalising Nova, making it more interactive and accessible, so that we can better excite interest in the latest knowledge about topical issues of science. Our Nova team is confident of success, and there are grand opportunities emerging for expansion of the reach of this communication of science to the public. Nova will launch publicly very soon: in the meantime I encourage you to visit nova.org.au and sign up to learn of developments.
Our working relationships with the other learned Academies are strong – we work collaboratively across the sector collectively to raise that ‘feeling for science’. In particular I acknowledge the collaboration and support of the President of the Australian Academy for Technological Science and Engineering (ATSE), Dr Alan Finkel. Australia is too small for the two academies not to be speaking with a united voice on matters of science and technology. When we collaborate in a collegial manner we reinforce our common goals.
We also value our strong and developing relationship with the Australian Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb, which has led to the publication of the Securing Australia Future series with the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA), and an assessment of the economic contribution of advanced physical and mathematical sciences, with an equivalent study of the biological sciences to follow.
We have issued influential statements regarding policies for the Great Barrier Reef and on alpine cattle grazing, and have given strong advice to government consultations on post-2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets. We have played a leading role in creating and coordinating the National Research Alliance that most recently staged a national campaign successfully to convince the Government to maintain support for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
Behind the scenes, we continue actively to meet members of government and the opposition and their advisors to create greater awareness of the importance of the relevance of science to the nation and to the future productivity of the country.
All of this activity, I believe, has helped underpin that shifting attitude to science… but there is still work to do to translate this talk into action.
In the Federal Budget handed down two weeks ago, there was a welcome reprieve for science funding in the coming financial year.
However, there are still forecast cuts of around $290 million to key Australian science and research programs that will take effect in the financial year 2016-17.
Despite immediate relief for NCRIS and an ongoing commitment to establish a Medical Research Future Fund, overall funding for science in Australia will continue to decline.
Unfortunately NCRIS has been funded through significant reductions in block grants to researchers in universities. This is like taking engines off the jumbo jet.
To do science, you need excellent scientists to make the best use of top quality infrastructure; it can’t be one or the other. NCRIS needs a long-term sustainable funding model that addresses both ends of this equation.
The Minister for Industry and Science, and the Prime Minister say they want to see science play a greater role with industry and yet in this budget there was $30 million cut from the Cooperative Research Centres, which are specifically designed to help improve collaboration with business and help generate jobs from research and development. It will be important to consider an alternative model to promote academia-industry engagement.
While there are forecast selective cuts there have also been selective increases – for the Synchrotron, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Antarctic research and medical research into exotic tropical diseases – and we look forward to seeing those increases sustained into the future. We’re also pleased that there will be a Future Fellowships scheme this year, albeit with just 50 fellowships on offer. It’s a good start for this important initiative to support and retain some our best and brightest young researchers, and we will continue to advocate for the programme to be restored to its former scale.
As the mining boom slows, this should be a time of growth in science funding. We should be preparing Australia to build a knowledge economy so that we do not simply survive, but thrive in an increasingly competitive world.
We should be supporting our world-class research infrastructure, and our world-class and emerging researchers, to create new knowledge and innovation. And we should be supporting scientists and industry to forge strong links to translate this innovation into economic growth and security.
This is a challenge for politics, yes. But it’s also a challenge for the science sector.
On the domestic front we must we must continue to persuade the Australian community of the importance of science as a major cultural contributor and a driver to national prosperity through wealth creation and improved productivity.
We must continue to focus on education, working with young people who will inevitably become the decision makers of the future. We must continue to build strong support, professional development, and mentorship for early- and mid-career researchers – such as that provided by the Australian Early- and Mid-Career Researchers Forum, which grows from strength to strength.
And we must convince the community not only of the value of science as a discipline, but also as a provider of informed and trained minds who can meaningfully contribute to the workforce in many different areas from those directly related to their scientific training.
A major challenge facing the research community is to develop a profitable engagement with industry. There are many ways in which this can be realised, but common to all must be an acceptance that each party should benefit from this kind of engagement.
Here in Australia there are very few large companies engaged in fundamental and applied research. Much activity is carried out in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which will invariably have limited capacity to fund collaborative research.
The solution to this must be seen as a task of government which will inevitably reap the dividend in the taxation of increased earnings arising from the success of these small companies. Just as we support the notion of a Medical Research Future Fund, so would we support industry engagement – through the Cooperative Research Centres and other mechanisms. It is of course important that this kind of engagement is not supported at the expense of our capacity for curiosity-driven research that is inevitably the wellspring of many translatable research discoveries.
All the evidence suggests that government is willing to engage constructively with scientists, and particularly members of the Academy.
We have also gained the support of the President of the Business Council of Australia, who is a Fellow of the Academy and a passionate advocate for STEM education and research infrastructure.
Ministers take note of the opinions expressed by the Academy, as evidenced by the recent campaign to preserve NCRIS. We are now regularly consulted when policy is being formulated, but there is much more to do to reach the stage where government routinely both consults and listens to us, and builds on our contribution.
For example, the absence of a holistic Australian international research collaborations strategy is becoming an embarrassment. Traditionally, Australia has been recognised as a significant player in the international scientific arena through its participation in many activities. Historically it has been well recognised that if we are not seen internationally, we will slip from the minds of those with whom we wish to engage.
It is on the base of strong historical opportunities that Australia plays such a prominent role in the international scientific community.We supply Presidents, office-bearers and committee members to a vast array of international scientific unions and societies, and hundreds of Australian scientists participate in their research programs. Our high profile abroad makes us respected international partners and we are chosen because we have a reputation for delivering good value in a research collaboration.
It is with these goals in mind that we seek to remind government that we can help in matters of science for diplomacy as well as science for the benefit of sharing information and capacity building. The Academy believes in the value of scientific collaborations that transcend political and religious beliefs and contribute to the peaceful co-existence of nations.
We are here today to celebrate the excellence of Australian science in the sixty-first year of the Academy. We have much still to do to foster a ’feeling for science’ in our nation.
As an Academy we have set a new direction in re-examining our governance and we have developed a new strategic plan for the next five years. We wish to empower ourselves to build our influence and outreach, and to initiate new projects.
Among those we are contributing to is a ‘Mathematics by Inquiry’ project to improve school mathematics education, that is in development by the Department of Education.
The Academy has also taken a leading role in initiating a science and gender equity programme that we hope will demonstrate through a pilot project the way in which Australia may develop a process for validating the recognition of gender equity in divisions and departments of higher education and research institutions. This exciting venture will make our position comparable with other nations, particularly the UK.
We will of course continue to contribute to meaningful public and political conversations about science, and to work with the government to refine strategic research priorities and build a strong national strategy for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
This will all be important work, and will help prepare the way for a stronger community of scientists.
I want to finish by setting a challenge for us: for the scientific community. The Academy works hard but we are just one organisation.
Sitting in this room today are some of the most accomplished research scientists in Australia, and some of the brightest hopes for the future of Australian science. It is up to all of us to step up.
It is up to all of us to speak to power when it’s warranted. To become involved in educating and mentoring the next generation. To speak to media and ensure that science has a voice in the public sphere.
We are improving wellbeing. We are helping to prepare this nation, and the world, for an uncertain future. We are strengthening our economy. We are nurturing our international connections. We are innovating.
Together we are making a difference. We are working towards a better informed, more capable, more agile Australia.
Thank you.
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
