Delivered 9 am Thursday 24 May 2018, Shine Dome, Canberra
Australian Academy of Science President, Professor Andrew Holmes
Before we begin the proceedings, I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners of the land on which we meet—the Ngunnawal people of the Wiradjuri Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands that the Australian Academy of Science is built.
As we share our own knowledge, teaching, learning, and research practices may we also pay respect to the knowledge embedded forever within the Aboriginal Custodianship of Country.
Fellows of the Academy, distinguished guests, award recipients including our early- and mid-career researchers, family members and ladies and gentlemen: welcome to the Shine Dome and to this 64th annual gathering of the Australian Academy of Science.
I, too, would like to add my personal thanks and acknowledgement to the sponsors mentioned by Anna-Maria who have not just made this event possible, but have allowed it to be more inclusive and to reach more people.
Yesterday we heard and again today we will hear from some of Australia’s most distinguished researchers, some of the best young scientists, mathematicians and teachers working in the STEM sector.
Before we move to the Academy’s Award presentations, on this occasion it is customary for the President to give an account of events over the past year and to raise awareness of topics that are of interest to the scientific community.
I would like to start by providing a historical context. Sixty years ago, on 2nd May 1958, the then Prime Minister the Rt Hon R G Menzies MP laid the Foundation stone of this remarkable building. During his speech he described the origin of the stone as follows:
“This is like me, it comes from Melbourne and has been planted now here and it is one of the old piers of the Melbourne Observatory, dating back to 1870. …..I read (the history) with immense pleasure”
Later in the speech Mr Menzies went on to say …
“the boundaries of knowledge to the activities of scientists will have been pushed back to places as yet unseen and unimagined, and in all that in our own country 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 of corresponding faculty, men and women of corresponding gifts and enthusiasm, is going to make a contribution to the body of scientific knowledge in the world, which won’t be just confined to Canberra, but will extend over the world.”
This spirit of discovery is ongoing, and we can confidently agree with Mr Menzies that sixty years later the scientists of Australia—both women and men alike—have certainly ‘contributed to the scientific knowledge of the world and the boundaries of knowledge have been pushed back to places then unseen and unimagined.’
It is useful to look at the year in retrospect with this background in mind.
Among the great recent scientific discoveries, we must count detection of gravitational waves and the subsequent observation at spectroscopic wavelengths of the collision of two neutron stars—an event that involved an enormous number of scientists all round the world, including Fellows of this Academy and one who was elected as a Fellow this year.
Many other breakthroughs in science and technology have been made by our Fellows. They are able to achieve these discoveries through the opportunities created by government and other sources of research funding.
Funding that is directed by the roadmaps for research laid out by our National Committees for Science.
In the last twelve months we have released 10-year strategic plans that guide science in the areas of:
The Vision for Space Science and Technology in Australia has already had an impact on policy-making with the establishment of an Australian Space Agency announced in the recent Federal Budget.
Similarly, the Decadal Plan for Astronomy has contributed to the signing of Australia’s Strategic Partnership in the European Southern Observatory.
The Academy’s advocacy efforts are important. Our steadfast commitment to providing the best available evidence base and high quality and independent advice to government has paid off.
This year’s Federal Budget provided support for a significant number of scientific activities which were warmly welcomed by the Academy.
This included:
There were also areas in which the budget fell short—funding for the ARC, CSIRO, university research funding and the Education Investment Fund—the Academy will continue to make the case for investment in these areas.
The Chief Scientist, writing in The Conversation on 9th May, stated “We can’t assume that the broad public support for science will translate into support for specific proposals unless we do the work to explain the benefits, including more jobs and better health. It’s important for politicians to see the outcomes of public investment. They see the dollar figures in the budget papers but they don’t necessarily connect the research breakthroughs they read about in the newspapers years later to the programs that made them possible. It is important to help local members, irrespective of their party, recognise the impact of previously funded programs working for Australians.”
It is also important to acknowledge the efforts of Fellows of the Academy who, through their membership of the Commonwealth Science Council, routinely engage with Cabinet Ministers. In this regard we thank Professors Ian Frazer and Nalini Joshi, Ms Catherine Livingstone, and Professors Tanya Monro and Brian Schmidt.
In looking back over the numerous activities that the Academy has undertaken I’d like to highlight just a few examples from each of the “pillars” listed in the Academy’s Strategic Plan.
One of the highest priorities of the Academy is to act as an independent and influential voice in matters scientific in Australia. While this has been achieved in a number of ways including numerous submissions to government, reports and many conversations in the so called “corridors of power”, I would like to highlight three notable achievements in the policy and projects area.
Firstly, the bringing together of some 30 organisations under the umbrella of the Australian Brain Alliance who speak with one voice in championing the establishment of an Australian Brain Initiative. These efforts have been led by the formidable Professor Linda Richards FAA, who has also seen to the formation, in this very theatre, of the Canberra Declaration to establish the International Brain Initiative. We thank Linda and her team for their vision and leadership.
Secondly, our Academy was also invited by the Royal Society to lead the development of a Consensus Statement on Climate Change agreed and launched by 22 national academies and societies of science from around the Commonwealth, in advance of the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in London, and this was supported by an informative Academy video that has been widely circulated and viewed.
Finally, Professor Trevor McDougall led a working group that assessed Australia’s climate science capabilities that was delivered to the Department of the Environment and Energy, after the reduction of CSIRO’s effort in the area. The document informed the deliberations of the National Climate Science Advisory Committee and the Academy received an invitation from the Department of Environment and Energy to prepare an International Climate Mapping Report “to provide information about the interactions and dependencies of Australian climate science with the international climate research effort”.
Notwithstanding these wonderful achievements, to my mind the initiative that has enabled us to have the greatest influence has been the production of our Academy science videos delivered through social media to the general community (www.science.org.au/curious).
Many of you would have had advance viewing of one or two of these videos at Science at the Shine Dome in May last year. By October, the production team was fully geared and able to launch its capability at the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science Dinner.
At that time the Academy’s Facebook following was about 9,000. Today more than 300,000 people across the globe follow our Facebook page and every day they sample a slice of science, through videos, photographs and articles. Content is distributed across a range of social media platforms. It brings me immense joy to know that the hard work of Fellows of the Academy can be reached by more people than ever before, and that we are doing our part in inspiring audiences who may have otherwise never been attracted to or interested in science. In the last 8 months the Academy has been able to reach and influence audiences it had never reached before.
Today, literally millions of people have viewed, shared and enjoyed our content. And today, this in-house capability is able to support every aspect of the Academy’s work including communication of scientific discoveries; highlighting the achievements of our Fellows, promotion of our education programs, calls for nominations for awards; campaign and advocacy support, and event support.
Additional and complementary outreach activities include our growing National Speaker Series and our public lecture series in Canberra. These activities have provided an important engagement opportunity with both members of the public and with Fellows.
Under the pillar of scientific literacy, we have our three major education initiatives, Primary Connections, Science by Doing, and reSolve: Mathematics by Inquiry which are due for renewal this year, and we have combined the oversight of the activities in education under an Education Committee chaired by Professor Ian Chubb.
Education activities have been overseen by Professor Pauline Ladiges who has done a magnificent job in unifying the themes, in overseeing all the projects and in identifying new sources of funding for various projects. We also acknowledge the service of Professor Denis Goodrum who leads Science by Doing and who has been associated with the Academy education projects from the very start.
The Academy’s longstanding commitment to science and maths education, supported by government and generous donations has enabled us to reach more than 23,500 primary school teachers, and engage two in every three high school teachers. We have developed 38 curriculum resources for primary school and a further 18 for secondary. Our maths modules cover every strand of the mathematics curriculum from foundation to year 10.
Above all, every independent evaluation of our programs has shown that they work. It is a legacy many have contributed to and that we can all be proud of.
The Foreign Secretary, Professor Cheryl Praeger, has kept Australia at the forefront of international activities. The International Programs Section of the Academy supports many types of international engagement of Australians in activities abroad. Some of the recent highlights include the Commonwealth Science Conference in Singapore, the Falling Walls meeting in Berlin, and the Nobel Laureates’ meeting in Lindau.
Cheryl has most ably represented the Academy at various InterAcademy Partnership gatherings and at Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia meetings, while Michael Barber and TJ Higgins served on special IAP working groups, and several of us attended the International Council for Science General Assembly in Taipei. I also attended the STS Forum in Kyoto, the Korean Academy of Science and Technology in Seoul and the Royal Society of Edinburgh where we exchanged a Memorandum of Understanding.
The Academy is fortunate to have an outstanding Secretariat under the leadership of the Chief Executive, Ms Anna-Maria Arabia. Through the dedication of the staff there has been strong support for all the programs, including an extensive investment in the Early- and Mid-Career Researcher Forum. Members of this Forum are now represented on most of our national committees and a representative attends Council meetings as an observer. I am delighted that so many EMCRs have been supported to participate in Science at the Shine Dome this year and can engage in networking and training opportunities here.
The most evident recognition of excellence in science in Australia is through the Academy’s annual election of its 21 Fellows and 2 Corresponding Members. I congratulate all those newly elected Fellows. It is through the service of the Fellows and the members of the Secretariat that we can implement all the other aspects of our Strategic Plan that I have already described. We strive to elect a diverse range of Fellows and award recipients in the Academy.
In this regard, we have been guided by an excellent Equity and Diversity Reference Group jointly chaired by Professors Sue O’Reilly and Peter Koopman. In the election of Fellows, we seek to broaden nominations to reflect the diversity of the scientific community in Australia, and our call to DVCs (Research) for suggestions has been fruitful.
Our efforts to elect more women require constant attention. We shall be discussing this again later today at our AGM. Some of the measures we have taken are the development of Champions of Diversity, and reaching out to decision makers in universities, Medical Research Institutes, and Publicly Funded Research Agencies encouraging them to nominate women for Fellowship.
We have also assisted our Council and Sectional Committee Chairs to recognise unconscious bias. This year, thanks to the University of Sydney, we have made available childcare and carer grants to delegates at this event. We have also launched assertive social media campaigns encouraging women to apply for the Awards the Academy administers. I am pleased to report that this year we have received double the number of applications for the two honorific awards that are specific to women: the Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science and the Dorothy Hill Medal.
About eighteen months ago the Council began developing a Code of Conduct for Fellows, the Secretariat and participants in Academy meetings. It has taken time to establish best practice in this area and consider all the legal implications of such a Code. We expect the Code to be ratified by Fellows of the Academy at today’s AGM and then made available on our website. This is a challenging area for organisations whose members are volunteers.
I’d like to illustrate this with the example of Professor Sir Anthony Blunt. Who was Anthony Blunt? He was a leading art historian, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art and Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures. He was a Fellow of the British Academy. After being offered immunity in 1964 he confessed to having been a Soviet spy along with Philby, Burgess and Maclean. The British Government agreed to maintain this as an official secret. However, on 15 November 1979 the relatively new Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, revealed Blunt’s treason in the House of Commons. The British Academy faced the dilemma of how to deal with this situation, and the story was related to some of us at a Royal Society Te Apārangi (New Zealand) meeting by the Chief Executives of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. On the one hand Professor Blunt was an eminent art historian who happened to be a traitor, while on the other hand he had not committed an offence against the British Academy. At the eleventh hour the British Academy agreed to accept Blunt’s resignation, although Wikipedia reports that he was dismissed.
As far as I am aware the Australian Academy of Science has not had the problem of spies, but most definitely we need a Code of Conduct to encourage appropriate behaviour and to deal consistently and fairly with behaviour that falls short of expectations. The Academy’s Code of Conduct is designed to allow this to happen in future situations and we hope it will encourage other STEM organisations to adopt best practice in this challenging area.
Next, I should like to acknowledge the contribution made by outgoing members of the Executive Committee. I should like to thank the outgoing Foreign Secretary, Professor Cheryl Praeger, and Secretary for Education and Public Awareness, Professor Pauline Ladiges, for their outstanding service on the Executive Committee, and to acknowledge the dedicated Council service of Professors Ian Hume, John Mattick, Sue O’Reilly and Mandyam (Srini) Srinivasan who will step down after the AGM today.
This represents my last Science at the Shine Dome as President of the Academy and I especially look forward to Professor John Shine’s Presidency that will formally commence later today.
The Academy extends its warmest congratulations to the seven Fellows recently elected to The Royal Society—Professors Jill Banfield (Corresponding Member), Frank Caruso, Graeme Jameson, Ingrid Scheffer, Michelle Simmons, Peter Vischer and Geordie Williamson (who was elected FAA this year). We also offer heartfelt congratulations to Professor Ron Ekers who has been elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences.
As with all roles of this nature, I conclude my presidency with some unfinished business. We set out with some lofty ambitions. Our work to improve engagement with our political leaders and the Fellowship will never be done and we should always strive to do better.
I had hoped to see the Academy increase its formal links with distinguished Australian academicians abroad, either through expanded Corresponding Membership or some new class of Fellowship.
We had ambitions to establish a public dialogue on Science for the Public Good, but discovered the theme was not sufficiently enticing for the National Press Club. Neither was the issue of Sexual Harassment in Academia. My hope is that alternative platforms for the Academy to show national leadership in both of these areas will become available in the future.
We are well on the way to holding our first joint event with members of the judiciary associated with the Academy of Law on the theme How can you be sure? This is to be held in the late afternoon on Friday 24 August at the Federal Court in Sydney.
We agreed that we need to do more in the Pacific region, and the early focus will be on Papua-New Guinea.
However, all this is unfinished business.
What we have achieved is due to the excellence of the members of Council, other engaged Fellows, and the Secretariat.
So, if we return to Mr Menzies we can definitely confirm that “science has an enormous capacity to expand its boundaries” and we can confidently predict that this will continue for the remainder of this century and further.
That brings me to the conclusion of my address.
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
