A national conference was held at the Academy’s Shine Dome in November to present and discuss the latest research and observations of the impacts of feral horses on the Australian Alps.

The Kosciusko Science Conference, involving 145 scientists and other stakeholders, followed an open letter from Fellows of the Academy and other researchers published in June. The letter made the point that the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act 2018 passed by the NSW Government effectively gave priority to the feral horse over many native species and ecosystems, some of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

The peer-reviewed research presented at the conference covered water catchments and water, alpine and sub-alpine native animals, and threatened native flora in Kosciuszko National Park, the Victorian Alpine National Park and Namadgi National Park.

Pioneering alpine ecologist and Academy Fellow, Dr Alec Costin AM, aged 93, was due to open the conference but was unable to attend due to ill health.

According to Dr Dick Williams from Charles Darwin University, who presented research at the conference, Dr Costin took on the on the alpine grazing industry in the Kosciuszko area in the 1950s and 1960s and with the help of the Australian Academy of Science, won.

In his preface in the conference booklet, Dr Costin asked: ‘Why legislate through the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act 2018 in favour of the feral horse, undoing 75 years of catchment-healing investments by multiple governments?’ Read Dr Costin's speech, delivered at the conference by Associate Professor Graeme Worboys.

The conference also saw 90 scientists sign a Kosciuszko Science Accord that called on the NSW Government to acknowledge the damage being done to Kosciuszko National Park by feral horses, to repeal the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act 2018 and cooperate with Victoria and the ACT to help remove feral horses from alpine and subalpine protected areas, among other things. Read Associate Professor Worboys' speech introducing the Accord.

Read the Kosciuszko Science Conference booklet, including abstracts of peer-reviewed research presented at the conference.

The Australian Academy of Science has won the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s (PRIA) Golden Target Award for Not-for-Profit In-House Team of the Year.

The Academy’s entry, titled “Science entry Credible Clickbait: Outshouting fake news & supplying factual, entertaining science” was among a number of award winners announced at the PRIA’s annual awards dinner in Sydney on 30 October. 

The award comes after the Academy celebrated reaching one million likes on its Facebook page earlier this month, from a starting point of 9,000 one year earlier.

Academy Chief Executive, Anna-Maria Arabia, said the award not only recognises the achievements of the Academy’s Communications and Outreach team, but also the public’s appetite for trusted and credible scientific information.

This is backed up by the University of Canberra’s Digital News Report: Australia 2018, which found  65% of Australians are concerned about what’s real and what isn’t when it comes to online news.

“The Academy is uniquely positioned to draw on the expertise and excellence of its Fellowship, comprising Australia’s most distinguished scientists, to inform the scientific information we distribute on social media.  This means the Academy’s content is a source of accurate, trustworthy and credible science designed to engage audiences far and wide” Ms Arabia said.

“The Academy’s impact is global and is one of a select group of organisations to be verified as a trusted education account on China’s social media platform, Weibo. Its Chinese language content has been viewed nearly 13 million times.”

According to the PRIA, the Golden Target Awards are ‘the PR and Communication industry’s longest running and most prestigious awards, celebrating the accomplishments of PR and Communication Professionals nationwide’.

The Australian Academy of Science expresses its concern that Ministerial veto has been made on eleven grant applications recommended for funding by the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Grants for research must be allocated according to the scientific merit of the proposal as judged by peer review. Political review is inappropriate, as it gives the appearance of political interference in the internationally accepted practice of peer review in science said Academy President Professor John Shine.

‘Appropriately, governments align funding schemes with national priorities and strategic objectives and they are able to indicate such criteria when calling for proposals.  However, within those criteria, scientific merit, as identified by independent peer review, should remain the central basis for allocating research support.’

‘In exchange for responsible and socially-conscious conduct in research, academic researchers should be free to pursue lines of enquiry they consider meaningful and important.  Indeed researchers are trained to identify problems or gaps in the academic literature and determine the best and most rigorous way to investigate that problem.’

‘Much of the value provided by research to policy makers and the public is due to its unbiased and independent nature and this should not be eroded,’ Professor Shine concluded.

Former Academy President Emeritus Professor Kurt Lambeck AO FAA FRS has been awarded the $250,000 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science for ‘transforming our understanding of our living planet’.

Professor Lambeck received the prize for his research that has revealed how our planet changes shape and the influence this has on sea levels, the movement of continents and the orbits of satellites.

His original work in the 1960s enabled accurate planning of space missions. It led him to use the deformation of continents during the ice ages to study changes deep in the mantle of the planet. It also led to a better understanding of the impact of sea level changes on human civilisation in the past, present and future.

“The Earth is remarkable,” Professor Lambeck said.

“It has this wonderful record of its history going back to almost its very beginning. Almost everywhere you look, you learn something new about what's been going on in our planet. It's a constant journey of discovery.”

Professor Lambeck guided the development of a comprehensive geodetic monitoring system called the AuScope network. Established with the support of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), the network consists of about 100 GPS stations, radio telescopes and laser tracking systems, and enables us to track our location with sub-centimetre accuracy across the country.

Professor Lambeck is now working with archaeologists in Europe, and with precision carbon dating equipment at the Australian National University, to piece together a more precise understanding of past sea levels.

See the full list of recipients of the 2018 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science

Academy breakfast for prize winners

In line with its annual tradition, on the morning following the Prime Minister's Prizes the Academy hosted a breakfast for the prize winners at the Shine Dome. There was no sign of a late night: conversations were energetic and convivial. Attendees included Academy President Professor John Shine, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Ms Karen Andrews, and several of her parliamentary colleagues. Congratulations to all the prize winners!

The Australian Academy of Science is proposing the development of a new ‘downward-looking telescope’ that could look at least 300 km beneath Earth’s surface to unlock Australia’s hidden mineral wealth.

The proposal is one of several in a 10-year plan for Australian Geoscience (2018–27) launched today by the Academy’s National Committee for Earth Sciences.

The 10-year plan highlights how the world’s shift towards mobile device technology, renewable energy sources and electric cars will involve massive increases in demand for copper, cobalt, gold, rare-earth elements and other specialty metals.

The Committee’s Chair, Professor Sue O’Reilly AM FAA, said one of the challenges for Australian geoscience in the coming decade is to ensure the right infrastructure is in place to know how and where to explore for the critical resources needed for Australia’s future.

“This is where the downward-looking telescope comes in,” Professor O’Reilly said.

“A piece of infrastructure like this would transform our minerals sector by making deep Australia visible. It would give us a new understanding of the vertical makeup of the continent and allow us to direct our mineral exploration efforts in the two-thirds of Australia that aren’t currently cost-effective to explore.”

“By 2030, global demand for cobalt will be 47 times what it was in 2016 so unless we can become self-sufficient in this strategic metal, Australia may be held to ransom with massive price increases and chronic shortages,” Professor O’Reilly said.

“This exemplifies the need to generate new geoscience knowledge that will allow us to explore successfully in the covered areas of Australia.”

The plan also draws attention to the weakness in geoscience in Australia’s education system.

“Geoscience is largely absent in Australia’s school system because of a lack of teachers with qualifications in geoscience. Geoscience should be embedded as a core subject within every level of Australian STEM education and earth science graduates should be incentivised to obtain education qualifications,” Professor O’Reilly said.

The plan also calls for an expansion of Australia’s national computational capability to ensure that Australia retains and extends its lead in geoscience simulation and modelling capability.

The National Committee for Earth Sciences acknowledges the support of the Australian Research Council, Geoscience Australia, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, Macquarie University and the Australian Geoscience Council in the development of the plan.

Read the decadal plan

What is an equinox? Why do you need a flu shot every year? Does the world have enough food?

These are just some of the questions the Australian Academy of Science has asked and answered since launching it’s an ambitious new initiative to connect more people with science.

In 12 months the Academy has produced more than 200 breaking news and other science videos and articles resulting in one million likes on its Facebook page, from a starting point of 9000.

The public’s appetite for trusted and credible scientific information from the Academy is backed up by the University of Canberra’s Digital News Report: Australia 2018, which found  65% of Australians are concerned about what’s real and what isn’t when it comes to online news.

All of the Academy’s content is thoroughly checked by scientists and Fellows to make sure only accurate, well researched information is shared.

The Academy’s impact is global and it is one of a select group of organisations to be verified as a trusted education account on China’s social media platform, Weibo. Its Chinese language content has been viewed nearly 13 million times.

Watch the videos and read the articles on our website, and like and follow us on social media:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

The Australian Academy of Science has joined with the Australian Department of Health to launch a series of videos, articles and images to dispel vaccination myths and to promote the benefits, safety and science of immunisation.

Secretary for Science Policy at The Australian Academy of Science, Professor David Day FAA, said the updated content is aimed at addressing some of the prevailing views toward immunisation revealed in the latest survey of Australians’ beliefs and attitudes towards science.

“Respondents from the survey who said childhood vaccination should not be compulsory cited reasons such as ‘(the) reaction can be harmful / allergic in some cases (18%) and ‘(I) don’t trust vaccines / they don’t always work / they’re not necessary (12%),” Professor Day said.

“We hope that the misunderstandings about immunisation that still exist in some parts of the community can be addressed through this new series.

“On a positive note the survey found that more than half of the respondents who supported compulsory vaccination for children cited herd immunity and other related ideas as a reason for their position. Herd immunity and how it works is one of the topics clearly explained in our video series,” Professor Day said.

Topics explored in each video, article and image include:

1.  Immunisation overview
2. What is immunisation?
3. What’s in a vaccine?
4. Who benefits from vaccination?
5. How safe are vaccines (and how do we know)?
6. What’s the future of vaccination? 

The content is based on the Academy publication: The Science of Immunisation: Questions and Answers.

The content has been rigorously fact-checked by Academy Fellows and features some of Australia’s leading experts in the field including:

• Laureate Professor Peter Doherty AO FAA, Doherty Institute, who won a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1996 for his contributions to the science of immunisation.
• Professor Anne Kelso AO FAA, CEO of the National Health and Medical Research Council
• Professor Robert Booy, immunologist, Westmead Institute for Medical Research
• Professor Ian Frazer FAA, Gardasil vaccine co-founder, University of Queensland
• Professor Julie Bines, lead rotavirus researcher at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Watch the videos and read the articles here.

Find out more via the Department of Health.

Applications are now open for eligible Australian research organisations and businesses who wish to apply for funding for projects and/or workshops under round two of the Regional Collaborations Programme.

The programme, administered by the Australian Academy of Science, will fund Australian participants from eligible organisations to collaborate with regional and international science, research and innovation partners on solutions to shared regional challenges within the Asia–Pacific region. The latest funding round was launched by the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews.

Funding of up to $1.38 million is available for collaborative, multi-partner projects. Projects are expected to commence after 1 April 2019 and must be completed by 31 December 2020.

Funding of up to a total of $250,000 is available for non-project aligned, multi-partner workshops. Up to $100,000 per workshop is available for workshops held between 1 April 2019 and 31 December 2020.

The first funding round provided five research projects with a total of just under $900,000. Nearly $2.5 million of matched funds by project partners was invested in the projects, close to a 3:1 return.

Dr Sarah Hamylton from the University of Wollongong was awarded $45,000 over three years to develop institutional capacity for regional monitoring of costal climate change impacts through remote sensing technologies.

“To be neighbourly is to be helpful, kind and supportive to those in your vicinity. This was the spirit adopted for a recent workshop I hosted on the Central Great Barrier Reef with support from the Regional Collaboration Program,” Dr Sarah Hamylton said.

Masters and PhD student participants from Indonesia’s Hasanuddin University are now incorporating skills covered during the workshop into their projects in the Spermonde Archipelago (Indonesia), with ongoing guidance from Dr Hamylton, who plans to visit their field site next year.

The deadline for applications for round two funding is 30 November 2018.

Ms Lisa Hunt from the University of Adelaide is the recipient of the Academy’s 2019 Moran Award for History of Science Research.

Ms Hunt, a History PhD candidate, will study the development of Australian science during a period of significant change (1945 to 1963), and its impact on popular perceptions of science in Australia. The Snowy Mountains Scheme, Australia’s First Nuclear Reactor and the Parkes Telescope will be used as case studies.

Ms Hunt said in each case, an historical account of the scientific development will be constructed from existing secondary sources, along with an analysis of primary sources obtained from institutional archival records and public records such as parliamentary proceedings.

“A longitudinal study of public discourse and popular culture such as print media, educational films, television and radio segments produced between 1939 and 1963 will also be undertaken, to provide insights into popular attitudes toward these important scientific developments over time,” Ms Hunt said.

The Moran Award for History of Science Research is aimed at postgraduate students and other researchers with expertise in the history of Australian science. More information about the Moran award. 

Dr Grace Muriuki, Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, is the recipient of a grant from the Academy’s 2019 WH Gladstones Population and Environment Fund.  

Dr Muriuki will use the grant to study food security in rural and remote indigenous communities of The Pilbara and the potential for resource corridors in local food systems.  

“It is well-known that the benefits and burdens of mining are distributed unevenly within remote communities. Studies have shown differential spatial patterns in economic and social dimensions of employment and income, housing access, education and skills training, public services, and non-mining business growth among different communities within resource-rich environments,” Dr Muriuki said.

“The research is aimed at identifying actions to maximise the potential of targeted corridors to disrupt systemic barriers to food insecurity in select remote communities.”

The WH Gladstones Population and Environment Fund offers support for empirical research into how the size, distribution, material aspirations and other characteristics of Australia’s population are likely to affect our environment. More information about the fund.

Leaders from Australia’s science and innovation sector met in Canberra today to discuss an ambitious vision for Australia’s rural research and innovation system over the coming decade.

The forum was convened by the Australian Academy of Science and its National Committee for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

It involved participants from Australia’s global and local agricultural biotechnology and agrochemical companies, the Rural Research and Development Corporations, the Commonwealth and state governments, CSIRO and Australian universities.

There was clear consensus that Australia is leading from a position of strength in agriscience. We have long-term mechanisms for research and commercialisation and a strong global reputation for safe, high-quality food production and manufacturing.

We have world-leading expertise in Australia’s challenging agricultural environment—dry-land broad-acre crops, meat and livestock production, horticulture, wine, fisheries and forestry to name just a few.

There was also recognition of the opportunities and the challenges inherent in new and disruptive technologies—remote monitoring and automated or autonomous planting, harvesting and processing systems for example—as well as the increasing globalisation of food value chains.

Priorities

Moving forward, participants agreed on a number of priorities:

• The critical nexus between food and agriculture with nutrition, health and sustainability
• Building a culture of trust and cooperation within and between agricultural research and innovations companies, research organisations and the community
• Increasing and enhancing the scope and value of Australia’s participation in global value chains
• Sustained, long-term investment in agricultural and related infrastructure to enable current and emerging technologies
• Better support for commercialisation of research into new products and services, including improved arrangements for management of IP and enhanced incentives for investors
• Sensible reform and coordination of Australia’s regulatory environment for both existing and emerging agricultural products and technologies
• Enhanced mechanisms to coordinate, share and benefit from big agricultural data collected by both private companies and governments.

Participants acknowledged the strong commitment to Australia’s rural science and innovation sector from the Commonwealth and state and territory governments, and welcomed the opportunity to engage with the several reviews currently in progress.

Participating organisations

• AgriFutures Australia
• Agri-Science Queensland
• ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Energy Biology
• AusBiotech
• Australian Academy of Science
• Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering
• Australian Centre for Robotic Vision
• Australian Farm Institute
• Australian Meat Processor Corporation
• Australian Pork Ltd
• Bayer Australia Ltd
• Cotton Research and Development Corporation
• Council of Rural Research and Development Corporations
• CropLife Australia
• CSIRO
• Department of Agriculture and Water Resources
• Corteva AgriSciences
• EY
• Farm Animal Research Australia
• Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
• Food Agility CRC
• Grains Research and Development Corporation
• Horticulture Innovation Australia Ltd
• Howard Partners
• NSW Department of Primary Industries
• Sugar Research Australia Ltd
• The Crawford Fund
• The University of Sydney
• The University of Melbourne
• University of Western Australia
• Wine Australia