Innovation agenda a turning point for Australian science
The Academy today welcomed the government’s national innovation and science agenda as a turning point for science in Australia.
Secretary for Science Policy Professor Les Field said: “This new agenda means we can grow an economy based on our outstanding science, and which makes the best use of our significant scientific capital.”
The national innovation and science agenda includes:
- Expansion of Innovation Council to become Innovation and Science Australia and coordinate science expenditure across Government
- Establishment of Innovation and Science Committee of Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister
- $2.3 billion over 10 years for national infrastructure $2.3 billion over 10 years
- $75 million for Data61
- $70 million from government towards a $200 million CSIRO innovation fund
- $250 million Biomedical translation fund
- $36 million for a ‘Global innovation strategy’, international engagement, including $22 million to assist Australia collaboration with international research-industry clusters
- support for the joint Academy–ATSE initiative to improve gender equity in science, SAGE.
Read the Academy’s media release response to the announcement. The Academy will soon make a more in-depth response.
Innovation agenda a turning point for Australian science
The government’s national innovation and science agenda announced today puts science and innovation at the centre of Australia’s future, with 20 initiatives to boost research and innovation, including in education, research infrastructure, and international collaboration in science and business.
The Australian Academy of Science’s Secretary for Science Policy Professor Les Field said: “This new agenda represents a turning point. It means we can grow an economy based on our outstanding science, and which makes the best use of our significant scientific capital.”
“The Academy is delighted that the Government intends to strongly support strategic investment in Australia’s scientific research infrastructure. We also welcome the new Global Innovation Strategy which will enable Australian scientists and science to be a part of the excellent science and innovation being done around the world.
“For a long time Australia has lagged behind many other countries when it comes to commercialising ideas from universities and research organisations,” Professor Field said.
“With this agenda, the Turnbull Government has recognised that innovation is key to Australia’s future and that the ideas and knowledge produced by research are key to innovation. The Australian Academy of Science is excited at the prospect that this will be the beginning of long-term engagement between Government, researchers and industry.”
Professor Field welcomed the restoration of funding to the CSIRO and Data61. “It is great to see the Government recognising CSIRO’s unique role as the great Australian innovator that uses the best science to address Australia’s challenges,” he said.
He also welcomed the Government’s commitment to improving gender equity in science.
New Early- and Mid-Career Forum executive announced
The Academy's Early- and Mid-Career (EMCR) Forum has announced changes to its executive team.
The EMCR Forum is the national voice for Australia's emerging scientists, representing scientists who are up to 15 years post-PhD.
Executive leadership
The new team includes Dr Nikola Bowden as committee chair, along with Dr Adrian Carter and Dr Michael Crichton who will each take on the role of deputy chairs.
Dr Nikola Bowden has been a member of the EMCR Forum Executive since 2014 and was this year named a NSW Tall Poppy. She works at the Hunter Medical Research Institute in Newcastle investigating DNA repair in cancer.
Dr Adrian Carter is the editor of the EMCR Forum’s newsletter: EMCR Pathways and a member of the EMCR Forum Executive since 2015. His research examines the impact that neuroscience has on understanding and treatment of addiction and other compulsive behaviours and he is based at Monash University.
Dr Michael Crichton works on novel biomedical devices with the aim of producing and improving microdevices for drug and vaccine delivery. He has previously worked in industry but currently performs research at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) at the University of Queensland. He joined the EMCR Forum executive in 2015.
New members joining in 2016
In addition to current members Dr Sharath Sriram and Dr Roslyn Hickson, the executive also now includes five new members (listed below) selected from 42 applicants from around the country.
Dr Hamish Clarke is a recent PhD graduate who works at the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. In his spare time he brings science to the masses by running Science at the Local, a way for the Blue Mountains' community to engage with scientists and current scientific research.
Associate Professor Drew Evans is a member of the South Australian Science Council which advises the Chief Scientist of South Australia. His research is performed at the Future Industries Institute at the University of South Australia where he works in the area of translational materials research and is co-inventor on numerous patents.
Dr Elizabeth New is a lecturer at the University of Sydney where her work focusses on the development of small molecule fluorescent and magnetic resonance probes for the study of biological systems. She has received numerous award both for her research and her work in outreach. She is a 2015 NSW Tall Poppy Award winner.
Dr Carly Rosewarne is a geneticist who studies “the unseen majority”, commonly known as microbes at CSIRO in Adelaide. She is also a passionate advocate for gender diversity in science and is seeking to encourage more female EMCRs to acts as mentors.
The research career of Dr Irene Suarez-Martinez has been dedicated to the atomistic modelling of carbon materials and she is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Curtin University. She has also contributed widely in the science outreach area from presenting at science festivals to producing short films about nanoscience.
Innovators and leading thinkers recognised in Science Academy awards
Scientists who are leading the world on solar energy efficiency, helping to develop one-shot flu vaccines, and making portable biosensors to detect viruses are among the winners of the Australian Academy of Science’s annual honorific awards.
Each year the Academy presents awards to recognise scientific excellence, to researchers in the early stage of their careers through to those who have made life-long achievements.
This year’s announcement includes 17 award winners across astronomy, nanoscience, mathematics, chemistry, physics, environmental science and human health.
Professor Martin Green, sometimes known as the “father of photovoltaics”, has won the prestigious Ian Wark Medal and Lecture for his world-record breaking work improving solar efficiency.
Dr Jane Elith and Associate Professor Cyrille Boyer, who recently won awards in the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, will be the recipients of this year’s Fenner and Le Févre prizes.
The Academy President, Professor Andrew Holmes congratulated all the award winners for their work.
The awards will be formally presented at the Academy’s annual three day celebration of Australian science, Science at the Shine Dome, in Canberra in May 2016.
See the list of winners below
Career honorifics
2016 David Craig Medal
Professor Jeffrey Reimers FAA University of Technology, Sydney
Professor Jeffrey Reimers is a chemist who has pioneered the application of chemical quantum theories in biochemical and technological areas. His work helps to explain the solar-to-electrical energy conversion during photosynthesis and has also evaluated the role of chemical quantum effects in manifesting consciousness.
2016 Haddon Forrester King Medal and Lecture
Professor Murray Hitzman Colorado School of Mines
Professor Murray Hitzman is a minerals scientist and geologist who has pioneered new understandings of the physics and chemistry of mineral formation. His research has an important impact upon mineral exploration around the world.
2016 Mawson Medal and Lecture
Professor Colin Vincent Murray-Wallace University of Wollongong
Professor Colin Murray-Wallace is a coastal scientist who uses shells to track environmental and sea level change. This work is particularly relevant today in understanding coastal evolution under a progressive sea level rise.
2016 Ian Wark Medal and Lecture
Scientia Professor Martin Green AM FAA FRS FTSE UNSW
Known as the “Father of Photovoltaics”, Professor Martin Green is a world leader in the field. Several generations of his group’s technology have been successfully commercialised and he has helped develop some of the most efficient silicon solar cells in the world.
Mid-career honorifics
2016 Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health
Professor David Wilson Burnet Institute
Associate Professor David Wilson models infectious disease outbreaks, particularly HIV. His modelling informs our understanding of future risks, enables better decision-making and how best to target resources in a global health context.
2016 Jacques Miller Medal for experimental biomedicine
Associate Professor Katherine Kedzierska The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Katherine Kedzierska researches immune responses to virus outbreaks, including influenza, with a particular focus on how best to protect vulnerable and high-risk groups. Her cutting edge work could lead to the development of a one-shot flu jab for life.
2016 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science
Dr Elena Belousova ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid Systems, Macquarie University
Dr Elena Belousova has achieved international renown for TerraneChron®, a method of analyzing trace elements in zircon and applying this technology to studying the evolution of the earth’s crust, with major significance for mineral exploration.
Early career honorifics
2016 John Booker Medal
Dr Paolo Falcaro CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering
Dr Paolo Falcaro engineers nano-materials with highly specialised properties. Working at the molecular level, he has developed materials to decontaminate water and improve medicine delivery. He is also developing portable biosensors to detect viruses during outbreaks.
2016 Fenner Medal
Dr Jane Elith University of Melbourne
Dr Jane Elith has rapidly become one of the world’s most influential researchers in applied ecology. She uses novel tools to understand species distribution in the wild, helping to better inform environmental managers and governments on invasive species, land-use and improving biodiversity.
Photo credit: Joe Armao/The Age
2016 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal
Associate Professor Geoffrey John Faulkner Mater Research Institute University of Queensland
Associate Professor Geofrey Faulkner has analysed the genomes of individual brain cells, identifying genetic changes that may impact how neurons function. His pioneering work has implications both for our understanding of brain disorders and future treatments.
2016 Gottschalk Medal
Professor Ostoja Vucic University of Sydney
Professor Ostoja Vucic’s pioneering research has uncovered the processes that can trigger Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a motor neurone disease. His research has led to new treatments and a new technique to diagnose ALS, resulting in earlier, more effective interventions.
2016 Anton Hales Medal
Professor John Paterson University of New England
Professor John Paterson is a world-leading researcher on the earliest animals in the fossil record, using exceptionally preserved Australian fossils to answer major questions relating to evolution, biogeography and palaeoecology.
2016 Christopher Heyde Medal
Dr Luke Bennetts University of Adelaide
Dr Luke Bennetts is an applied mathematician who models how different kinds of waves interact with objects in their path. His work has improved understanding of how ocean waves interact with sea ice, with direct implications for understanding and forecasting Earth’s climate.
2016 Dorothy Hill Award
Dr Andréa Taschetto UNSW
Dr Andrea Taschetto is a leader in climate systems science. Her research has significantly advanced our understanding of the role of the Pacific and Indian Oceans in regional climate variability.
2016 Pawsey Medal
Dr Ilya Shadrivov Australian National University
Dr Ilya Shadrivov is developing new metamaterials which have properties not usually found in nature, such as the ability to selectively absorb some colours of light, or beam electromagnetic waves in specific directions. These have great implications for the next generation technologies.
2016 Frederick White Prize
Dr Michael James Ireland Australian National University
Dr Michael Ireland develops and applies the latest optical and infrared technologies to build innovative astronomical instruments to investigate the lifecycles of stars and planets.
2016 Le Févre Memorial Prize
Associate Professor Cyrille Boyer UNSW
Associate Professor Cyrille Boyer is an authority in the field of polymer science, developing innovative methods of polymerisation. His demonstration of how chlorophyll and light can control polymerisation of functional macromolecules has implications for the synthesis of macromolecules using bio-resources.
New edition of Historical Records of Australian Science
The Academy's Historical Records of Australian Science journal has released its December volume.
First published in 1966, Historical Records of Australian Science publishes peer-reviewed articles and book reviews on the history of science in Australia and the southwest Pacific and biographical memoirs of deceased Fellows of the Academy.
The latest volume includes articles on the history of science centres and museums in Australia and a memoir of the late immunologist, Gordon Ada.
Registrations now open: Science at the Shine Dome 2016
Registrations are now open for the Academy's annual celebration of science, Science at the Shine Dome.
Science at the Shine Dome (24–26 May 2016) will feature more than 40 outstanding scientists from around Australia—and special international guests—in a fast-paced three day conference showcasing new knowledge from across the scientific spectrum. The festival will finish with Human PLUS, a one day symposium on how science and technology is changing what it means to be human.
Science at the Shine Dome will also see newly announced Fellows admitted to the Academy and awards presented to its 2016 Academy award winners.
This event is held each year in the iconic Shine Dome building in Canberra.
Register today to secure your place and join us for this three-day celebration of science.
Article—Iodine deficiency in Australia: A call for action
26 May 2008
Concerns about a resurgence of iodine deficiency among mothers and children prompted a one-day forum in Canberra under the auspices of the Australian Academy of Science, International Life Sciences Institute Australia and the Nutrition Society of Australia. Although there were differing views as to the most effective actions to avoid iodine deficiency in Australia, there was almost unanimous agreement that there was cause for concern and that steps must be taken to avoid a serious situation developing.
Officially, Australia is now an iodine-deficient country based on studies of urinary excretion.1 The seriousness of the issue is reflected by the recent release of a proposal by Food Standards Australia New Zealand2 to extend the New Zealand-only standard, mandating the replacement of salt with iodised salt in bread to include Australia. Universal salt iodisation (USI) is recommended by the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency – the expert international body – and WHO's key strategy to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders.
After the opening of the forum by the Hon Richard Colbeck, the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Professor Cres Eastman described the features of iodine deficiency disorders and the intakes necessary to avoid signs of deficiency. Professor Eastman emphasised that even mild iodine deficiency would result in a reduction in average IQ and fewer gifted individuals. He noted studies from NSW and Victoria confirming that iodine deficiency is prevalent in more than 50% of pregnant women living in these states. Where USI has not been implemented, WHO recommends iodine supplements for vulnerable groups.
Dr Mu Li summarised recent studies on the iodine status of mainland Australian school children, showing that about 50% are classified as mildly or moderate iodine deficient. Among that group, 14% of children in NSW and 19% in Victoria (20% in Tasmania from 2001 data) are classed as moderately iodine deficient.
Professor Caryl Nowson described strategies for monitoring and education of the population, highlighting the need for government-funded ongoing systematic monitoring of different population groups in order to confirm the effectiveness of any iodine intervention strategy.
Dr Sheila Skeaff described the situation in New Zealand, concluding that fortification was imperative to increase iodine intakes in vulnerable groups. She emphasised that women planning a pregnancy, or pregnant and lactating women, must take an iodine supplement and that weaning foods be fortified to avoid iodine deficiency in infants and toddlers.
Ms Judy Seal described Tasmania's iodine supplementation program, begun in 2001, as in interim measure ahead of a national program. The use of iodised salt in bread and monitoring of iodine status has seen a small but significant increase in the iodine status of most Tasmanians. The status of pregnant women, however, remained inadequate.
Dr Dorothy Mackerras described the current regulatory situation in Australia and New Zealand and described mathematical models to increase population intakes so that the proportion with inadequate intakes and the proportion exceeding the upper level were minimised. She noted that, as the range of fortified foods increases, the concentration of iodine in salt has to be reduced to achieve the same result. Mandating iodised salt in bread alone (at 45 milligram iodine per kilogram salt) increases intakes in children aged 2 to 3 years such that less than 1% would have an inadequate intake and only 6% would have intake above the upper level. This approach also reduces the proportion of adult women with inadequate intakes from 59% to 9%. Owing to the higher requirements during pregnancy and lactation, most women in this life-stage would have inadequate intakes, although there is an overall increase of nearly 50 micrograms per day. Similar increases in iodine intake would be achieved across the different population groups by mandating USI using a concentration of 15 milligram iodine per kilogram salt. However USI would be more costly and impact imported foods. In all models, whether bread alone, USI or other possible scenarios, the upper level in young children is the limiting factor.Most, if not all of the experts, attending the meeting agreed that the upper level figure for 1 to 3 year-old children was an arbitrary figure and unlikely to be of pathophysiological significance.
Dr Stephen Goodall summarised modelling of the costs of iodine fortification of bread, demonstrating that mandatory fortification was the most cost-effective option.
A food industry perspective was presented by Ms Fiona Fleming from George Weston Foods. She emphasised that the most vulnerable groups – pregnant and lactating women – were not effectively targeted by mandatory fortification of bread with iodised salt. She wanted a commitment to urinary iodine monitoring program to avoid the situation that occurred with mandatory thiamine fortification. The food industry prefers voluntary use of iodised salt in food manufacture, based on developing a Memorandum of Understanding.
The final speaker was Dr Geoffrey Annison from the Australian Food and Grocery Council. His view was that there not sufficient evidence to document effective targeting using bread. He expressed concern that there were no initiatives to support the proposals with education and little exploration of alternative approaches.
Professor Jennie Brand-Miller
Chair, National Committee for Nutrition
- Li, Eastman et al, Medical Journal of Australia, June 2008
www.mja.com.au/public/issues/188_11_020608/contents_020608.html - Food Standards Australia and New Zealand proposal P1003
www.foodstandards.gov.au/standardsdevelopment/proposals/proposalp1003mandato3882.cfm - International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency
www.iccidd.org/
Article—New era of fiscal restraint for Australia
The following article by Sir Gustav Nossal, President of the Australian Academy of Science, was published in Nature.
The first Budget of the new Coalition government offers an opportunity to reflect on the way in which Australian science must adapt to an environment of fiscal rectitude.
On 20 August, Australia's new Liberal-National Coalition government handed down its first Budget. The scientific community was facing a situation where the Treasurer, Mr Peter Costello, was committed to severe cuts, needing to repair (over two years) a $8-billion deficit without raising taxes. In this context, Mr Peter McGauran, the Minister of Science and Technology, actually did very well.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's largest research agency, escaped essentially unscathed, although some hoped-for budgetary increases of $20 million a year for three years will in fact have to be repaid by asset sales and other savings. Nevertheless, the maintenance of the CSIRO budget was an important victory.
The other main government science agencies suffered moderate cuts. Some will compensate by becoming more commercially focused.
Another triumph was a substantial increase in the funding of the Australian Research Council, the government's main agency for supporting non-medical research in Australian universities. This increase includes more postgraduate scholarships.
A modest increase in funds for the National Health and Medical Research Council for medical research in universities, teaching hospitals and medical research institutes will be matched by new funds from the UK Wellcome Trust. This partnership between public and private sectors is likely to be highly beneficial for medical research. But these increased funds are dwarfed by government reductions in tax concessions for industrial research and development (R&D).
The rather open-ended Research and Development Syndication Scheme has gone, at least partly because it was being used by those more interested in tax minimisation than R&D. This is a pity: it would have been fairly straightforward to close the tax loopholes without axing the scheme altogether.
Syndication has been replaced by a new 'Start' initiative to provide grants, loans and interest-rate subsidies for high-risk research and high R&D spending. Whether this will fill the gap remains to be seen. It is clear, however, that the sums foreseen for Start are much smaller than those saved on syndication. The scheme will also take some time to get going, and in the meantime much momentum will be lost.
The previous, widely praised scheme of 150 per cent tax deduction for industrial R&D has been reduced to 125 per cent. This is unfortunate because largely through this and other government-backed schemes, Australia had begun to redress its traditional imbalance between fundamental and applied research. Industrial R&D has recently been increasing fairly substantially, although from a small base, as have Australian exports based on high technology. To jeopardise this seems imprudent. Some of the more thoughtful business leaders, including Mr John Prescott, Managing Director of BHP, Australia's largest corporation, have criticised the government for reducing incentive for innovation just as the tide appeared to have turned.
University funding is to be cut by around 5 per cent over the next three years, and student fees repaid through the Higher Education Contribution Scheme are to increase substantially. The implication of this move to user pays is clear, and there is no indication from the government that the extra fees raised should go back into tertiary education. Universities are encouraged to become more independent, with fewer bureaucratic controls. Further, they can retain the fees they charge for students recruited over and above the government-mandated quota in various subject areas.
Given that many of these quotas have been difficult to fill, however, it is doubtful that these savings will amount to very much. The offset of a thousand scholarships a year to soften the blow for the best less-well-to-do students is too small even to warrant comment.
Australia's university system seems to be heading in the general direction of that of the United States. There will be more pluralism, strong and weak institutions and extreme competition for student numbers, with recruitment of full fee paying overseas students an important factor. Invariably, there will be hardship in the academic community, although a freed-up system will certainly reward the most able and sought-after academics and punish the less productive ones. The entry of the marketplace will have to be administered with great care by vice chancellors, particularly to protect creativity and the right to be different and to dissent.
Fiscal rectitude, not some well-articulated plan for 'the clever country', was the key driver of this first budget. The rhetoric in favour of a higher profile for science and engineering is now strong on both sides of the Australian political fence. Even as economically rationalist a body as the Industry Commission has seen the need for excellence in Australian R&D, praising university research and urging CSIRO to concentrate on the more strategic, pre-competitive aspects of its work.
The new growth economics suggests that countries emphasising an entrepreneurial culture and technological innovation and building a first-class educational system are destined to thrive in the next millennium. So it is sobering to see the proportion of the total pain that will now be borne by the higher-education sector and industry committed to R&D. The 1997/98 budget will probably have a similar flavour.
There are really only two pathways for expansion in fundamental research. The first will be the difficult task of forging a partnership with industry in which the academic sector is valued for what it can contribute, not for short-term tactical problem-solving.
The second will be an extension of what has been so well begun through the Cooperative Research Centre Scheme. Initiated by the former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, the scheme has been strongly supported by the Coalition. It seeks to build collaborative networks (there are already 62) between different fields of science and technology, where academic and government laboratories (particularly CSIRO) and industry work together. A government commitment of (usually) $2 million a year must be at least matched (in cash or in kind) by the partners. The result has been a pooling of skills and resources, a new broader commitment to the education of postgraduates, and a better mutual appreciation of problems and challenges. There is a robust tradition of competition in Australian science: it is time to work together more creatively.
Australia's excellence in basic science can continue only if the attitudes of the past can be modified. The traditional handout mentality will no longer work; entrepreneurial self-help will be required. This will include intelligent partnerships with industry and multi-skilled networks and task forces that come together as needs dictate. Industrial R&D will have to prosper with less government subsidy and so win over those in corporate boardrooms who do not have first-hand experience of true wealth generation through innovation and high technology.
© Copyright, Nature
Article—Science must experiment with business
On 12 August 1997, the following article by Professor Sir Gustav Nossal, President of the Australian Academy of Science, was published in The Australian.
Despite having many runs on the board, a crucial research and development scheme is under threat.
The Cooperative Research Centres Program is one of Australia's best kept secrets. Set up to forge closer links between industry, government laboratories and academics, it is under threat from the recently released Mortimer report, raising issues that must concern all Australians.
Australia has a proud record of scientific achievements across a broad front. Our Nobel prizes are just the tip of the iceberg. The consistent record of inventiveness, chiefly from the CSIRO, universities and the medical research institutes, makes our scientists welcome and respected figures at meetings or forums anywhere.
Yet turning that creativity into commercial outcomes has not been easy. In the past, three factors conspired to limit the economic benefits flowing from our research and development:
- The truncation of Australian industry: much manufacturing, and most of the 'high-tech' end, is performed by multinationals, which traditionally confined their R&D to large industrial centres near head office.
- A gulf between the academic and commercial worlds: there was little understanding and virtually no movement between the two sectors.
- Risk-averseness and poor technological awareness in corporate boardrooms: R&D was seen as a luxury somehow taking away directly from the 'bottom line'.
During the past decade, all of this has been changing. Governments of both political persuasions have come to realise that innovation, advanced technologies, and science-rich goods and services will dominate global trade. Excellence in these areas, underpinned by a sturdy science base and first-class education system, will determine the success of nations. Much government policy has been aimed at increasing industrial R&D and at bridging the cultural gulf between town and gown. Industry is focusing more on R&D, with a big lift in spending, and the multinationals are seeing the advantages of R&D outposts in Australia.
Enter the Cooperative Research Centres or CRCs. Started in 1991, each centre is built around a particular area of endeavour and aims to produce concrete commercial, environmental or social outcomes. The scheme rests on a government grant of about $2 million a year per centre, which has to be matched by the participants.
In the event, most centres managed to contribute much more than their required share. With 65 centres funded by the government to a total of $146 million a year, an exciting new research system spending more than $500 million a year is transforming the national R&D scene.
In its brief history, the scheme has achieved some notable successes. The photonics CRC has developed a signal-dispersion compensator and a fibre-optic current sensor as contributions to the vastly expanding information-communications technology sector.
The CRC for tissue repair and growth factors based in Adelaide has developed cheap and cost-effective new animal husbandry technologies. The CRC for mine site rehabilitation is producing answers to a vexing national problem.
The CRC for Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research is providing highly original data for the climate-change debate. The new CRC based in Darwin is attacking the worst problem of Aboriginal health. Beyond all that, the centre's vigorous postgraduate training programs are providing a new breed of scientist, comfortable in bridging basic research and industrial realities.
The Mortimer report, a review of government-funded business programs issued last month and now on the Cabinet agenda has many admirable features. The Australian Academy of Science welcomes its overall strategic thrust, which seeks to increase economic growth. But we strongly oppose the suggestion that funding for the CRC program should shrink from $146 million to $20 million, the latter purely for 'public good' research. The only reasons the report gives for this are doctrinaire and flawed. It argues that the program 'funds institutions rather than research activities' and that this is 'inconsistent with the review's program design principles'.
In fact, each CRC performs only research and related training activities, embraces many institutions (favouring no single one) and complies in all ways with what Mortimer is arguing for.
Mortimer considers that the program confers 'a private benefit to participants'. If there are such huge private benefits, why attack the program as being too oriented to research providers? In any case, most CRCs have multiple industrial partners, contributing to and benefitting from research in many instances.
Mortimer acknowledges that the CRC program has helped to remedy business under-investment in research and has successfully brought disparate but complementary research interests together.
The Academy would go further. The CRCs have brought about a sea change in mind-set. They have built a momentum of cultural change in research and industry that must not be slowed or halted.
They are the best means we have of boosting the uptake of innovation and are being imitated in several Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
In a harsh, competitive world, schemes to support industry R&D are one of the few World Trade Organisation-approved tools left to improve economic performance. David Mortimer, you have done a good job for the country; please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater!
Article—Does the knowledge base of today serve knowledge—the industry of tomorrow?
The following article by Professor Brian D O Anderson, President, was published in the Business/Higher Education Round Table Newsletter. It was published on the Academy's website on 26 July 1999.
In the future, companies will build their success on the ownership or use of some sort of knowledge. The wealth of countries will also be built on knowledge.
Knowledge is what turns raw materials into marketable products. Knowledge is creating new materials and new types of products and processes. In many cases, knowledge itself is the product. Commodities that do not contain knowledge are worth very little, to importers and to consumers, and are declining in value.
On the other hand, clever products are precious and profitable. When products embody knowledge, the copying of that knowledge is often cheap. In a CD-ROM of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, retailing at about $200, the raw material from which the disk is fabricated might cost about $1 and reproduction might cost another $1. The rest of the value is knowledge. So if you have the knowledge, its cost of replication is in many cases almost nothing.
For a car, the cost of production is a much greater part of the final price. Even so, knowledge – incorporated into clever materials, aerodynamic design, lean production methods and computerised driving controls – is increasingly adding value to cars and differentiating luxury models from basic ones.
In agriculture, biotechnology may soon increase the knowledge that goes into growing the food we eat; indeed, the biotechnology revolution of the 21st century will over the medium to long term be profoundly transformational of world society
There are other areas of knowledge where advances have profound implications for our future. Examples include materials science and nanotechnology.
However, in this short paper I will concentrate on one area of knowledge that is also a key technology-computing and communications technology.
The lessons to be drawn from computing and communications technology could also be drawn, in very similar terms, from other areas of scientific and technological growth.
For most of this century, as people have moved from the country to cities and from factories to offices, service industries have been the fastest growing part of advanced economies. Knowledge is almost the defining characteristic of a service industry: think of stock brokers, travel agents, traders and the professions. One of the largest service industries of all is government, which is nothing if not a producer and user of knowledge.
The tool that has been used to apply knowledge to every area of business and government, and which as a result has become a major industry itself, is the computer. It is the most pervasive tool in modern society: farming, mining, manufacturing, banking, airlines, education and public services – all depend on computer hardware and software and communication networks.
On a scale of intelligence that goes from data, through information and then knowledge, to wisdom, computers have progressed from processing data to handling information, that is, organised data. In limited areas, such as medicine and law, inventors assert that their expert computer systems have knowledge. No computer system yet exhibits wisdom.
But computers and communication are the key technology of the information revolution. In a decade or two, the most successful companies will be those which manage knowledge the best, and much of their success will be based on computer systems which are knowledgable i.e. in some ways mimic human reasoning processes. The beginning glimmers can be seen, in medicine and law as mentioned above, and in technologies such as datamining. The internet search engine company, Yahoo, was recently valued by the stock market at billions of dollars – and in comparison with the knowledge engines we shall see in a few years, it is primitive.
Acquiring and using new knowledge of course means research, development and training involving a broad range of disciplines. But as well as discovering smarter processes and products, we need to find out how people gain and use knowledge within an organisation. In part reflecting the process of organisational flattening, but also because of its intrinsic value, the future outstanding companies will need the capability to extract and store tacit knowledge or relevant experience from their individual employees, and organise it into a framework that makes it easily accessible to others in the organisation to enhance how they can work. Today this is impossible, for we lack a workable theory of knowledge which embraces its representation, manipulation and transmission between one machine and another and between machines and people.
Because of the huge investment all industries are making in knowledge, information technology and telecommunications are forecast to become the largest sector of economic activity worldwide. If the same thing is to happen in Australia in a manner that confers the full benefits on our citizens rather than foreign shareholders, we have to act decisively and deliberately. A precondition to stay at the forefront of a knowledge industry, like any other, is research in its underpinning technologies.
In September 1998 the Australian Research Council published a review of the Australian disciplinary research base in information technology, prepared by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, called Information Technology: Sink or Swim. This report sounds not just a muted alarm bell, but a deafening siren for Australia, a siren directed at governments, universities and business. The report says, in relation to our IT research capability, 'We are going backwards.' And at the same time the report notes that the ratio of IT imports to exports is 4:1 against us and worsening.
As the preface to the Sink or Swim report states, 'Either Australia embraces the Information Age wholeheartedly and moves towards a prosperous future in the 21st century or it continues to rely on primary industry exports to be able to import the high technology products which are so enthusiastically consumed. If Australia chooses the first option and "swims" with the tide, it can join other countries like Ireland, Israel, Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. But if Australia continues down its current path, it will "sink" in the face of ever increasing competition from emerging nations in agricultural and minerals markets.'
What are we failing to do? The report dwells mainly on the failures in training and shortcomings of the disciplinary research base – other reports have dwelt on the industry structure. First, Australia is moving backwards, relative to its competitors, in terms of the supply of professional IT staff and trained researchers for business and academia. The Sink or Swim report says that the number of computer science graduates needs to be increased, with six times as many postgraduate students by 2010! This newsletter has published figures (June 1998) showing that in 1992, compared to Australia, Japan had four times as many engineering graduates as a percentage of total graduates; it would be no surprise to see a similar figure in information science and technology.
Having qualified people for research and industry makes up one part of the supply chain. Maintaining the intellectual pace in the universities and CSIRO is another. Sink or Swim says our position in IT research and development is declining relative to other countries. Business research performance in the IT area is low and university research groups often lack a critical mass.
Many recent government actions have not helped. We have a government which significantly attenuated the financial attractiveness for industry to engage in research and development, notwithstanding the endorsement by the Industries Commission of the justice in public funding of R&D tax concessions, given the spillover benefits. Unfortunately this has also occurred when international surveys have demonstrated the significantly lower priority given to innovation by Australian company executives as compared to their foreign counterparts.
The government has also increased the price of a tertiary science or engineering education relative to the humanities.
Nevertheless, the Federal Government has initiated one significant development recently: setting up the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing, headquartered at the Australian National University. This is a consortium of Australian universities established to operate a high-performance computing facility for research, training and the diffusion of techniques to industry.
Another round of Cooperative Research Centre grants will be decided in the near future. All the proposals for new IT cooperative research centres were knocked out in the preliminary screening. The only way to maintain the rather low level of IT research conducted through the CRC program is for all the existing centres seeking renewal to receive funding.
Governments have known for a number of years, through a variety of reports, that computer science as an intellectual discipline in Australian universities is weak. Both Labor and coalition governments have been unable to create policies to fix an area of national importance.
There seems a lack of systematic policy instruments to address the problem. The Australian Research Council cannot do it: its job is, broadly, the support of excellence. The Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing is confined to a small disciplinary area. The Cooperative Research Centre program is not designed to build up weak but important areas.
These problems have been exacerbated by the substantial lowering of government funding for universities. Because of the comparative sparsity of local outstanding academic talent, universities have desperate need of some outstanding talent from abroad in the IT area. The universities must have sufficient money to attract distinguished individuals to nucleate centres of excellence.
The starting salaries offered by industry to bachelor computer science graduates tempt them away from further study. To train the most talented graduates for research, we need to offer more attractive postgraduate scholarships in selected disciplines. A recent Government move to offer 50 new post graduate industry-linked scholarships is welcome, but obviously only a small component of fixing our problem.
The privatisation of government utilities such as Telstra has also meant that these utilities have reduced substantially the attention they give to conducting or subcontracting research and development with universities. They are understandably putting more effort into seeking to maintain a market share through better customer service, and lowering cost structures.
Last year I gave evidence to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science. I argued that the government needs a mechanism to compensate for the loss of utility funding for IT research. The rural research funds could be a model: to reduce the demand on public funds, industry stakeholders contribute.
The problem of corporate under-investment in research and development needs addressing in the most determined way, and not just of course for the IT sector. The 150 per cent tax concession for research and development should be restored, or a variant of it introduced – there are plenty of international models. The Government should also implement the Ralph report proposals to move away from our punitive capital gains tax regime.
Australia will only remain among the advanced countries through the production and exploitation of knowledge. If a company has knowledge, it can make profits. If a nation has knowledge, it can survive and prosper in an information revolution. But we must have a change of public policy settings and private attitudes.