Issue #1498      20 April 2011

Research funding crucial

Letter to the Prime Minister from Universities Australia

Dear Prime Minister,

Vigorous national research and innovation effort is critical to the strength and dynamism of Australia’s economy and society. Bold public and private investment in its innovative people and institutions is critical if Australia is to keep up with the accelerating pace of growth of new knowledge and its application around the world.

We should not limit our ambitions, but recognise, reward and build on our existing strengths - and develop new ones.

It is within this context that Universities Australia urges the government to affirm its commitment to public investment in research and innovation as a key plank in the 2011 Federal Budget to ensure maximum economic, social and environmental returns from that investment.

Australia will risk weakening its place in the global knowledge economy if we do not sustain and continue to grow investment in our research endeavours, and in improved granting opportunities, and incentives encouraging collaboration between educational disciplines and across sectors of the economy.

A plethora of formal evidentiary studies find that the real rate of return on publicly funded research has been conservatively estimated at 20 percent or more. The most recent assessment in this regard is provided by the US National Bureau of Economic Research.

It is also becoming clear that the transaction costs required to generate and evaluate grant applications is disproportionate to the number and size of grants currently permitted by present funding.

We warmly acknowledge the significant gains in federal funding provided in the 2009 Federal Budget for university infrastructure, participation, and research block funding and competitive grants, including the Future Fellows scheme. Universities Australia believes, however, that maintaining that research investment is critically important.

There is a long queue of highly competitive, unfunded projects which have been formally assessed by government funding agencies as fully worthy of funding. Yet these projects essentially go unfunded, and Australia is the loser.

Australian university research is delivering real economic, social and environmental benefits through a wide range of activities including the education of graduates, research outcomes (including intellectual property and publications), consulting and contracting, and commercialisation of research (including start-up companies and technology licensing).

University social and cultural contributions to Australian society also involve innovation and help to make Australia an attractive country in which to live and work.

Australia’s research and innovation system faces many challenges. It shares many of these challenges with other nations, including competing claims for public investment, and the increasing expense associated with fundamental research and development.

We must continue to:

• build an imaginative ‘culture of innovation’: one which encourages, supports and rewards genuine flexibility, creative problem-solving, and risk-taking;
• raise Australian investment in research and innovation considerably, which would bring Australia into line with international trends;
• ensure that the level of public investment is sufficiently high to meet Australia’s research needs;
• encourage industry and business to take up the challenge to be more collaborative (and hence innovative) by investing in research in Australian universities;
• build up national research capacity so that universities and publicly funded research agencies can continue to provide the research and innovation base necessary for future economic and social development, and meet the growing level of industry demand for research; and
• ensure a comprehensive research base such that Australia will be able to focus on priority areas and demonstrated successes while retaining a broad capacity to meet future needs.

Effective public investment in research and innovation through the 2011 Federal Budget and beyond will ensure optimal economic, social and environment returns on that investment, a critical point well understood by Australia’s major trading partners and competitors.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Peter Coaldrake AO
Chair

Next article – World’s first plain tobacco pack law will save lives

Back to index page