This week: ANU to repay staff, university provost appointed and actions to repair landscapes outlined

In depth: Research and industry groups have expressed hope that a review of Australia’s research system will bring increased investment in R&D.

Full story: Early positions taken on overhaul of Australian research system

Also this week from Research Professional News

Cabinet reshuffle takes place at ‘crucial time for education’—New Australian ministers appointed for immigration, jobs and skills

Here is the rest of the Australia news this week…

Australian National University to repay staff

The Australian National University has said it has taken “immediate and comprehensive action” to repay its A$2 million in underpayments to 2,290 staff. On 25 July the university said it had “self-reported the missed payments to the Fair Work Ombudsman and has undertaken an extensive investigation of the issue spanning 11 years”. The median amount to be repaid per staff member is A$600. ANU vice chancellor Genevieve Bell apologised for the error. 

University of Queensland gets new provost

Mark Blows has been appointed as the new provost of the University of Queensland. In a 24 July announcement, the university said he would take over the role from Aidan Byrne in October. Blows is currently deputy vice-chancellor for research at UQ, and has been at the university for 25 years. Vice-chancellor Deborah Terry said that Blows had already “established an admirable track-record of leading teams to implement initiatives that support the teaching and research functions of the university”.

Call for action on repairing landscapes

A new report from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists says Australia needs to take “practical actions” to repair degraded landscapes. The 24 July report calls for an evidence-based response over the next 30 years, focusing on five key areas: soils, inland waters, native vegetation, threatened species and coastal environments. The group, which is a not-for-profit organisation of “scientists, economists and business people” has included costings for action in the report.

Humanities researchers travel the world

The Australian Academy of the Humanities has announced the 10 winners of its 2024 Travelling Fellowships scheme for early career researchers. The writers, named on 24 July, include a Flinders University researcher who will go to the United Kingdom to study medieval manuscripts, an RMIT researcher who will compare Australian Indigenous literary culture with that in other places, and a Deakin University scholar who will go to Washington, DC and New York to gain access to the unpublished papers of philosopher Hannah Arendt.

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New Australian ministers appointed for immigration, jobs and skills

Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese has reset his Department of Home Affairs with a cabinet reshuffle ahead of the forthcoming election. On 28 July, new ministers were appointed to three departments, with implications for universities.

Tony Burke has been appointed minister for immigration, overseeing student visas and post-work rights, replacing Andrew Giles, who has been moved to the skills and training portfolio.

The proposed caps to international student levels going through Parliament were formally proposed by the minister for education. The government supported the policy to deal with concerns about the effect of international student numbers on the cost of housing.

Burke has also become the minister for home affairs, replacing Clare O’Neil, making him responsible for security issues. 

Long-term politician Brendan O’Connor was moved out of skills and training after announcing his retirement.

Universities Australia said O’Connor had “played an important role in driving key reforms to grow and unify our tertiary education system through the Australian Universities Accord process”.

UA chief executive Luke Sheehy said Giles’s appointment came “at a crucial time of reform for Australia’s tertiary education system”.

“Universities look forward to working with minister Giles to increase participation in tertiary education.”

The Group of Eight praised outgoing minister O’Connor’s work, saying he had “made an extraordinary contribution to public life”.

“He has worked collaboratively across the entire post-secondary sector, with universities and VET providers, to deliver effective policy outcomes for Australia’s future,” the group, which represents the eight largest research universities in Australia, said in a statement. 

The Australian Resources and Energy Employment Association also thanked O’Connor. 

O’Connor recently helped launch the association’s report on a skills shortage in the maritime sector, which called for greater focus on science and technology training.

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Early positions taken on overhaul of Australian research system

Research and industry groups have expressed hope that a review of Australia’s research system will bring increased investment in R&D.

A senior public servant has recently been named to run the review, but little else has been confirmed since the government used its 14 May budget to announce what it is calling a “strategic examination” of the research system. 

Jane O’Dwyer, chief executive of Cooperative Research Australia, said she believes the national cooperative research centre (CRC) programme will survive any changes that flow from the review. 

“I’m confident the programme is safe because it’s so high quality,” she told Research Professional News. Cooperative Research Australia represents all the current cooperative research centres.

O’Dwyer said A$900 million had put aside in the nation’s four-year forward estimates for new CRCs. 

In 2023 only two new CRCs were funded—“we’d love to see more”, she said.

Role for education maven

Former education department public servant Dom English has been appointed to head the secretariat of the “examination”, which is being housed in the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.

Until the end of June, English was the Department of Education’s first assistant secretary for higher education and research. That role is now held by Anthony Millgate, a department official with a background in research commercialisation. English’s appointment was posted on a government directory on 8 July.

But few details of the review have been released. The industry department confirmed that arrangements to appoint an expert panel and give terms of reference were under consideration. The review is expected to take around 18 months.

Millgate will also join the national advisory group on research infrastructure.

Three per cent bid

On 22 July, the Group of Eight, representing Australia’s major research universities, released a “roadmap” to Australia spending 3 per cent of gross domestic product on R&D. 

It called for a deadline of 2035 and a national approach to involve all sectors in meeting the target. The roadmap calls for a number of changes, including new incentives for small-to-medium businesses to work with research organisations and expedited permanent residency deals for international students who gain an Australian PhD.

The roadmap also calls for priority funding for training of science, technology, engineering and mathematics students, improvements to intellectual property practices and “aggregators” to help Australia’s cashed-up superannuation funds invest in research and development. 

It also repeats Group of Eight calls for Australia to pursue greater participation in Horizon Europe and other international funding schemes. 

O’Dwyer said Cooperative Research Australia also supports the 3 per cent target, which is widely nominated as the right target for Australia.

She said the cooperative research centre model could be expanded to other schemes involving non-government entities, to leverage businesses, universities and independent research organisations currently taking part in cooperative research centres, with a requirement of a substantial cash commitment, as well as in-kind assistance before a bid has a chance of gaining federal funding. 

“Our interest is in what unlocks private sector R&D in our system. The CRC programme is our best example of that. The return on investment is huge,” said O’Dwyer.

“We probably are going to have to increase our Commonwealth investment a bit…but the Commonwealth knows that if it invests in this model, the bang for its buck is a well-known and quantified number, and it means they know how much it accelerates us towards that 3 per cent.

“The model you have in the CRC programme—there is no reason why you wouldn’t adopt and apply that model in portfolios where there’s important national needs…in climate change, in agricultural, even in social services,” said O’Dwyer.

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How the Australian Sports Commission is driving a sports research revolution

The days of the Olympics accepting only “amateur” sportspeople are long gone. The average Australian Olympian has behind them sponsorship deals and years of paid training, often at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) or a top-level club.

But their secret sauce is research: evidence-based dietary advice, tailored daily regimes and high-tech equipment. Think the “shiny suits” that helped the 2004 cohort of Olympic swimmers set records that are yet to be passed now that the suits are banned.

The Australian Sports Commission (ASC), which has been running, in various forms, since 1981, is charged with developing all levels of Australian sport. While the public focus, especially during the Olympics and Paralympics, is on the AIS, the commission also fosters sport in the community, and has an internal and grants-based research programme and, since 2021, a chief science officer.

That officer, Paolo Menaspà, has set about overhauling the priorities of the research programme. He told Research Professional News that there was an appetite among athletes and coaches for evidence-driven improvements.

“I think it’s driven by a genuine interest in being faster, stronger, more skilful or whatever it takes to excel in their sport,” he says. “Many athletes and coaches actually follow scientists on social media and they want to know about the latest research.”

Research agenda

The ASC has met with industry stakeholders––researchers, coaches, government officials and, of course, athletes––to develop a formal research agenda.

The agenda, launched in 2022, is being guided by a national advisory group on sports research, with 33 members. Together, the agenda and advisory group cover more than the ASC’s work; they aim to guide all Australian researchers working on sports-related projects.

The agenda lists five priorities, only one of which is high-performance sport, where Olympians, Paralympians and national teams sit. The others are: participation in sport; the value and benefits of sport; the impact and legacy of major events; and sport system sustainability.

Menaspà notes: “The amount of sports-related research that we support or fund is only a small part of the research happening in Australia. There is amazing research happening independently from the AIS and ASC.” He also cites the influencing power of funding programmes.

Outside research

In 2024, the ASC, through the AIS, offered A$400,000 in funding for outside research projects. While those grants are still being decided, the most recent round of the programme has funded a Deakin University study of injury recovery, a University of Technology Sydney study of ways to decide when injured athletes should return to sport, and other recovery-related research at Edith Cowan University and La Trobe University.

In 2022, the ASC updated guidelines for research it funds to reflect research best practice.

“I’m very conscious of research waste and not wasting taxpayers’ money,” Menaspà says. “Sometimes research waste comes from addressing questions that may not be a priority of the beneficiaries, so when I started, the very first thing I [had done was engage] widely with our stakeholders… particularly athletes and coaches.”

He wanted to see sports research move, as health research has, towards more attention to end-user needs, such as the holistic development of athletes.

“In that case the identified gap was research that considers the athlete as a whole,” he says. “There is a lot of research focused on specific areas, whether it is mental health or physical health.”

Lifting their game

In 2022, the ASC published a report that suggested there was room to work on greater integrity in Australian sports research, and more open-access publication.

It said that although “questionable practices” had not specifically been found in sports research: “It is unlikely that sports research is immune to this problem,” noting that “an increasing number of studies in the area of sports science and sports medicine have been retracted for statistically improbable data patterns, data fabrication, duplicate publications and plagiarism”.

The ASC has since improved its funding guidelines to match best practice in other research fields, Menaspà says.

“There has historically been a focus on delivering products/services which are useful for athletes, which is great and we want to maintain this,” he says. “At the same time, science practice is improving, it’s changing, it’s growing, and we want to promote the uptake of contemporary research practices in sports research.”

His changes include creating a list of nine good research practices, based on a 2022 University of Sydney study of health and medical research by Joanna Diong. 

“ASC aims to be the first Australian funding scheme to encourage researchers to address all nine criteria,” he says.

The list includes registering study protocols, including statisticians in research teams and making data available. Even the nation’s major funders failed to meet all nine criteria, the 2022 study found.

Menaspà has also set up a “meta-research” programme within the ASC to improve its own practices.

“Currently it’s not common in sports [research] to conduct research on research, but we want to use research to improve the way we do things,” he says.

Most ASC research is carried out by practitioners, with Menaspà and a research manager the only full-time research professionals. ASC staff have recently published studies on female performance, sports injuries and illness.

A new “clearing house”, where sports research can be registered, and which offers resources such as suggestions on how research can help performance for those working in the field, has also been established. It lists possible sources of sports research funding beyond the ASC.

Meanwhile, the ASC convenes an annual Sports Technology and Applied Research Symposium, where researchers share their findings with each other and potential users.

“The peer review process [in publication] is a chance to highlight the quality of the research that we do,” Menaspà said.

CASE STUDY

Scientists and coaches in Australia are collaborating to create new ways for athletes to train

Two Australian researchers are walking the walk––or swimming the swim––when it comes to collaborative research.

A three-year project headed by Katie Slattery and Jamie Stanley, funded by the Australian Institute of Sport, is aiming to create a framework for “holistic” management of athletes’ training.

The project, which is two years into its term, is notable for several features: it eschewed a “research question” in favour of consulting with practitioners; it is prioritising results over publication; and it is building on connections both to support the work and to give it longevity.

Stanley, who is attached to the South Australian Sports Institute, where he is involved with Olympic swimmers and cyclists, and Paralympic cyclists, says: “We have both worked with athletes for quite a long time as physiologists and sports scientists. We’d faced challenges of working in that environment, and we could see that there were plenty of areas that could be improved upon. So part of that was around thinking about an athlete more holistically.

Slattery, who is a sports researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, says they began with consultations, approaching some of the national sports institute networks and holding interdisciplinary focus groups, with at least one athlete, one coach and one performance support staff member in each.

“Based on that we’ve come up with a framework that can help guide more holistic athlete preparation, and we’ve called that ‘performance-centred practice’,” she says.

Collaborative study

The initial research was done in conjunction with AusCycling and Swimming Australia, but Stanley says the framework can be applied more widely.

“I think that’s the cool thing about it,” he says. “It has potential to impact the system for able-bodied, para, a whole range of sports.”

While they developed the framework, they also looked for ways to test many technologies available in “real time” to improve training practices.

“With the evolution of wearable technology, every step, every breath, every heartbeat that an athlete takes can be measured both while they’re training and when they’re not training,” Slattery says.

Just as important was how to integrate “what the coach has seen, what the athlete is feeling, and what the technology is telling us”.

Slattery says they will speak again to coaches, athletes and performance support staff to get their feedback on a draft version of the performance-centred practice framework and adjust it as needed.

“By having these regular touchpoints with the people who will actually be implementing what the research is recommending, the aim is that it’s a much more usable, meaningful and impactful research outcome,” she says.

Final phase

The final, fifth phase of the research will be conducted with a few “select cycling coaches” who will apply the framework and give feedback. There is no intention to formally publish the results of that phase, Slattery says. “We want it to be as authentic as possible and allow the coaches and athletes freedom to be completely honest and share all their data without thinking that it’s going to be public.

Stanley says that while there’s an academic, peer-review literature aspect to the work, a more important part of it for them is its uptake across the system. Some sports are already implementing part of what they have found.

The research was designed to leverage all available resources. As well as the initial A$125,000 grant from the Australian Institute of Sport, researchers involved include multiple PhD students and honours students doing the applied research, with university funding, support from the South Australian Sports Institute and in-kind support. University of Technology Sydney, the universities of South Australia and Western Australia and Griffith University have all contributed.

Slattery says the collaboration has provided the time and the resources to answer the “real-life research questions”.

“When you’re day-to-day in the training environment, you don’t have time to write your ethics applications, to write your publications, to even apply for grants,” she says. “So it just expands the capacity of people who are working in the field to be able to get quality answers to their questions.

Even if they never publish phase five of the research, they will still achieve their performance metrics if it has strong impacts––something Slattery welcomes.

She says: “[There has been] a shift in the mindset of universities away from publications and towards, ‘How is your work impacting in the real world?’ that has also enabled this kind of research to happen.

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Cooperative Research Australia conference hears that university-bred ideas are the hardest to deal with

Intellectual property ownership and the failure of researchers, entrepreneurs and investors to agree on goals are hampering the commercialisation of Australian research, a national conference has heard.

At Cooperative Research Australia’s annual conference on 23 July, Mark Gustowski from the venture capital firm Mandalay said that IP issues could be stumbling blocks to investment.

“If we’re looking to invest in a company as a venture fund, the preference would always be that the company has the ownership of the IP,” he said, as this is part of how investors try to mitigate their risks. “If the IP is owned by the university, that is very, very challenging,” he said, adding that IP originating in industry initiatives is often easier to deal with.

While he would “love” to see standard agreements that simplify IP issues, he said: “I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.”

Pauline Fetaui of the tech innovation platform ACS Labs said that IP issues could be a “stranglehold” on commercialisation and that there could be a “scarcity mindset” around ownership of ideas. “What are the motives and what are we trying to protect here?” she asked.

At another conference session, Chris Downs, director of the University of Queensland’s Food and Beverage Accelerator, funded by the government’s Trailblazer Universities programme, said that Australia needs “a more mature and more open approach to handling IP”, compared with the current “very conservative, very restrictive approach”.

In his role with the trailblazer, Downs said that IP was being freed up. “Anything we invest in, all the IP belongs to the [new] company. We don’t take any equity.”

However, he said, “only 12 or 14 universities are involved in trailblazers. What are the opportunities for the others?”

Common goals

Building trust and relationships between research teams and those who would bring the ideas to market was also an issue for the speakers.

Fetaui said that researchers should be looking for their “first founding [management] team” very early, adding that the issue of links between researchers and entrepreneurs was such a concern that her company was planning an internal programme to tackle it this year.

When moving to commercialise research, company founders need to “look past the first cheque or investment”, she said. “You have to understand the end in mind…but you also have to understand everything you have to do to get there.”

Gustowski said that “great technologies still require amazing teams to take it to market, and there’s a shortage of commercialisation talent in Australia”.

Other speakers at the conference said that market needs should be considered earlier in research projects.

“Marketing is still seen as this extra cost instead of a massive investment,” said Natalie Chapman from the commercialisation agency Gemaker. “[Marketing] is crucial because marketing is about fulfilling a need.”

Fetaui said the Australian community should be helped to understand the potential of research to improve national issues. More people might invest “if we did a better job—including in my role—of exposing the problems that are being solved in research right now”.

Gustowski said he would like to see part of the money that goes to the academia-industry Cooperative Research Centre programme “carved off” to support early stage investment. Cooperative Research Australia represents the interests of the CRCs.

He said that research and innovation are among the first things “to fall off the government agenda when push comes to shove”.

Despite a reported increase in investment in climate change-related commercialisation, Australia is in “a bit of a capital drought right now”, he said.

But he added that existing schemes such as the R&D Tax Incentive are useful. “It balances Australia’s cost of research out to what it [would] cost for our northern neighbours,” he said.

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Report provides recommendations for Australia’s academia-industry centres, including on diversity

Australia’s academia-industry Cooperative Research Centre programme should broaden its talent recruitment and development to “recognise diverse educational backgrounds, experiences and skills…and foster a culture that values different perspectives in entrepreneurship”, a report has said.

Cooperative Research Australia, which represents the interests of the CRCs, released the Mapping Entrepreneurial Alumni report on 22 July, as the Australian government prepares for a national review of its funding and policies around research.

The report says the CRCs have trained hundreds of entrepreneurs with research backgrounds and led to the creation of at least 144 spin-off companies. “CRC alumni typically transition from traditional roles in academia and large corporations to entrepreneurial positions in CRCs, startups and small and medium-sized enterprises, indicating a shift towards more innovative and autonomous career paths.”

However, “common obstacles [to commercial success] include management deficiencies, funding limitations and intellectual property issues, highlighting the need for enhanced leadership training, financial strategies and effective IP education and management”.

There is also “a notable gender imbalance in entrepreneurial roles, indicating a need for targeted initiatives to support and encourage female entrepreneurs”.

As well as broader recruitment, the report recommends better mentorship and networking among the CRCs. 

Vital factors

The CRC programme, launched in 1990, supports industry centres and one-off projects where academics, industry and government authorities collaborate to address social issues and come up with solutions.

The report’s authors surveyed more than 200 people who had worked for CRCs, more than a quarter of whom had been involved in a spin-off company. They reported that factors such as retaining important staff, being able to move products to larger scales and clarity around IP were key to success. Others referred to “tall poppy syndrome”, where success is attacked, and the difficulty of accessing export markets.

“Access to adequate capital, continuous funding, foreign investments and robust venture capital support from the onset [was] vital,” the report says.

Backgrounds

A separate survey of post-CRC entrepreneurs found that business, science, mathematics and technical qualifications predominated, with much lower numbers in categories such as the humanities and the creative arts.

The respondents’ sector backgrounds varied, with some starting their careers in pure research, others in industry and some in the public sector.

They tended to work in east coast cities, particularly Melbourne, and to “migrate” from regional areas to larger cities over their careers.

The report was funded by the Rozetta Institute, a non-profit body advocating for and funding cooperative research, which itself was created from the work of a CRC.

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Government programme focuses on minerals, sustainable fuels, digital agriculture, quantum, AI and advanced manufacturing

The first investment plan for the Australian government’s A$1.6 billion Economic Accelerator programme has been released.

Round one, following on from three “seed funding” pilot calls in 2023 and early 2024, opened for applications from eligible higher education providers on 17 July, with A$180 million available.

Six “focus areas” are listed in the 2024-25 investment plan: critical and strategic minerals processing; sustainable fuels; digital agriculture such as automation and robotics; quantum technologies; artificial intelligence; and advanced manufacturing.

Released by the accelerator’s advisory board, the plan calls for “projects aligned with national research priorities with high commercial opportunity”.

Board chair Jeff Connolly said the six focus areas were “identified through extensive engagement and have been selected to provide translation opportunities for the Australian research sector going forward”.

“The identified focus areas will help guide the university sector in selecting projects and industry partners that will support and further their research to achieve mutually beneficial translation and commercialisation goals,” he wrote.

The focus areas are also aligned with the priorities listed under the A$15bn National Reconstruction Fund, which is aimed at transforming Australia’s industry and economy.

Ignite and Innovate

The grants programme is split into early-stage “proof of concept” Ignite grants (to receive A$60m in this round) and later-stage “proof of scale” Innovate grants (receiving A$120m).

The Ignite grants will provide up to A$500,000 for a year, while Innovate grants range up to A$5m for two years.

Projects that receive grants will work with the accelerator’s “priority managers”, who will help researchers “foster connections and secure formal collaboration arrangements with industry partners”.

The plan also suggests that projects that succeed in the accelerator programme may transition to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Main Sequence venture fund, or receive support from private backers.

Following the pilot rounds, the accelerator has added extra “points” to the selection score of projects led by female or First Nations chief investigators.

The plan says there is no set ratio of funding for the six focus areas, and “grants as well as the relative funding against different priority areas will be driven by the quality of applications received”.

Applications for the first round of grants are due by 28 August, with two funding rounds a year expected in the coming years.

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Australian agency seeks “root cause” of widespread issue and praises draft structure of tertiary commission

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency continues to be concerned about wage underpayment at Australian universities, suggesting it points to deeper governance issues.

In a webinar on 4 July, Teqsa’s acting chief commissioner Adrienne Nieuwenhuis spoke of current “regulatory risks and issues”.

“The top two on my list would be everything to do with international education and international education integrity and the second on my list would be student wellbeing and safety, particularly having seen what’s occurred with regards to the student protests on campus,” she said.

She is also concerned about governance and the “robustness of self-assurance processes”. In 2022, a Senate report said that “around half of Australia’s universities have been implicated in underpayment of staff, with underpayments affecting both casual academic and professional staff”.

There is a “continuing problem we’re having in the sector with wage underpayment”, Nieuwenhuis said. “When two providers tell you they’re having a problem, that’s acceptable. When a few providers start to tell you they have problems, it becomes a little bit of an uncomfortable coincidence. But we’re nearly up to 30 providers who have informed us and [the Fair Work Commission] with regard to wage underpayment. Which tells me there is something deeply going on in our providers with regards to governance, risk, risk assurance [and] controls.”

She added: “I’m starting to see that we’re needing root cause analysis, not just the fixing of a particular problem.”

Other items on her list include academic integrity, artificial intelligence and the “financial standing of providers”.

“We are definitely seeing a weakening in the financial position of many of our providers, and that has a range of potential risks in terms of compliance with the standards and the quality of education…The worst-case scenario would be provider default.”

Teqsa continues “always to have a very close eye on everything to do with student experience”, she said.

Commission consultation

Nieuwenhuis also addressed the draft structure for the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, which is currently open for consultation.

“From Teqsa’s perspective, I think it’s good to see in the consultation paper a governance structure which separates Teqsa from the commission, so that the commission is intended to be a policy and a funding body, leaving regulation and quality assurance quite separate in Teqsa,” she said.

“Some of the things that are in that consultation paper, like performance measures, will be beneficial to Teqsa as well. We already look at a range of data with regard to the performance of providers, which informs our risk frameworks and our regulatory processes, so we’re looking forward to working with the commission on some of those broader issues as well.”

The separation between Teqsa and the commission is positive, she said. “I think it’s very important that those who fund higher education are not also the regulators.”

New strategy

Teqsa chief executive Mary Russell told the webinar that the agency was working on a “new strategy to guide Teqsa’s future regulatory approach”.

She said that the sector would be consulted on changes in a process that would take up to 18 months.

“It will support us to meet the expectations of government and sector stakeholders, including both providers and students,” she said.

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This week: animal research, critical minerals, RNA and a petition against university job losses

In depth: The first investment plan for the Australian government’s A$1.6 billion Economic Accelerator programme has been released.

Full story: Australia’s Economic Accelerator offers A$180m in first full round

Also this week from Research Professional News

University regulator still worried about wage underpayment—Australian agency seeks “root cause” of widespread issue and praises draft structure of tertiary commission

Australian disease centre ramps up bird flu surveillance—Scientists, industry and government are “all preparing for the potential introduction of H5N1 into Australia”

Adelaide University formally launched—New Australian institution, formed through a merger, will start taking students in 2026

Here is the rest of the Australia news this week…

NSW funds non-animal research push

The New South Wales government has committed A$4.5 million to help researchers avoid using animals in their work. On 18 July, the state’s Office for Health and Medical Research said the money would fund a “three pillar” strategy comprising: “a research pillar to accelerate research progress, which will include a competitive research grant programme”; money to develop a new Non-Animal Technologies Network; and funding for “a working group to develop regulatory approaches for non-animal technologies”. The Non-Animal Technologies Network will include experts from the University of New South Wales, the University of Wollongong, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Sydney and the University of Newcastle, as well as the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, the Children’s Medical Research Institute and the Hunter Medical Research Institute.

Critical minerals R&D funding

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation will receive A$2.5 million for a research hub focused on “critical minerals”. The hub’s work will include an “international R&D collaboration scan, strategic R&D projects across critical minerals technologies, international science delegations, scholarship networks and a critical minerals research summer school for domestic and international researchers”. On 18 July, resources minister Madeleine King said: “The valuable work by the R&D hub will also support the government’s Future Made in Australia ambition and ensure Australia works with international partners on environmental and social governance standards, commercialisation of research and intellectual property rights on critical minerals”. The hub was first announced in the October 2022 budget.

Union fights against job losses from proposed number caps

The National Tertiary Education Union is urging members to sign a petition against job losses from proposed caps on international student numbers at Australian institutions. In an email to members on 17 July, national president Alison Barnes said that “the numbers are yet to be determined and the full extent of the impact is still unknown. What we do know is that institutions cannot be allowed to use these proposed changes to prematurely threaten job cuts.” The petition reads: “Higher education workers demand the federal government ensures that there are no job losses as a result of any hard caps placed on international student numbers.”

RNA blueprint released

The Australian government has released a five-point plan for developing RNA medical research and applications. The plan, released on 16 July, calls for work to: connect and promote the national RNA ecosystem; increase skills and access to infrastructure; improve research, translation and investment; lead RNA regulation and guidance development by continuing to build regulatory capabilities; and build and strengthen international partnerships to work on shared interests. The RNA plan falls under the national medical science co-investment plan released in April.

Clinical data sharing encouraged

The Australian Research Data Commons is promoting greater sharing of data from clinical trials. On 10 July, the ARDC ran a multi-agency seminar about its Health Studies Australian National Data Asset and the Health Data Australia catalogue of trials. It said there was a “global shift towards data sharing to improve the integrity, productivity and impact of clinical data”. Seminar presenter Angela Webster, director of evidence integration at the National Health and Medical Research Council Clinical Trial Centre, said that “if you share data, you can extend the life and the visibility of your research and facilitate new collaborations. There are many more uses for data, beyond answering the specific focus question that the data was originally collected for.”

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Scientists, industry and government are “all preparing for the potential introduction of H5N1 into Australia”

Australian scientists have said that the risk of a “highly pathogenic” strain of bird flu entering the country has put them on high alert.

In a media briefing on 15 July, researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness said they had ramped up a surveillance programme that monitors wild birds.

They are particularly concerned about a strain of avian influenza known as H5N1 2.3.4.4b, saying it has appeared since 2020 and has reached every continent except Australia.

Debbie Eagles, director of the centre, said the strain had had “a significant impact” wherever it had appeared. The centre, industry and government authorities are “all preparing for the potential introduction of H5N1 into Australia”.

There have been four outbreaks of other strains of bird flu in eastern Australia during 2024, from three different wild sources. The differences between the outbreaks were established by the centre’s genetic sequencing programme. Eagles said that since May this year, the Victoria-based centre had carried out 3,000 test procedures on 1,000 samples from birds.

Risk-targeted surveillance

Frank Wong, a senior research scientist at the centre and a committee member of the global Offlu research network on animal influenza, told the briefing that wild ducks and geese were a “natural host reservoir” for avian influenza. He said it could become “highly pathogenic” and even mutate when it crossed into agricultural poultry.

The Australian centre is a reference laboratory for the World Organisation for Animal Health and assists researchers in the region in monitoring the spread of diseases, he said.

Wong said the most likely way the strain of concern would enter the country was from the north. Due to the size of the continent, “surveillance with total coverage is challenging and pretty much impossible”, he said, and the centre is using “risk-targeted surveillance of populations and geographic areas known to increase the chance of crossover into farm animals”.

Data collected by the surveillance programme are shared with the centre’s counterparts around the world. Eagles said the programme had recently been given more certainty and additional funding.

Identifying outbreaks

Eagles added that there was a risk to Australia’s native animals as well. “Wild birds may become not just infected but get sick from this virus, as well as potentially some mammal species,” she said.

So far, cases of bird flu in humans internationally have been limited to people who have been in contact with sick animals, and it has not been known to move from human to human.

Wong said that it was critical for any outbreaks in farm animals to be identified and “locked down” as soon as possible.

“People from the state agencies that are controlling these outbreaks are very well aware of the biosafety risks” of human infection, he said.

However, Eagles said the preparations being made for the H5N1 strain in Australia were across “not just agriculture but also environment and [human] health” agencies.

Wong said that global control of the disease would require an “active and continuous virus surveillance programme” in all nations.

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New Australian institution, formed through a merger, will start taking students in 2026

South Australia’s new Adelaide University, a merger between the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia, has been formally launched.

The new university is due to begin taking students at the start of 2026.

In a statement on 15 July, the joint vice-chancellors of the new university—Peter Høj (pictured, left), current head of the University of Adelaide, and David Lloyd (pictured, right), head of the University of South Australia—said it was “a momentous step”.

They pledged that all the “major disciplines” currently available would continue to be supported.

A new site for Adelaide University was also launched, with information for prospective students. It lists five key research themes: creative and cultural; defence and national security; food, agriculture and wine; personal and societal health; and sustainable green transition.

The university will aim to be ranked in the world’s 100 top research universities and to be “number one in Australia for industry research income and engagement”.

The University of Adelaide is already in the elite Group of Eight research universities, with Go8 chief executive Vicki Thomson confirming that Adelaide University will be a member. “The merger…will create quality at the scale needed,” she said.

Education minister Jason Clare said the new institution would be “a powerhouse of research and a beacon for both domestic and international students”.

Merger concerns

The National Tertiary Education Union has raised questions about the pressure that merger planning is putting on workers at the universities.

In an April bulletin, the union urged University of Adelaide staff to seek help with their workloads.

When the bill to create the merger was introduced to South Australia’s parliament in October 2023, Greens MP Tammy Franks opposed it, saying it was “rushed”.

She said the two universities had different cultures and that the union’s research had found that a large number of staff did not have confidence in management decision-making around the merger.

The merger will affect around 3,000 staff at the two universities.

In their statement on 15 July, the vice-chancellors said that “the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide will continue to serve their communities through 2024 and 2025 and maintain necessary functions into 2026 to support the transition”.  

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Australian researchers say international effort is needed to improve projections and decision-making

Small island states are poorly served by current climate change research because of inadequate data and models, Australian researchers have said.

A paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change on 10 July criticised the “coarse resolution” of most climate and mapping models. It called for “rapid global and regional cooperation to develop projections compatible with small island scales” and provide “relevant local information and decision-making tools”. It also said the international community should increase funding in this area.

The research was led by Jason Evans of the University of New South Wales. Evans is a member of both the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research also contributed.

Although small islands are “among the most vulnerable” to climate change, only sea level rises have been predicted “with high confidence”. Predictions for other hazards, such as “floods, landslides, drought, severe winds and fire weather” are less reliable because they are based on large-scale models. Some models in use lack the ability to even show very small islands, the researchers said.

Worldwide cooperation

High-resolution regional climate models, showing details down to one kilometre in size, need to be created to properly represent complex coastal environments, the group said.

In a statement on 10 July, the researchers added that “it will take worldwide cooperation, investment and innovation to achieve this goal, including the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to reduce computing costs”.

More cooperation between island states, research institutions and international organisations” is also needed.

“This could expand the role of the World Meteorological Organization Regional Climate Centres and requires capabilities similar to those available through [the EU Earth observation programme] Copernicus.”

Local researchers should be helped to attain “the knowledge and tools to participate in and contribute to the climate modelling and communication process, ensuring that projections are relevant and utilised in decision-making on the islands”, the group said.

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National grants programme run by Australian Research Council needs a full redesign, review told

The humanities should get a more “equitable” share of Australian research funding, the Australian Academy of the Humanities has said.

In its submission to the Australian Research Council’s review of its grants programme, the academy said “the ARC is the only source of government funding for basic research in the humanities and the primary source of industry-related collaborative funding”.

However, the “one-size-fits-all approach” taken in the council’s Discovery funding programme for fundamental research “has inflated the cost of humanities research while supporting a shrinking number of projects and individual researchers”.

The academy called for a total redesign of the council’s grants programme, saying it is “skewed” to favour “the sciences”.

It also said that “the expanded focus on the track record of the investigator is effectively shutting out early career researchers”.

Humanities, arts and social science researchers have a success rate of only 5 per cent in the ARC’s Laureate fellowships programme, the academy said, and the Centres of Excellence programme is weighted heavily against the humanities because of its “design, scale and assessment assumptions”.

Full range of research

Years of changes have created a set of funding schemes in need of a “first principles” review, the academy said. “The creation and dissemination of new knowledge has slipped off the policy agenda for research funding in recent years.”

Its submission criticised the focus on commercialisation of research, saying it would be more useful to focus on “the uses made” of new knowledge.

Any new scheme “must incorporate the necessary flexibility to include particular research practices across the full range of fields of research”.

“If the ARC wishes to support research in the humanities, it must do more to tailor its programmes in ways that acknowledge and facilitate excellent research in the humanities.”

A new scheme should work to reduce “unconscious bias” in assessment of grant applications, possibly by first assessing the projects “blind” before looking at the people and institutions involved, it said.

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This week: needs-based student funding, industry PhDs, travel grants, wheat production and a supercomputing deal

In depth: Small island states are poorly served by current climate change research because of inadequate data and models, Australian researchers have said.

Full story: Small islands ‘poorly served by current climate models’

Also this week from Research Professional News

ARC funding ‘skewed’ against humanities, academy says—National grants programme run by Australian Research Council needs a full redesign, review told

Horizon Europe: Australia’s ‘missed opportunity’?—Despite walking away from talks, hope remains for Australia to access EU research fund 

Australian medical research funders agree closer coordination—New committees and joint supervision introduced for medical research council and Medical Research Future Fund

Audit finds room for improvement in ARC’s credit card use—Australian Research Council accepts recommendations to tighten its policies and procedures

Here is the rest of the Australia news this week…

Needs-based student funding

The Australian government is consulting on a new funding system to support university students. In a consultation paper released on 12 July, the government says it will introduce “needs-based funding” for particular groups of students, with the money going to universities to provide support. The paper sets out key issues including which groups to support, how to allocate the money and how to assess the “academic preparedness” of students. Education minister Jason Clare said the new system would help Australia reach a target of 80 per cent of workers with a technical or university qualification by 2050 and break down the “invisible barrier” of disadvantage. Submissions to the consultation are due by 9 August.

Industry PhD winners announced

Postgraduate research to be funded in the third round of Australia’s Industry PhD programme includes work on IVF success rates, using artificial intelligence to improve mango harvesting and conserving a newly discovered mammal species. In an announcement on 12 July, assistant education minister Anthony Chisholm said that the 48 projects included “researchers from every Australian state and territory and a number of regional areas”. A total of A$7 million has been allocated. Applications for the fourth round are now open.

Academy offers travel grants

The Australian Academy of Science is offering travel grants to Australian early and mid-career researchers. Up to A$7,000 is available to support “travel to France and other countries in Europe, to work with leading researchers at major science and technology organisations for between 14 and 28 days”. Applications close on 9 September. 

Western Australia aims to boost wheat production

The Western Australian Agricultural Research Collaboration has said that a five-year investigation into nitrogen use in wheat will help boost production. The project, to be led by Murdoch University, will examine the impact of genetics on nitrogen use. Project leader Rajeev Varshney said: “By collaborating with leading institutions and industry partners, we are not only expanding our understanding of genetic regulation in wheat but also providing practical solutions and tools for breeders to develop improved wheat varieties.”

Supercomputer help for researchers

The Australian Research Data Commons has said that a deal with the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre will “create a more efficient research environment for Australian researchers”. A memorandum of understanding announced on 9 July will support future partnerships as Pawsey develops a replacement for its Nimbus system, which researchers use to analyse data. Pawsey is one of only two ‘tier one’ computing centres in Australia.

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Despite walking away from talks, hope remains for Australia to access EU research fund

Australia’s failure to take up access to one of the world’s largest research and innovation funding programmes has left many Australians scratching their heads.

The European Union’s seven-year Horizon Europe programme, which runs until 2027, is worth around A$150 billion. The EU allows countries outside the bloc to take part in its research and innovation programmes in exchange for a fee, but Horizon Europe is the first programme open to countries far beyond Europe’s borders.

In 2021, the EU opened association talks with Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand became associated in late 2022 and began receiving funding in 2023.

The Australian government’s decision to walk away from talks with the EU last year, revealed in June by Research Professional News, has left the country’s research leaders bemused and frustrated at a missed opportunity for access to research funds and closer links with Europe.

In June 2023, an Australian official wrote to the EU director-general for research and innovation, Marc Lemaître, telling him that Australia was not in a position to associate to Horizon Europe, citing funding reasons. The funding concerns are believed to be around the requirement that associating countries co-contribute to projects, but the government has not confirmed this.

Sector pressure

In a joint letter to Australian industry minister Ed Husic last October, four major interest groups—the Group of Eight representing Australia’s biggest research universities, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Industry Group and the European Australian Business Council—urged the minister to think again. It warned that the country was about to miss out on “arguably the world’s most significant research and innovation funding programme”.

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson says the letter pointed out that the changing geopolitical landscape meant that Australia should be pursuing research partnerships with “value-aligned, like-minded” nations.

Australian researchers can and do take part in some Horizon-funded projects as collaborators by bringing in their own funds, but association would open many more opportunities and allow Australian researchers to lead projects.

Chennupati Jagadish, the president of the Australian Academy of Science, said in a statement: “Australia’s association with Horizon Europe would also assist in mitigating some of the current geopolitical risk in Australia’s scientific enterprise; and deliver scientific and economic benefits to Australia.”

“The global challenges we are facing require global solutions, requiring researchers and countries to work together. International scientific collaboration is a matter of strategic national interest and something Australian cannot do without.”

European enthusiasm

Since New Zealand joined the programme, the EU has made association deals with Canada, South Korea and Morocco. Other non-EU research powerhouses are also involved. The UK joined the programme from the start of 2024 and talks are ongoing with Switzerland.

Australia is not the only country where talks have petered out: progress towards Japan becoming associated has also stalled. A European Union spokesperson said that after Australia withdrew from talks, the EU “remains fully available to continuing the discussion at the appropriate time”.

They added that Australian inclusion in the next EU R&I programme—currently known as Framework Programme 10 and due to commence in 2028—was still a possibility.

“The FP10 design is still very much in its initial reflective stage,” the spokesperson said.

The EU ambassador to Australia, Gabriele Visentin, spoke about the importance of the European-Australian research relationship in a Group of Eight video podcast in May.

Visentin, who was formerly the first-ever EU special envoy for the Indo-Pacific, said it was important to “demonstrate to [government] that this is not about handing money to the EU and it’s not about handing money to the Group of Eight”. Instead, the ambassador said joining Horizon Europe was about Australian universities, businesses and government working with European partners on issues such as climate change in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Of course there are costs involved, [but they] would not go to the EU, [they] would go to the Australian entities which participate, so it would not be a contribution to the EU budget, not at all. The contribution would be limited to the financing of the participation of the Australian entities,” he said.

The financial contribution of non-EU countries joining Horizon Europe is generally the most sensitive part of negotiations, but is proportionate to a country’s size and how much it is expected to participate in the programme.

Visentin also pointed out that access to Horizon Europe could play to Australia’s research strengths, such as cancer research. “We have the world’s biggest research fund on cancer [and] here you have centres of excellence, incredibly good centres of excellence in Australia. It would be good to join forces.”

Also speaking in the podcast, Thomson said that the Group of Eight was “very disappointed” at the lack of progress. “I think that puts us behind the eight-ball in building research partnerships with our like-minded, values-aligned partners.

“That alignment is built on a very strong foundation of decades and decades of partnership, so why wouldn’t we access that fund?”

New Zealand reaps rewards

When New Zealand associated, it only gained access to one of the three pillars of Horizon Europe. Pillar two supports collaborative research and innovation projects on predefined topics and is focused on “global challenges”. It is the most valuable of the three pillars, worth more than A$85bn.

When New Zealand joined, the government set up regional contact centres to help researchers propose projects and committed NZ$50m to the programme, although actual costs may vary depending on success.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment told RPN that of 31 formal proposals, eight had been successful so far. Another 30-plus are still being assessed. The New Zealand funding includes two University of Auckland projects: one on “virtual twins” in healthcare and another on cultural literacy in diverse populations.

When New Zealand joined, the New Zealand Association of Scientists said that although it was “good news”, it was “concerned” about the lack of access to pillar one, which includes support for bottom-up, investigator-led research including the prestigious European Research Council. The NZAS also wanted the country to join pillar three, which covers innovative technologies. The MBIE said that the European side “invited New Zealand to associate to pillar two, and this was the basis of our exploratory talks and negotiations”.

Loveday Kempthorne, MBIE manager of international science partnerships, said that while “we admire the programmes and initiatives supported under Horizon Europe’s pillars one and three…the driver for our association has been the collective desire to solve global challenges that is the focus of pillar two.

“We expect that as awareness and familiarity in the New Zealand research sector grows, our participation in aspects of Horizon Europe may also grow. Association to pillar two will allow us to build familiarity with Horizon Europe more generally,” she said.

While New Zealand builds familiarity, Australian researchers hoping to access Horizon’s funding and global links can only watch on. Industry minister Husic has yet to respond to the four peak bodies’ plea for a change of heart. His office did not respond to a request for comment.

But EU ambassador Visentin holds out hope for the future.

“I think that what the Group of Eight and what the business community are advocating for is really good, because we have to show the government that it’s not just the EU that would like to enlarge its associated countries, but it’s also the Australian stakeholders who have a keen interest,” he said.

He suggested there is still time for the Australian government to change course. “I consider [it] a low hanging fruit, rather than a missed opportunity.”

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Australian Research Council accepts recommendations to tighten its policies and procedures

The Australian Research Council has been told by auditors to improve its processes around the use of corporate credit cards.

In an audit report published on 27 June, the Australian National Audit Office said that the ARC should consider updating its policies and procedures. It found that the council needs better “detective” procedures to catch patterns of misuse.

About 30 per cent of ARC staff have access to a corporate card. The report says that total spending using the cards nearly doubled over the two-year audit period, from A$227,000 in 2021-22 to A$412,000 in 2022-23. This is attributed to lower spending in the first year because of the pandemic.

The largest spend on ARC credit cards was at Canberra Airport, at just over A$50,000 over the two years. The council leases its premises from the airport, and much of the spending was related to parking and venue hire.

The audit concluded that the ARC’s management of card use was “largely effective” but that “better implementation of preventive and detective controls could improve the ARC’s assurance over its corporate credit card use”. 

The council was also found to lack a system to deal with any “repeated instances of non-compliance” regarding card use.

Reporting discrepancies

While the ARC reported only 10 instances of non-compliance with its policies over the two years, the audit found 83 examples. 

The ARC’s internal reporting, provided to Parliament, found four “incidents” that included personal misuse and the purchasing of phones and headsets without approval. The “personal misuses” were two transactions under A$100, which had been repaid. About A$6,000 had been spent “contrary to policy” each year.

There was room for improvement in documentation of policies and improvements, and some risk-management controls were untested, the audit found. The ARC also failed to give accurate responses to parliamentary questions on card use.

“There is no process in place to periodically review cardholders with monthly credit limits above the policy-defined limits,” according to the audit report. In some cases, supporting evidence for card spending was not “consistently provided” to the ARC’s internal checking team.

The report also recommended that the ARC “consider reviewing its current process for tracking travel approval to ensure consistency with the (wider government) travel policy”.

Recommendations accepted

In a response to the audit, the ARC agreed to all of the findings and promised to implement all of the recommendations. The audit team noted that the ARC said it had made several improvements to card use policies in late 2023, while the audit was being completed, including checking that cards could not be used for cash advances.

An ARC spokesperson told Research Professional News that the report “found the ARC is effective overall in managing the use of corporate credit cards and made three practical recommendations for improvements which the ARC welcomed and is implementing”.

The audit was carried out as part of a routine series.

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New committees and joint supervision introduced for medical research council and Medical Research Future Fund

Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council and the country’s Medical Research Future Fund are creating a new structure aimed at better coordinating their research funding.

In an announcement on 5 July, the MRFF said that it had “joined with the NHRMC to strengthen Australia’s world-leading research capability under a new structure”.

An NHMRC spokesperson said this involved creating a joint steering committee in addition to new joint advisory committees.

The NHMRC’s existing Research Committee, which advises on funding policy and awards grants, will now also advise on “MRFF matters and policy”, while its Australian Health Ethics Committee will continue as an NHMRC-only committee.

Both top-level committees were set for the appointment of new members at the end of June due to the end of the last members’ three-year term.

Four other committees will form part of the joint arrangements. They are:

• The NHMRC-MRFF Consumer Advisory Group, to advise on “consumer and community involvement in health and medical research”.

• The NHMRC-MRFF Industry, Philanthropy and Commercialisation Committee, to advise on “industry and philanthropic involvement in health and medical research and strategies to foster greater research commercialisation”.

• The NHMRC-MRFF Public Health and Health Systems Committee, to look at issues of healthcare delivery and research translation in the health system.

• The NHMRC-MRFF Indigenous Advisory Group, to “advise on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research and capacity building for Indigenous health researchers”.

Move follows consultation

The new coordination of the MRFF and NHMRC follows a 2023 consultation on options to bring the operations of the funders closer together, which included the option of a full merger. Between them, the funders distribute around A$1.55 billion a year for research.

Although the government has not yet released its formal response to the consultation, the new structure has been seen as a de facto response. In May, minister for health Mark Butler also promised to create a national health and medical research funding strategy by next year. Research Professional News asked Butler for comment.

The Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes welcomed the announcement. Chief executive Saraid Billiards said the move was “another step forward in creating a cohesive and strategic approach to how medical research is supported and carried out in Australia” after a previous lack of “national coordination”.

“Better-aligned funding will mean reduced grant duplication and administrative burden, as well as more sustainable and rewarding careers for our talented researchers,” she said.

Working on improving alignment

There has been no detail released about any administrative mergers or changes to the reporting responsibilities of the MRFF. The NHMRC administers the Medical Research Endowment Account as a statutory authority, while the MRFF is overseen by the Department of Health.

An NHMRC spokesperson told Research Professional News: “In addition to the establishment of new joint NHMRC-MRFF advisory committees, the NHMRC and the Health and Medical Research Office are already working together on improving alignment, through collaborative mapping of MRFF and NHMRC funding, and policy activities to streamline our processes.”

“This is being driven by working groups comprising NHMRC and departmental staff, and overseen by a joint senior executive steering committee,” they added.

Nominations to join the six committees close on 31 July.

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This week: AI involvement, Australia-India research, citizen science and health research funding

In depth: Business leaders and government agencies have swung behind the university-led campaign to stop the government imposing cuts on Australia’s international student intake.

Full story: Opposition to student caps builds

Also this week from Research Professional News

Australia’s chief scientist stepping down—Search underway for science leader to replace Cathy Foley

Here is the rest of the Australia news this week…

Libraries call for AI help

The Australian Library and Information Association has told a Senate inquiry that there should be “more support for libraries to ensure that people are not left behind in the artificial intelligence revolution”. In its submission to the Select Committee on Adopting Artificial Intelligence, the association wrote that there were “positive steps that libraries, with government assistance, can take” to ensure Australians’ involvement in AI developments. It said that “AI inclusion” could be achieved by providing computing and internet facilities, and by fostering AI literacy throughout education.

Australia-India research funding recipients announced

Five projects will receive A$3.8 million of support in the latest round of the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund. The joint projects from five Australian universities, each with an Indian research partner, will work on soil health, the use of nanomaterials to clean up water, the recycling of mobile devices, the development of antimicrobial treatments, and new diagnostics for bacterial infections. Industry minister Ed Husic said the programme had so far backed 360 projects over its 18 years of funding.

Citizen science fights invasions

A study from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has found that so-called “citizen science” may help alert researchers to invasive species. A 12-month trial used an email alert system linked to the Atlas of Living Australia to record sightings of invasive species. The researchers concluded that “the advancement of citizen science is interconnected with the advancement of research infrastructure and will ultimately lead to greater scientific and management value of citizen-science data”.

Health research grants invested in digital initiatives

An A$19.75 million injection of funds will go to developing digital products based on Australian health research. In an announcement on 1 July, health minister Mark Butler said six companies would be funded through the Medical Research Future Fund’s ANDHealth+ programme, each receiving A$3.75m. One of the recipients is the Sydney Neuroimaging Analysis Centre, which is developing artificial intelligence-based tools to help treat neurological diseases.

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Business groups join universities in opposing cuts to Australia’s international student intake

Business leaders and government agencies have swung behind the university-led campaign to stop the government imposing cuts on Australia’s international student intake.

Such a move would be too “blunt”, the Business Council of Australia said in a submission to a Senate inquiry into a proposed law that would allow caps on international student numbers.

In a 3 July statement, the council said that “overseas students are integral to Australia’s soft diplomacy, global reputation and contribution to capacity-building in emerging economies”.

“International student revenue is essential for research efforts and the teaching of domestic students,” the council’s submission said.

Short-term decision

Council chief executive Bran Black said he was “concerned the government is about to make the wrong short-term decision by cutting international students, which will have a lasting long-term negative hit to the economy”.

A draft framework, explaining how the rules might be applied, is also up for comment. The Business Council’s submission says it opposes the “managed growth” provisions of the framework, while supporting attempts to bring greater integrity and shut down “unscrupulous” education providers.

It said the government should “cease” linking international students to housing shortages and complained that “our university members have also experienced significant barriers to building new student housing”.

The bill to impose the caps was briefly debated in Parliament on 3 July. Independent MP Helen Haines said the caps “will undermine the very reputation we’re seeking to uphold” and said she could not support it.

The inquiry into the bill is being carried out by the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, with a report due by 15 August.

Industry chamber opposed

Among other submissions, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the law could “inadvertently harm legitimate education providers and the broader sector”.

“Damage to the international education sector in this country will lead to job losses and economic disruption, not only for the sector itself, but to businesses in many other sectors given the far-reaching spillovers of this important industry,” it said.

The chamber raised concerns about a power to control individual course offerings that the minister for education would receive under the bill.

“Criteria for cancelling courses based on perceived value to Australia’s skills needs or public interest are overly subjective and risk ideological bias, potentially leading to the unjust cancellation of valuable courses,” it said.

Universities opposed

Universities Australia continued its attacks on the bill in its submission, calling the proposed law “premature”. Both the bill and the framework need “serious changes”, it said.

Numerous other universities, and the Group of Eight research universities peak body, also made submissions objecting to the bill.

The Group of Eight’s submission called the bill a “knee-jerk reaction”.

It said the bill “put(s) at risk the bedrock of Australia’s economic and soft-diplomacy future for the sake of a ‘sugar hit’ in addressing Net Overseas Migration targets”.

“The central command and control regime for international education that caps represent simply will not work,” it said.

The Australian Skills Quality Authority, which oversees the vocational education and training sector, warned that the work involved in administering the caps could divert resources away from compliance and integrity work.

A submission from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations noted that the bounce-back in student numbers post-pandemic “increased the risk of student exploitation” and could undermine Australia’s reputation for integrity.

While generally supportive of the bill, it noted that the new powers could “significantly impact” higher education providers, including their financial viability.

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Search underway for science leader to replace Cathy Foley

Australia’s chief scientist, Cathy Foley, has confirmed she is stepping down after four years in the role.

Foley became chief scientist at the beginning of 2021 and was reappointed to the position for a further one-year term in December 2023.

Australia’s chief scientist reports directly to the minister for science, chairs a national committee of state chief scientists, and serves as executive officer of the National Science and Technology Council, which is chaired by the prime minister.

The role operates across government departments. During her term, Foley has headed or been closely involved in reviews of Australia’s science priorities and ways to involve more women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Foley advised the government on its decision to invest A$1 billion in attracting PsiQuantum to build a quantum computer in Queensland. Her scientific background is in physics.

She has also spoken out on the importance of open-access publication of research, which has been named one of only two key priorities for her office, along with quantum computing.

Search for replacement underway

The government has begun looking for a replacement for Foley. The new chief scientist will be appointed as the government conducts a national review of research funding, which was announced in the May budget.

A job advertisement for the position posted on the department’s LinkedIn page suggests that the new chief scientist may be based outside Canberra. It lists all Australian state capital cities as potential locations.

International consulting group Korn Ferry has been appointed to help in the search for candidates.

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Draft guidelines from National Health and Medical Research Council call for openness, inclusivity and respect

Institutions funded by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council should develop “an inclusive and open research culture conducive to high-quality research”, according to a proposed set of guidelines.

The NHMRC’s Good Institutional Practice Guide would require institutions to address their internal culture and come up with clear ways to improve.

A draft of the guide was released on 16 May and the council is asking for sector feedback.

In the guide, the council says it wants to see institutions develop “open, honest, supportive and respectful cultures” and “enhance” the quality of the research it funds. The guide also aims to help institutions highlight “initiatives that improve research quality”.

“Researchers are more likely to thrive and produce high-quality research when their institution has a positive working environment and culture,” the guide says.

It defines research culture broadly, including good technical practices along with “values” such as care, collaboration, diversity and inclusion. The importance of leadership and clear policies is also emphasised.

Culture concerns

“Recent surveys of the Australian research sector highlighted concerns about education and training in good research practices, research integrity, mentorship, unhealthy competition, publishing pressures, promotion assessment processes, funding and costs, job insecurity and questionable research practices,” the guide says.  

Further values in the guide include ethical behaviour, intellectual freedom and open and transparent publication of “all aspects of research” where possible.

It suggests that institutions should consider setting up mentoring programmes, ensuring leaders exemplify model values and examining poor research practices elsewhere for their potential lessons. Researchers engaging in studies involving humans and animals should be required to demonstrate they have the required skills and knowledge, it says.

The guide was developed by the NHMRC’s research quality steering committee, which focuses on good practices and open science. The committee is chaired by Bond University professor Paul Glasziou.

Submissions are open until 10 July and must be made via the council’s online survey.

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“Most of the work is substantially done,” says Australian government official

Australia’s long-awaited national science priorities are “not far off”, the secretary of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources has told a Senate hearing.

Appearing before the Economics Legislation Committee on 5 June, Meghan Quinn said the priorities had been through a “very detailed process” led by Australian chief scientist Cathy Foley.

Draft priorities were made public in September 2023 and Quinn told the hearing that “most of the work is substantially done”.

“The government did want to work through the budget process and various other elements—Future Made in Australia considerations, for example—so I would expect it’s not far off either,” she said.

Draft priorities

Public feedback on the draft priorities included a call for more clarity and for a plan to ensure they translated into results. The Australian Academy of Science’s response said that previous sets of priorities had been “ineffective” and “Australia needs to learn from previous attempts to develop and implement research priorities”.

“Australia needs to be clear about what success would look like,” the academy said.

The draft priorities included work on carbon emissions and the environment; healthy communities; productivity and innovation; and “a stronger, more resilient nation”.

A spokesperson for the department was unable to give Research Professional News any further details on the priorities’ progress or whether any changes would be made as a result of the consultation.

In May, the government also announced it would carry out a sweeping review of all research funding.

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Former Western Sydney University chancellor Peter Shergold takes on research council leadership

The Australian Research Council’s new governing board will be headed by former top public servant Peter Shergold.

The board’s members were announced on 26 June. They will be responsible for the approval of around A$800 million annually in government research grants, as well as the appointment of the ARC’s chief executive and College of Experts.

Shergold (pictured) was chancellor of Western Sydney University from 2011 to 2022 and was previously secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet under prime ministers John Howard and Kevin Rudd.

Susan Dodds, a former deputy vice-chancellor at La Trobe University, will be deputy chair of the board. The other members are professors Maggie Walter, Cindy Shannon, Paul Wellings and Margaret Harding, together with Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre chief executive Mark Stickells and Cicada Innovations chief executive Sally-Ann Williams.

Education minister Jason Clare said the establishment of the board “delivers on recommendations by the independent review of the ARC Act 2001”.

Clare will still be responsible for approving funding guidelines and will retain power over “nationally significant investments that foster research capability for Australia, such as the ARC Centres of Excellence, Industrial Transformation Research Hubs and Industrial Transformation Training Centres”.

The board will be “supported” by the existing ARC Advisory Committee and a new ARC Indigenous Forum.

The council has been operating under acting chief executive Richard Johnson since December.

University response

A statement from the vice-chancellors’ group Universities Australia welcomed the announcement, saying it “addresses the longstanding issues of political interference and delays that have previously impeded researchers’ work”.

“The board will play a critical role in ensuring the integrity of the nation’s research system, focusing on decisions that serve the national interest,” it said.

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New Zealand and Australian reports highlight graduate earnings and national benefits, including in film industry

Humanities and the arts are the subject of “common myths” that need to be dispelled, an association of deans has said.

The Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities released two reports on 24 June, looking at the fields in New Zealand and in Australia.

They found that “some arts graduates in New Zealand will earn well in excess of NZ$1 million more than people with no degree over their lifetime”.

“Half of all current ministers have an arts degree and five of the last 10 prime ministers studied arts degrees,” the New Zealand report says.

The areas of study that paid the greatest lifetime bonus on top of average school leaver earnings were political science and policy at NZ$1.36m, ranging down to NZ$417,000 for “other” creative arts.

In the research field, humanities and social science specialists are working with scientists in interdisciplinary teams, the report says, such as at the QuakeCoRE centre, where they are looking for “ways of building earthquake resilience”.

“Researchers in the humanities, arts and social sciences improve agricultural productivity, build resilience to natural disasters, support those living with dementia, provide financial guidance to elderly New Zealanders and help revitalise endangered languages,” the report says.

“The humanities, arts and social sciences foster creativity and curiosity within graduates and teach them the skills to think critically and deal with complex issues and information.”

The report highlighted industry-specific outcomes such as in New Zealand’s screen media industry, which it said generated NZ$3.5 billion in 2017 alone as well as promoting tourism.

Australia

“In Australia, 90 per cent of humanities, culture and social sciences graduates are in full-time employment three years after graduating and their salary is on par with other graduates at A$82,000,” the Australian report said.

“In 2019-20, cultural and creative arts activity in total contributed A$122.3bn to the Australian economy, or 6.2 per cent of GDP.”

The study said that employers were overwhelmingly satisfied with arts and social science graduates. Those graduates are “moving into well-paid and rewarding careers where their employers appreciate their independence, critical thinking, adaptability and ability to communicate”.

Australian social scientists contributing to real-world outcomes include a University of Sydney researcher running a global project connecting users of coral reef fisheries to data on reef resilience.

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Australian universities ask government to rethink plan for international student number controls

Australia’s draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework is a “dramatic overreaction” and must be rethought, universities have told the Department of Education.

The framework would allow the minister for education to both cap international student numbers and direct what courses they can enrol on, starting in 2025.

In their responses to the draft, university groups have highlighted risks to income and to existing partnerships.

The Innovative Research Universities group said the plan should be adjusted to accommodate research needs and regional links.

“Priority groups of students—including postgraduate research students and students in exchange, study abroad and transnational education programmes—should be excluded from any limits,” it said, adding that “government should work with universities on new models for supporting the strengthening of key partnerships in the Indo‐Pacific through higher education and research”.

Disastrous effect

The Group of Eight research-intensive universities said that as it stands, the framework “runs the risk of a string of unintended yet foreseeable consequences that could have a disastrous effect on both Australian society and our economy”.

The Go8 submission was critical of the government’s move to lock in the framework via a bill already introduced to parliament during the consultation period.

“The Go8 believes that the introduction of [the bill] will fundamentally compromise Australia’s international education sector and constitutes what is effectively a breach of good faith in the consultation,” it said.

The framework would bring in a “command and control” structure that “will undermine the very part of the international education sector that demonstrably operates with quality and integrity—our public institutions”, the group said.

“In essence, the draft framework represents a dramatic overreaction to what is a short-term bubble of pent-up international student demand following Australian border restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic,” according to the Go8.

The group’s universities, which rely heavily on international student fees to subsidise their research activities, have asked for consultation on the proposal to go on through 2025.

‘Scrap course controls’

Universities Australia, which represents all of the country’s universities, asked for a similar delay, as well as a “sunset clause” anticipating transfer of any new powers to the proposed Tertiary Education Commission.

Course controls should be scrapped from the framework altogether, it said—and when caps are set, the minister should, “in addition to student numbers, consider [a university’s] overall institutional position, including financial position, employment profile, infrastructure costs and other obligations associated with running a complex organisation”.

“Aspects of the draft framework and legislation seem to be rushed responses to issues the government wants to address ahead of the next federal election,” Universities Australia said. The next election must be held by September 2025.

Submissions on the draft framework have now closed, but a Senate inquiry into the bill is taking submissions until 1 July.

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Consultation opens on new Australian Tertiary Education Commission and “managed growth funding system”

The forthcoming Australian Tertiary Education Commission will be asked to tackle short-term thinking, fragmented policy and poor resource allocation in the national higher education system, according to the Department of Education.

A departmental discussion paper says the commission will be a “sector steward” responsible for long-term reforms. It will oversee “enforceable mission-based compacts” with universities, as well as “higher education and research programmes”, the paper says.

The paper, along with another on a “managed growth funding system” for universities, was released for consultation on 21 June. The department is taking responses until 26 July.

A third paper, on “needs-based funding”, has been promised soon.

Commission details

The Australian Tertiary Education Commission would be established by legislation and be expected to coordinate its work with other agencies, including the Australian Research Council and Jobs and Skills Australia.

The creation of the commission is a recommendation of the Australian Universities Accord report, handed to education minister Jason Clare in December as part of a reform process for Australia’s higher education system.

The commission is due to be established by 1 July 2025 as an interim body, with a formal start date of 1 January 2026 and an external review scheduled “after several years”. Its membership is yet to be announced and the department wants recent senior university employees to be banned from taking up positions as commissioners.

A commission structure in the paper shows that there will be a dedicated First Nations commissioner and two deputy commissioners under a chief commissioner. The body would be housed in the Department of Education for accountability and financial purposes and generally report to the minister for education. However, on matters related to skills, it would report to the minister for skills and training.

The commission’s initial work would be focused on “key reforms”, such as the Accord’s recommendations, and “harmonisation” of the tertiary sector, the paper says.

The “mission-based compacts” could include specific goals on teaching, research and growth from universities, with the right to ask for information on progress. The commission will have “robust assurance and compliance functions, with powers to manage non-compliance”, the paper says.

Its “steward” role would include dealing with major crises and disruptions such as pandemics and the use of artificial intelligence—a role that has until now been partly filled by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. Teqsa is expected to continue its operations after the commission is established.

The commission will be responsible for overseeing funding allocation by establishing a “pricing framework” for the cost of courses, although “the government will remain the final decision-maker on pricing”, the paper says.

Funding system

The second consultation paper, on a “managed growth funding system”, reveals that the government would set the number of Commonwealth-supported places at public universities and other tertiary institutions nationally. Providers would then be allocated places to meet growth targets from the start of 2026, initially only in institutions that currently have supported places. Extra demand-driven funding would be allocated to “equity students”.

“The new system will more responsively allocate growth to align with student demand,” the paper says. “Factors that would be taken into account when negotiating [growth targets] with individual institutions would include student demand, institutional goals and missions, and institutional and sector sustainability”.

The number of students would also be capped, with institutions banned from keeping fees from any students above their allocation.

The paper says that after a transition phase, extra supported places under the growth targets would be allocated to providers that do not currently have Commonwealth-supported places.

Difficult role

The vice-chancellors’ group Universities Australia responded to the papers with a statement saying it was important to get the reforms right and that it would work with the government on their design, but it did not endorse the details.

“The existing Job-Ready Graduates [fee structure] package has left universities to do more with less, which, unaddressed, will only make our role in meeting the government’s workforce targets more difficult,” the group’s chief executive Luke Sheehy said.

A statement from Clare said there would be “targeted consultation and feedback from stakeholders across the education landscape” to refine the detail of the proposals.

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This week: ARC industry-academia funding, brain injuries, digital platform research and nuclear workforce doubts

In depth: Australia’s draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework is a “dramatic overreaction” and must be rethought, universities have told the Department of Education.

Full story: International education framework ‘could have disastrous effect’

Also this week from Research Professional News

Government outlines role of higher education ‘sector steward’—Consultation opens on new Australian Tertiary Education Commission and “managed growth funding system”

Australia’s Horizon Europe talks called off without association—Dismayed universities and businesses urge Australian government to restart negotiations 

Australian think tank calls for more national security research—Extra money is needed, review of strategic policy funding told

Here is the rest of the Australia news this week…

A$107m for industry research

The Australian Research Council has awarded A$43 million to 72 projects in the latest round of Linkage Project grants, while A$64m will go to industrial transformation centres. The Linkage grants, which support academia-industry partnerships, involve 170 partner organisations that will provide A$61m in cash and in-kind support. The success rate was 26 per cent. A total of A$155.3m had been requested by all applicants. Six Industrial Transformation Training Centres and seven Industrial Transformation Research Hubs were also announced, with the research hubs including work on photovoltaic solar panel recycling and using “the internet of things” to support water management. Each hub has been funded for five years with around A$5m.

Brain injury panel announced

A group of experts has been appointed to the Medical Research Future Fund’s advisory panel on its A$50 million Traumatic Brain Injury Mission. The group will be co-chaired by Melinda Fitzgerald, deputy vice-chancellor of research at Curtin University, and leading neuroscientist Robert Vink. They will manage a review of the roadmap for the 10-year fund, with regard to recent developments including a Senate inquiry into sports injuries and a Senate report on domestic violence.

Observatory for research into online issues

The Australian Internet Observatory will help researchers look inside the “black box” of digital platforms, its creators have said. The observatory, which is being set up by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, will provide the tools and capabilities required “to gather and analyse online user experience data, algorithms and interactions”. Centre director Julian Thomas said that despite the influence of digital systems on Australians’ lives, “as researchers we’ve had very little visibility of how digital platforms work”. Examples of the information to be gathered include the distribution of misinformation; the patterns of everyday engagement with business, culture and science; flows of communication in emergencies and humanitarian crises; and the dynamics of political conflict and consensus. The observatory will be developed over the next four years.

Nuclear workforce doubts

Australia lacks the workforce to implement the opposition’s plan to build nuclear power plants, according to a senior academic. Nathan Garland at Griffith University said in a statement that “Australia’s nuclear workforce is minuscule, and this would take considerable time and cost to be built properly as well. Roles with deep nuclear training and experience, such as technicians, physicists, engineers, lawyers and more, will be essential for any such national plan.” Some researchers said the plan had merit, including Jeremy Qiu, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney. Qiu said that “integrating nuclear power into our energy mix enhances our ability to meet emissions targets while maintaining grid stability. However, it’s crucial to approach this endeavour with meticulous planning, incorporating comprehensive safety measures and rigorous regulatory frameworks.”

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While Australian research has bright spots for public engagement, Sujatha Raman sees room for improvement

More often than not, the term citizen science conjures up images of volunteers out in the field collecting biological data.

This is perhaps particularly true in Australia, given the widespread interest in the outdoors and nature. But for Sujatha Raman, this is just one facet of the much broader field of citizen engagement in science, which has deep connections to tackling some of the biggest global challenges.

“One of the things I’m observing that’s really eye-opening is the conversations that are happening within particular disciplines trying to rethink how science itself is done,” says Raman, the Unesco chair in science communication for the public good at the Australian National University.

She says that in Australia, some of the most important conversations involve bringing indigenous knowledge and perspectives into science: “In chemistry, there’s some fascinating work on thinking about the periodic table and how we understand the elements.” This includes how indigenous peoples understand and name certain elements.

“You can buy the periodic table on a tea towel, for example,” she continues. “That’s fantastic, and I’ve got one, but that tends to represent the arrangement of the elements and what we know about them as this very fixed thing.”

Transformative engagement

Raman says that an Aboriginal-led project has illustrated the historical idiosyncrasies of discoveries in chemistry through examples such as the Transfermium wars—fights between scientists in the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s over who laid claim to the discovery of three elements.

The project “demonstrates that there is a kind of two-way dialogue between science and society”, she says, which underscores the importance of understanding indigenous peoples’ perspectives on science.

Raman, who came to Australia in 2018 from the UK, where she led a major research programme on making science public, says she was struck by examples of engagement with indigenous knowledge on critical issues, such as traditional methods of managing bushfires.

“That, I would say, is the most transformative example of public engagement, of scientific engagement with the public,” she adds.

New Zealand has gone further, Raman notes, adding that there are “definitely efforts to bring in Māori knowledge and perspectives into conversation with science”.

Room for improvement

She also thinks there are areas where Australia could do better. She points out that, compared to the UK, there are fewer citizen assemblies on scientific topics such as climate change, which are used to deliberate on important public questions and make recommendations.

She thinks having citizen assemblies on the big challenges of the day would be “really interesting” for Australia.

“The other area that I was very familiar with when I was in the UK is public engagement around emerging technologies,” she says. The UK has had a long-running, government-funded programme to help decision-makers develop socially informed policies around science and technology.

Flipping the model

In her Unesco role, Raman is involved in bringing science, technology and innovation to bear on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals—the 17 targets adopted by the UN in 2015 to achieve by 2030.

Sustainable development has taken a knock in recent years, as the world has grappled with the Covid-19 pandemic and increasing geopolitical tensions. Raman says there is work to be done when it comes to science and the SDGs.

“The way in which we currently fund science really doesn’t capture the needs for the kind of knowledge that we need to address the goals,” she says. Rather than the current model, she thinks “something that’s more problem-oriented, something that builds on existing knowledge” would be better.

Nonetheless, Raman sees hope in efforts to encourage research funders to focus more on mission-based and trans-disciplinary work. She credits the International Science Council for pushing this agenda forward through its “flipping the science model” programme.

“They’re trying to actually work with funders to try and support more of this kind of research,” focusing on the missions of the SDGs, she says.

ARC opportunity

While historically, Australian research funding has tended to be largely discipline based, Raman sees an opportunity in an ongoing review of the Australian Research Council’s programmes.

When she saw that the ARC is considering whether it should be looking at more transdisciplinary research, she thought, “Wow, that’s quite radical.”

Raman points to other examples, such as the UK-based health research charity Wellcome launching a major funding programme on climate and health as models of how mission-based research can be supported. In particular, she highlights the role of citizen engagement in these programmes in “bringing communities into creating partnerships with scientists at an early stage”.

“The more you see these sorts of developments and…the more success stories we can build up, hopefully there will be transformation, so I’m optimistic,” says Raman.

Far from being restricted to projects such as collecting data on biodiversity, the role of citizen engagement looks set to become ever more central to science.

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Extra money is needed, review of strategic policy funding told

A leading independent think tank has argued for more funding for independent national security research in Australia.

In a submission to a federal review of strategic policy funding, including research funding, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says funding should be expanded to allow “new entrants” into the specialised field.

Aspi warns that any contraction in research could “increase Australia’s vulnerability to disinformation and misinformation that can be easily and cheaply spread online”.

The review is being carried out for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet by University of Queensland chancellor Peter Varghese. Part of his brief is to perform a “stocktake” and performance evaluation of “relevant activities by each Commonwealth agency and each third-party organisation”.

Funding under threat

Aspi has become the focus of media interest in the review, with an article on 11 June in Nine newspapers suggesting the institute’s funding might be cut.

The article was reposted by Liberal Party senator James Paterson on his own website, where he highlighted his view that any cuts would be a “capitulation” to China.

Aspi’s research often examines Australia’s relationship with China. It was originally established by the federal government in 2001 and receives government funding but operates under an independent charter.

The institute says that “government support for [national security] research is crucial to the nation’s interests”.

In a statement about its submission, Aspi said it was Australia’s “only dedicated defence and security think tank—and one of the very few in the Indo-Pacific region”. It added that “Australia’s think tank sector is small and remains underdeveloped”.

It said that its work has a global audience, and it was critical of “fee for service” alternatives.

“Aspi has grown into a vital and highly influential source of independent research, analysis and policy advice, offering views and ideas that both complement and challenge those generated in the public service,” it argues in its submission.

The institute’s work includes research, hosting officials from overseas governments and running a professional development centre for “defence and security practitioners”.

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Dismayed universities and businesses urge Australian government to restart negotiations

The Australian government decided against the country associating to the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation funding programme about a year ago, Research Professional News can reveal. It informed the European Commission, but neither side made the decision public.

Research and business groups have expressed dismay at the move and have called on the government to reconsider. A joint letter sent in October to industry minister Ed Husic by the Group of Eight research-intensive universities, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Industry Group and the European Australian Business Council warned that Australia was about to miss out on “arguably the world’s most significant research and innovation funding programme”.

Research Professional News has established that in mid-2023, Australian government officials wrote to the Commission to say that Australia would not proceed further with association talks that had been underway since 2021. The government’s reason is believed to be the potential cost of contributions to funded projects, but it has not publicly confirmed the move.

Horizon Europe has a budget of €93.5 billion, or around A$150bn. As with previous EU R&I programmes, non-EU countries can associate to it so that their researchers can win funding from it and lead collaborative projects, in exchange for a budget contribution.

This is the first programme for which association has been opened up to industrialised countries outside the European geographical region. New Zealand, which began talks at about the same time as Australia, became the first such nation to gain association and has already started to receive funding.

Diplomatic consequences

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson told Research Professional News that the four groups had written to Husic because they still hoped the international talks could be restarted.

She said that changes in Australian research policy, including the Aukus defence agreement with the UK and the US and increased concern about national security issues, meant Australia should be pursuing research partnerships with “value-aligned, like-minded” nations.

Husic is understood not to have responded as yet, and his office did not respond to questions from Research Professional News.

Thomson said the groups had told Husic that participating in Horizon would bring benefits well beyond funding, such as “partnerships with world leaders on major challenges, access to leading scientists and business opportunities”. They were concerned at the diplomatic consequences of ending the talks given that the Commission had been “very keen” to include Australia in the programme.

Thomson, who is also deputy chair of the European Australian Business Council, is currently in Europe for talks with the Commission on other issues of trade, and she said she would continue to raise the question of association with Horizon.

‘Missed opportunity’

The full letter has not been released, but a Group of Eight submission to the government on free trade in October said that “Australia is very close to missing the opportunity to engage with Europe as a third-country associate to Horizon Europe”.

It said the four bodies had written to Husic urging “the government [to] reconsider the case for an association to Horizon Europe”.

Australian Academy of Science president Chennupati Jagadish said that “it would be a missed opportunity for Australia not to join Horizon Europe”.

A Commission official confirmed to Research Professional News that the EU institution received and acknowledged the letter from the Australian government. They added that the EU “remains fully available to continuing the discussion at the appropriate time".

Australia is “a key partner" on R&I, they said, with a meeting in April providing “an opportunity for both sides to highlight shared values and exchange on current collaborative actions and future interests in R&I cooperation”.

Over the past 30 years, more than 900 Australian entities have taken part in 755 EU-funded projects worth a total of over €36 million, they said, adding: “We have seen very productive collaboration in areas such as health, food and natural resources, energy and transport, space, research infrastructures and researchers’ mobility.”

Association negotiations with Switzerland and talks with Japan and Singapore are ongoing, the official said, and there has been “a very positive start” to New Zealand’s association.

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