The Australian Academy of Science recognises the efforts made by the Australian Government to seek greater translation of Australian research and alignment with strategic priorities. We welcome statements that indicate continued funding for basic science, at least at its present level, through the Discovery Program. Basic science is essential for the discovery, observation, and understanding of new knowledge, and importantly, it fuels commercialisation.

The changes to ARC funding revealed today are of significant concern to the Academy and to the social science disciplines more generally. In particular, the proposal to expand the ARC College of Experts to include people without research expertise risks diluting the peer-review processes that ensure only the best and most worthwhile research receives public funding. The proposed alignment of funding schemes with a narrow set of commercial and manufacturing priorities will also damage Australia’s research ecosystem and our international standing.

As the rest of the world and much of Australian industry is shifting towards knowledge-based products and services, this attempt to prioritise manufacturing outcomes within the only national agency that funds research across all disciplines seems bizarre.

Coming as this does on top of the significant recent changes to university funding, we see this new proposal as another step along a path that could lead to a long-term reduction in Australia’s expertise and capacity to respond to critical social, environmental and economic challenges.

The Academy notes with regret that Professor Thomas will not be seeking re-appointment.

The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) recognises the Government’s initiative to bring strategic alignment across its research and development funding initiatives. This new framing for existing funding is aligned with the Government’s previous announcements, however we are concerned that 70 per cent of research grants will go to manufacturing priorities, which potentially limits investment in areas such as clean energy, quantum, and agriculture.

We are pleased to see the Government remain committed to developing new knowledge through investigator led research funding opportunities – the so-called blue-sky research. However, the request that researchers articulate the practical outcomes of their work in line with Australia’s national interest must not be used to discourage genuinely novel research. Innovations such as ultrasound, Wi-Fi, immunotherapy, and high-speed computing arose from research that would never have been labelled as directly serving the national interest at conception, but are now fundamental for Australia’s prosperity.

It’s also critical that the involvement of industry experts in research assessment does not inhibit curiosity-led research in Australia. If non-subject-matter experts will sit on the assessment panels, ATSE stands ready to assist in putting forward assessors and advisory committee members who are R&D-experienced industry leaders.

We welcome the request to establish an ARC advisory committee, similar to that of the National Health and Medical Research Council. However, we believe it’s important that the independence of the ARC CEO, and their ability to communicate directly with the Minister, should be maintained. We also believe that to be truly effective, consideration must be given to the nomination of committee members, and caution against rushing this through before Professor Thomas leaves the post.

Finally, ATSE acknowledges Sue Thomas’s leadership of the Australian Research Council over the past four years and looks forward to collaborating with the next Chief Executive Officer.

This apparently common-sense idea of aligning the Linkage process more extensively to government priorities masks two problems:

• A risk of further short-termism in and politicisation of the allocation of the nation’s research effort – Research works in decades and the political cycle works on a scale between years and seconds. If this is a lever for more political interference in (as opposed to appropriate public accountability for) research allocations, we would be far better off leaving decisions to the those with deep knowledge in the sectors.
• None of the nine Science and Research Priorities addresses Australian culture and society. Two things about this; 
  • If we don’t care about Australian culture and society, who will? Also, the Linkage program has been a very valuable link between university researchers and the public through country’s cultural institutions. Anything to undermine that will have bad unintended consequences.
  • The single best guide to the future is an understanding of culture and the past. Technological research that ignores how humans are shaped by their personal and collective past is at best inefficient and at worst dangerous.

Instead of trying to whip recalcitrant researchers into a short-term line, the government should expand the nation’s research priorities to include a focus on who Australians are, have been, and will be.

It is good to see the Minister recognising the importance of research to improving the world and reinvigorating our economy. Previous Coalition governments provided Backing Australia’s Ability 1 and 2, including the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, and later the National Innovation Science Agenda, that encapsulated major strategic investments designed to ensure we kept abreast and even ahead of our neighbours in this constantly changing world. The recent pandemic and geopolitical situation has reminded us of the importance of showing leadership in research investment.

The Australian Research Council has a long history of supporting research that is of high quality and is relevant to the needs of society. Highlighting this and building upon its successes with renewed strategic investment to further strengthen research, industry engagement, and to provide secure jobs for brilliant young Australian researchers, would be very welcome if that is what is intended here