A key government report on the university and higher education sector has “disastrously missed an historic moment” to ramp up investment in research, and consigns Australia to be “out-muscled” in the global race for new jobs and industries, the country’s peak science and technology body says.
Misha Schubert, the chief executive of Science and Technology Australia, said the Australian Universities Accord interim report’s failure to include research funding as one of its priorities was an “epic fail”.
The report noted that university research accounted for 36% of Australia’s overall research and development output but was at the mercy of “uncertain international student funding and needs to be put on a sounder and more predictable footing”.
The government accepted a recommendation to extend the university funding agreement to 2025 to ensure funding through the accord process.
But there was no recommendation to address research in the interim report.
Schubert said it was a mistake that squandered “a once-in-a-generation chance” to scale up Australia’s research and development capabilities.
“The accord’s interim report has spectacularly missed the mark on research investment – that’s an epic fail,” she said.
“It squibs a once-in-a-generation chance to set our nation on the path to prosperity by stepping up our investment in being first to bold breakthroughs.
“The final report must fix this fatal flaw.”
The education minister, Jason Clare, said the accord team were looking at a range of options to give more certainty to research funding, including the potential to raise revenue through an international student levy.
Clare said the government could not “fund everything” and he was open to exploring ideas put forward in the accord’s final report.
Schubert said the latest data published at the end of May showed government investment in research and development had “plunged to its lowest level as a share of our economy since 1978”.
The accord’s final report will be handed down in December.
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Australia’s budgetary cycles require new spending proposals to be sent for consideration by October, before the May budget.
Schubert says that mismatch of timing means any changes to research funding may not be made until the 2025 budget, putting Australia even further behind and losing not just research capability but the minds who drive it.
“The report poses more questions than it attempts to answer. And waiting six months for the final report means any funding measures recommended will miss the cutoff for inclusion in the next federal budget,” Schubert said.
The peak body will convene a meeting of research sector stakeholders for “emergency talks” to “ensure the panel understood the gravity of the cost to Australia of missing the mark on research investment”.
“Anthony Albanese has called for Australia’s economy to be ‘powered by science’,” Schubert said.
“He’s right to do so. Only with stronger investment in research can science tackle the challenges the future will throw at us – from climate change to the next global pandemic. This interim report fails to chart a path to the PM’s vision.”
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