Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt's big ideas for how Australia funds and uses research
The federal government is calling for ideas to “reshape and reimagine higher education, and set it up for the next decade and beyond”.
- The federal government is calling for ideas to “reshape and reimagine higher education, and set it up for the next decade and beyond”.
- In my personal submission to the accord process, I outline three big ideas to help reset higher education to deliver the system Australians need and deserve.
- In this piece I want to focus on my other two big ideas – improving the way we fund and then translate research.
Australia’s research ecosystem
- Australia’s research ecosystem has become highly reliant on funding via cross-subsidies from international student fees.
- Instead, universities now spend more on research (using international student fees) than the government.
- Research funding is also not fully integrated with workforce and major equipment needs, and this all leads to shortfalls in key areas of national research need.
We need to identify and properly fund sovereign research
- Sovereign research capability is about Australia being able to fund and undertake the research it deems vital to its national interests.
- We must identify the core set of sovereign research capabilities necessary for the future security and prosperity of the Australian people.
- A large fraction of the sovereign curiosity research money should be competitively allocated via existing bodies, the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council grant system.
We need to make it easier to translate research
- In addition to fully funding sovereign research capabilities, we must also rethink how we fund research translation for the public good.
- This is the process whereby we move research from labs or journals out into the real world.
- When we fund applied research, we need to be strongly focused on outcomes.
- This includes the government directing funding for specific missions in areas of national need.
Blue-sky thinking
- This is the research universities do that leads to new products, jobs and industries never envisaged when the research cycle begins.
- These are hard to measure, and emerge with a considerable lag, but our best estimates are that they are large.
- Government has a special role in funding this activity, as firms cannot typically capture the benefits of this work.
- Alternatively, new types of future higher education institutions could have research dropped from their mission entirely.
Making our own luck
- The government’s accord process gives us the chance to make sure our universities can continue to deliver on this promise for our future generations.
- If we fail to value and fund university research in the way that we need, and should, the so-called Lucky Country might just run out of luck.