Guy Healy | April 02, 2008
AUSTRALIA is slipping behind the UK, Canada and other countries in doing basic research and must boost investment in R&D to retain international competitiveness, one of the country??s most senior university leaders has warned.
University of Western Australia vice-chancellor and Group of Eight chairman, Professor Alan Robson, told the National Press Club in Canberra that Australia’s core capacity for basic research was at risk.
"The proportion of Australian university R&D spending directed to basic research has fallen from two thirds in 1990-91 to less than half in 2004-05," he said.
In research output volume, China and India were rising rapidly, and using Thomson ISI data, Australia was slipping behind the UK, Canada and other countries across a range of research fields, including chemistry, physics, mathematics, economics and engineering.
“In the biosciences, one of our strongest areas, we are struggling to keep pace," he said.
Pfof Robson called on the Rudd government to consider series of five key measures to address competitiveness and major challenges facing the nation including ageing and salinity.
The Government’s innovation review - announced earlier this year by innovation minister, Kim Carr - should consider a third stream of funding to boost university engagement with the community, greater investment in core R&D, measures to boost Australia’s international collaboration, and researcher mobility, he said.
Prof Robson also reiterated the university sector’s longstanding appeal to government to provide additional funding to universities to help them cope with the indirect costs of successful research, especially regarding administration and capital depreciation.
"We are vulnerable to being by-passed, cut off and left behind in the advancement of knowledge. And if we allow that to happen we can kiss goodbye to an innovative Australia," he said.
The way forward was to collaborate rather than compete against Australia’s northern hemisphere counterparts.
“We need to explore co-investment in research platforms, shared facilities and networks, and full participation in cyber-infrastructure and associated data services," he said.