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Professor Lambeck, Professor Sheil, Professor Anderson, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – I am honoured to be invited to open your conference today.
The Academy of Science is one of Australia's pre-eminent scholarly institutions. Your voice is heard, and respected.
That is why I am pleased to see that you are holding a conference on research careers. You are taking a practical perspective on a very important topic – especially important in the Australian context and at this time.
We need to nurture our young researchers in all disciplines, but nowhere more so than in the sciences. We need to continue to attract the brightest minds to science, and then to keep those people actively involved in the Australian research effort.
Over the last ten years or so, Australia has been losing some of our brightest researchers, from disciplines right across the board. With our universities strapped for the kind of funding needed to support the best research, too many scholars and scientists have been lured abroad.
And we have also seen bright youngsters turning away from the enabling disciplines (maths, physics and chemistry) and engineering – enticed by more lucrative careers in other fields, such as the finance sector.
In mathematics the problem has been particularly acute. Someone has called mathematics "the language of the sciences" but it is also, in important ways, the language of business, economics, social policy and the trades.
A nation that cannot turn out top-notch mathematicians and statisticians is a nation in deep trouble. Unless we turn around the trends that have bedevilled this discipline over the last decade or so – in schools, in universities and in research – we will not be able to meet our needs for people with a sound knowledge of mathematics that they can put to use across the economy and across all fields of knowledge.
So, for all these and doubtless more reasons besides, it's good to see the Academy supporting the nurturing of early-career scholars and researchers in science and beyond.
Innovation
I want to say a few words about the Rudd Government's thinking on innovation. This is the pivotal idea in our plans for Australia's future – the future that early-career researchers will make such a valuable contribution to.
Innovation is paramount to the nation’s economic, social, environmental and cultural being. It is the key driver of productivity and economic growth, particularly for advanced economies such as Australia.
In the face of rising competition from emerging economies of Asia, North Africa and Europe, we cannot afford complacency.
Innovation drives the creation of new businesses and sectors and revitalises existing industries.
But it is broader than just an economic concern. Problem solving, creative ideas and new technologies are also vital to meeting the social and environmental challenges we face as a nation – from population ageing to climate change.
Yet Australia compares poorly with competitor countries on so many indicators, including: business investment in research and development (R&D); the number of PhDs in the workforce; and low growth in business productivity and exports of goods and services.
In recent years Government support has fallen behind on innovation. Support for science and innovation as a percentage of gross domestic product dropped from 0.75 per cent in 1993-94 to 0.59 per cent in 2006-07.
Australia’s innovation system is weakened by a cultural divide between public research and private business, and a lack of national policy coordination.
The Government is looking to put the right policy framework in place, implementing a range of initiatives to bridge the divide between industry and research; ensure that business has better access to new ideas and new technology; and increase innovation incentives across the economy.
Labor's agenda for innovation – the review
Now I want to tell you about the Rudd Government's immediate plans for innovation. In a philosophical sense, this concept – innovation – underlies so much of the new Government's approach to a plan for the nation's future.
And of course it's where the Academy, and the scholars and researchers it supports, is at the centre of things. In saying that, I don't want to imply that you're on your own in this regard. Scientists have a key role in Australia's innovation system, but so do those in the humanities, the creative arts and other disciplines.
The centrepiece and driver of the Rudd Government’s broad innovation agenda is the Review of the National Innovation System, recently announced.
I have asked the Panel chair, Dr Terry Cutler, to provide me with a Green Paper by the end of July 2008. The Government will respond with a White Paper.
The terms of reference of the review are far reaching. I trust the review panel will report upon the role of the universities and public research agencies in the national innovation system.
Specifically, the review will provide advice on the role of basic research; the means by which we improve collaboration between public and private-sector research - in terms of infrastructure provision, access, and utilisation.
The review will also consider the issues of technology transfer and adaptation, and also the issue of research training and business’ access to researchers. The review will have the opportunity to discuss the means by which universities engage the community in innovation.
The National Innovation Review will also seek to examine the full cost of research and the need for greater inter-disciplinary collaborations, including the role of the humanities.
This overall process will involve a comprehensive review of existing policies and programs, and will draw on advice from a wide range of sources, in public and private sectors.
Ideas should be freely and openly exchanged. They should be contestable. In the academic context, ideas and research findings should be presented and discussed openly, in the public arena – not muzzled or gagged. The same principle applies to government reviews, such as the National Innovation Review. I don't want to do things behind closed doors. This review is crucial to our collective future. I want to see it conducted openly, publicly, and with broad participation on the part of the Australian community.
One of the objectives of the Review is to make recommendations that would reposition Australia in the global research community. The Review also aims to find ways to bolster collaboration within the research community and between the public and private sectors.
Part of the broader review process will be a review of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program, led by Professor Mary O’Kane. I have already outlined the Government’s intention to restore public benefit as one of the primary objectives of the CRC Program.
The review will look at a range of aspects of the current CRC program, including the application process for new CRCs.
Australia 2020 Summit
On top of the National Innovation Review, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has announced an even more ambitious initiative. This is the "Australia 2020 Summit", to be held here in Canberra at Parliament House in April.
It will be chaired by University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor, Professor Glyn Davis.
As you would be aware, the Summit will gather what the Prime Minister has called "1000 of Australia's best and brightest". The ten challenges that the Summit will address include, among others:
• Productivity;
• Population, sustainability and climate change;
• Health, families and communities; and
• Infrastructure and the digital economy.
The Summit will do what Governments are rarely bold enough to attempt – to look into the future, beyond short-term electoral cycles.
I would expect that a number of people associated with the Academy of Science would be likely to be considered for participation in the Summit.
Eminent and capable people from all walks of life and all fields of knowledge will work together. Towards the end of the year, the Government will respond to the policy options put forward by the Summit.
This, I'm sure you'll agree, is an exciting development. I urge you to participate in whatever way you can. This is an important expression of our Australian democracy.
Intellectual freedom: ARC Board/Council
Now I would like to turn to a chain of issues that are connected by the concept of intellectual or academic freedom.
Over recent years, the independence of the Australian Research Council has been compromised in a number of ways. The previous Government abolished the Council's Board, making the CEO report directly to the Minister.
The new Government has already acted to remedy this situation by establishing an ARC Advisory Council that will strengthen the independence of the organisation and provide it with a formalised source of high-level, strategic advice. I have done this on the recommendation of the CEO of the ARC, Professor Margaret Sheil, who is here with us today.
The Council will advise on policy matters relating to innovation, research and research training, and to evaluation of the quality and outcomes of research and research training – in an international context.
Intellectual freedom: peer review
Now to another issue: peer review. I am fully committed to protecting the integrity of the competitive peer review system. It is the best process for assessing research grant applications, so that the highest quality, most nationally significant projects are selected for funding.
The ARC, its leadership, processes and achievements, has always enjoyed my full confidence and respect, but there have been times when its independence has been compromised.
This Government has promised that the ARC’s assessment and decision making processes will be free from political interference.
Under this Government, funding decisions will be robust and transparent. And if there is an occasion where an ARC recommendation is not approved, it will be for sound reasons that will be made public for all to see and scrutinise.
Intellectual freedom: charters
The Government looks to scientific debate as an essential means of resolving difference of opinion about our options as a society. It is essential to communicate new ideas and to infuse public debate with the best research and new knowledge.
I have announced that the Government will develop a series of charters for the public scientific research agencies, including CSIRO. The charters will identify and guarantee their responsibilities and obligations.
They will enshrine not only the right, but the obligation, of scientists and other researchers to participate in public research debates.
The charters will be developed in consultation with the public research agencies - and I have already commenced this process.
Australian Postgraduate Awards
To assist those at the very beginning of their research careers, the Rudd Government has a plan to boost financial support for research students through Australian Postgraduate Awards. We have indicated that we will double the number of Australian Postgraduate Awards available, and will look at research training in the context of the Review of the National Innovation System.
The Government is mindful of the need to align research training with areas of research excellence in individual universities, but is also aware that this approach needs to be flexible and balanced – so that "new" areas of research are not stifled.
Future Fellowships
We have also announced that we will establish Future fellowships - this will address a structural issue in Australia’s academic workforce. Through the program, we aim to encourage and enable Australia’s best and brightest mid-career researchers to stay here at home, contributing to Australian intellectual life and to Australian innovation. It is a major initiative and one that, I am glad to say, has received strong support from within the university community.
Research collaboration
Finally, I will draw together the comments, scattered through my remarks today, on collaboration in research.
I have said that innovation depends on collaboration between public and private sectors; between the disciplines; between public research agencies and universities.
It is these partnerships and associations between researchers, thinkers, entrepreneurs and policy-makers – people from different intellectual perspectives – that will drive innovation.
Within the university sector, we envisage a "hubs & spokes" model of research collaboration that will allow institutions to concentrate and build on their strengths, but will also enable and encourage researchers to work with colleagues across the country.
This means that all research-active and research-ready academic staff will have opportunities to undertake research – quite possibly in enhanced circumstances, compared with their current situation.
Our plans for research collaboration will also encourage and support the emergence of new research areas and interests.
The Government hopes to achieve in universities a plan of structural reform and, further, to engender cultural change that will underpin its national agenda for innovation.
We will achieve these goals while remaining strongly committed to basic or fundamental research.
We will enhance the international competitiveness of our higher education sector, while at the same time guaranteeing both institutional autonomy and academic freedom.
The Government is committed to nurturing and supporting the intellectual spirits of academics, whether inside or outside the established research universities.
Compacts
Our hubs-and-spokes model for the development of research capacity assumes that all universities will have centres of excellence in specified fields. The model also assumes that universities' priorities will concentrate on those areas, given that in a country of our size, we cannot fund all conceivable research options at every institution.
The Government will examine ways in which universities can be more socially and economically responsive. While valuing the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, the Government takes the view that our intellectual and scientific resources can be marshalled to assist in meeting the challenges facing Australia into the 21st century.
Funding compacts will assist in encouraging diversity, and ensure that university communities have an opportunity to work with Government in determining and taking responsibility for priority setting within institutions.
Labor is committed to consulting widely on the introduction and operations of the planned funding compacts. Funding compacts will enhance institutional autonomy and academic freedom. They will also provide a vehicle for cultural change and structural reform.
Funding compacts provide us with a means of building public confidence in the work of universities, and ensuring a proud platform for future public and private investment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I have a few thoughts about the nature and history of the definition of science. CP Snow observed famously, initially in his 1959 Rede Lecture The two cultures, that the breakdown in communication between the sciences and the humanities was a significant impediment to solving the problems of the world.
Snow conceptualised British intellectual life and the world of ideas at that time as a dichotomy, where those on each side of the gulf had little understanding of each other, and even less time for one another. The Europeans, even to this day, use the term science to connote knowledge more generally – encompassing the arts and humanities and social sciences as well as what we would call ‘science’.
I think that broader definition has a lot to be said for it – much for Snow's reason. He said that the British needed to bring together the two cultures so that humanitarian goals and scientific concerns would become as one.
He pointed to all the benefits to humanity of applied science, or what he called ‘the industrial revolution’. This, he said, had grown out of the ‘scientific revolution’. In Snow’s opinion, Britain lagged behind Europe, the US and even the Soviet Union in taking full advantage of these twin ‘revolutions' in our history: as he said:
If our ancestors had invested talent in the industrial revolution instead of the Indian Empire, we might be more soundly based now. But they didn’t. [p.39]
Of the two cultures, Snow said:
When these two senses have grown apart, then no society is going to be able to think with wisdom. [p.50]
Much of the discussion in the monograph is dated – indeed I was the first one to borrow a copy from the Parliamentary Library for almost 30 years – but I think we can learn from CP Snow’s fundamental point.
If we are to innovate successfully, if we are to meet the serious challenges posed for us by the world, we need to work together. We must bring our cultures, our ways of thinking and our knowledge and practical skills to the one place. We have to create, urgently, a new, unified culture.
That is what we need to lead us into a prosperous, secure, socially inclusive future for our nation.
And that is what I, as a member of the Rudd Labor Government, aim to achieve. I trust that, as teaching scientists and scientific researchers, you are with me and the Government in our endeavours.