By Sherryn Groch and Daniella White
Australia’s underinvestment in research is becoming a national security issue, with prominent vice-chancellors and scientists warning the nation faces a fight to keep up with other countries – and meet its AUKUS commitments.
Australian National University vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt says some fundamental science departments – the places of Australian breakthroughs such as Wi-Fi and solar panels – are shrinking or closing altogether because the government pays for less than half of research costs at universities.
Outgoing ANU vice-chancellor and Nobel Prize winner Brian Schmidt has sounded a warning that Australia’s sovereign research capability is falling apart without proper funding.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
The Australian Academy of Science warned last week that Australia didn’t have the funding to secure sensitive research in universities as the US does, which could impact AUKUS technology-sharing work with the US and the UK.
“Universities won’t be able to properly conduct the research Defence wants us to, including nuclear expertise, so we can meet our AUKUS commitments ... unless the Defence Department funds it properly,” Schmidt said.
“It is not in Australia’s interest to be like a banana republic just buying technology, without contributing as a partner.”
But the Commonwealth’s landmark university reforms appear to leave off the table more funding to bring Australia in line with other OECD countries.
Sydney University vice-chancellor Mark Scott says research not only drives economic growth, but “echoes a country’s influence and sovereignty”.Credit: Louie Douvis
Ahead of the government’s Accord university review final report next month, a group of vice-chancellors has told this masthead that Australia must shore up its sovereign capability by making research funding central to university reforms.
Australia’s expenditure on research and development has now fallen to 1.68 per cent, its lowest since records began in 1978, and well below the OECD average of 2.7 per cent.
The Group of Eight (Go8) universities wants the Albanese government to make good on its pledge to lift that number to 3 per cent “as a national priority”.
University of NSW vice-chancellor Attila Brungs said universities had been forced to fund much of research costs themselves – and they couldn’t keep it up forever, leaving Australia at risk of being outmuscled by other countries in “uncertain times”.
Research is now largely propped up by international student fees, creating “an unacceptable risk to the future”, according to the Accord interim report. Yet a dedicated sovereign research fund was not among the “spiky ideas” suggested by the Accord so far.
“Do we actually want to fund our sovereign research programs that are key to AUKUS from international students fees?” Schmidt said. “The US, China ... No other country funds research like this because it creates sovereign risks.”
When Australian physicists helped develop radar, “the most important invention of WWII,” he said, “there was no doubt then that technology was essential for a secure Australia”. “We’ve forgotten that now, at our peril.”
Monash University’s acting vice-chancellor Susan Elliott said the Accord’s first recommendations had “rightly reflected” the government’s focus on improving university access for disadvantaged students. But she stressed a “country of Australia’s size needs its own sovereign research capability”, via a national research fund or another means.
“As we saw in the pandemic, relying on other countries can cause problems, like when we were having to import vaccines,” she said.
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott said any authority set up to oversee the Accord reforms needed to outline a path to 3 per cent GDP spending on research and development as its first task, or “Australia will fall behind”. Research not only drives economic growth, but “echoes a country’s influence and sovereignty”, he said.
Federal education minister Jason Clare said he was still awaiting the Accord’s final recommendations, but noted that “Australia is home to brilliant researchers” and the government’s recent reforms to the Australian Research Council grant system, including largely scrapping the minister’s controversial veto power, would help sustain research.
The Accord is examining research funding, but said in its interim report that public sources “cannot realistically” replace the rivers of gold from international fees.
Right now, universities say they match about every dollar of government research grants, in overheads such as staffing and infrastructure. Much of the foundational research governments want universities to focus on, including engineering, physics and geology, is expensive to run, requiring multimillion-dollar pieces of equipment.
ANU is developing a diamond-based quantum computer, as well as harnessing optics (lasers) to build quantum technologies.
“Focusing our attention there is a recipe for bankruptcy, even though we try,” Schmidt said. “The overhead I get on a physics grant has almost halved since 2019. It’s a suicide mission.“
In the short term, Schmidt argues, the problem could be fixed without a cash injection: by narrowing the pool of research funded by government to only that which it considers a national priority but covering all those projects’ costs.
“We have to save the furniture,” he said. “Or people like me are going to have to start doing massive closures of departments in the next few years, and it takes decades to build that capability back.”
Higher education expert Gwilym Croucher said Australian universities had been the victims of their own success in attracting lucrative international student fees, meaning governments had gotten away with less research funding than other nations.
Australian researchers, including Professor Andrea Morello from UNSW, are at the forefront of new quantum computing technology.Credit: Kearon de Clouet / UNSW
“But it’s not sustainable,” he said. “There are big risks to having research so closely tied to the winds of geopolitics … and student markets. We’re at a decision moment. It has to be solved whatever comes of the Accord.”
University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Peter Hoj said he hoped “for Australia’s sake” the final Accord focused more on research while Swinburne’s vice-chancellor Pascale Quester said Australia’s current model pits “universities against one another in a race for resources”.
“Research needs to be fully funded … separated from the three-year political cycle,” she said, with national priority areas such as quantum, manufacturing, biotechnology, cyber and artificial intelligence.
While universities have been courting more private investment in research too, Elliott said industry couldn’t fill the void without more government funding.
Even Silicon Valley’s success in the US was driven by public funding, not just “clever companies”, said Croucher.
Liam Mannix’s Examine newsletter explains and analyses science with a rigorous focus on the evidence. Sign up to get it each week.