Message to unis over R&D review: what’s in it for taxpayers?

Health and medical research spending is $10bn a year, a quarter of all research and development outlays.

Universities always ask for more money for research than governments stump up. They should watch how medical science focuses on community service and use it in their pitch to the new research and development review.

It is budget bid time and the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes was complaining last week that members would be broke in five years without more government funding.

The problem is that for every new dollar for research into “lifesaving discoveries”, there is 64c in support costs the feds don’t fund.

One way to fix this would be full public funding for fewer grants nor did the association mention there was less a bucket and more a lake of research money than there used to be. It flows from the annual earnings of the now $22bn Medical Research Future Fund, established by the Abbott government and continued under Labor.

The MRFF for applied research is kicking in $620m this year, research money that did not exist a decade or so back. It’s on top of $940m this financial year from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

According to peak industry lobby Research Australia, health and medical research spending is $10bn a year, a quarter of all research and development outlays.

There’s another $4.3bn in research and development tax incentives for industry – which the science lobbies hate, arguing that business should be required to share the wealth, co-operating with universities on projects.

This might emerge from the research and development review that Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic announced on Monday, but one of the problems it will have to address is not hiding in plain sight – it’s illuminated by flashing neon signs above university entrances reading “Attention business: go away!”

Certainly there are all sorts of industry-science collaborations, including the excellent Co-operative Research Centres that focus on specific challenges. Yet while they are generally led by universities, they sit outside them.

As a quantum computing pioneer diplomatically puts it, “Australia has a phenomenally strong research base in quantum science and technology. We also have an adaptable and open-minded industrial sector. However, sometimes our academic and industrial priorities are not aligned.”

The reason the medical research community does way better than university science in general is because medicine lobbies are masters of reputation-­enhancing case-making com­muni­cation, demonstrating how they take science from the laboratory to GP clinics and hospitals. Ever noticed medicine academics and researchers appear less prominent than dominant on the Order of Australia lists?

In 2011, somebody in the then Labor government floated the idea of cutting medical research funding. It lasted as long it took the medical research lobbies to get lab-coated researchers asking why the government was opposed to curing childhood diseases.

“Medical research is not a ‘nice to do’ – it’s a strong economic driver…Without a whole-of-­government approach in investing in medical research, the Australian community, particularly some of our most vulnerable, will be denied access to new treatments and live-saving services,” AAMRI’s Saraid Billiards says.

And they are getting even better at the sell. Tim Cahill, from Research Strategies Australia, points to a new business model from Western Australia’s Kids Research Institute that says it will “work with community and partners in identifying priority areas … and accelerating effective implementation of research findings into action”.

The approach is to move from the long in-place model of funding curiosity-driven science by specialist research teams to collaboration, including with contributors from “non-traditional research backgrounds”, to “find solutions to improve the health and happiness of children and young people”.

Research Magazine 2023

Australia’s top researchers revealed

The Australian’s 2025 Research magazine delves deep to discover the richness of Australia’s research and shine a light on its unsung heroes

Congratulations to our top 250

The researchers and scientists featured in The Australian’s 2025 Research magazine deserve to be congratulated. says Education Minister Jason Clare.

Rising stars poised to make their mark

These eight young rising stars of Australian research are leading the next generation of academics whose work will benefit the nation.

Top of the world

Twelve Australian researchers and sixteen Australian universities are world leaders in specialised fields of research.

‘We recognise that we have a long way to go’

Bridget Harris from Monash University is Australia’s top researcher in criminology, criminal law and policing.

‘Wind and solar can generate the energy we need’

Maria Forsyth from Deakin University is Australia's top researcher in electrochemistry.

’They ask me whether I can cook, and I really can’t’

Bhesh Bhandari from the University of Queensland is Australia’s top researcher in food science and technology.

‘A mini ecosystem in your computer’

Juergen Knauer from Western Sydney University is Australia’s leading researcher in atmospheric sciences

‘I was hooked on doing research involving AI’

Aaron Nicolson from the CSIRO is Australia’s top researcher in acoustics and sound.

’Few people thought grief was a worthy topic’

Lauren Breen from Curtin University is Australia’s top researcher in hospice and palliative care.

‘I enjoy looking behind the scenes’

Marcus Mietzner from the Australian National University is Australia’s top researcher in Asian studies and history.

‘I’m interested in the wellbeing of disadvantaged people’

Lisa Cameron from the University of Melbourne is Australia’s top researcher in development economics.

The Nobel experience

Each year, promising young researchers from around the world are mentored by Nobel laureates at a unique week-long meeting in Lindau, Germany.

Wicked problems inspire action at Flinders

Flinders University is collaborating with the community to identify the critical research problems which need to be tackled.

We can’t afford to kick the can down the road

We can’t have a strong economy without the ideas, products and solutions generated by our brilliant university researchers.

Wise counsel drives UniSA research vision

An indigenous leader gave a university leader this sage advice: Act together, act now and we are unstoppable.

Where our research talent comes from

Research talent is in continual motion, flying into Australia but also disappearing overseas. We show which countries give us their talent, and take it.

Flinders Uni boosts industry research

Facing the arrival in 2026 of a new large rival university in Adelaide, Flinders University is boosting its industry research.

How we chose the ‘fast moving’ unis

We used data to discover the 15 ‘fast moving’ Australian universities, those which have expanded their research influence the most in the past year.

‘Benefits to industry and the community’

Deakin vice-chancellor Iain Martin explains why his institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

‘An economic anchor for the city’

University of Newcastle vice-chancellor Alex Zelinsky explains why his institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

‘We have the breadth and depth’

Monash University interim deputy vice-chancellor (research) Mike Ryan explains why his institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

’We’ve been putting in place research networks’

University of Queensland vice-chancellor Deborah Terry explains why her institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

‘Boosting its industry-facing assets’

La Trobe University’s deputy vice-chancellor (research and industry engagement), Chris Pakes, explains why his institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

‘Strong investment in academics’

Edith Cowan University’s deputy vice-chancellor (research) Caroline Finch explains why her institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

’It’s important to recognise and reward excellence’

UNSW Sydney’s deputy vice-chancellor (research) Bronwyn Fox explains why her institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

’Critical mass of expertise and resources’

RMIT’s deputy vice-chancellor (research and innovation) Calum Drummond explains why his institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

‘You take the time to build the base’

UTS vice-chancellor Andrew Parfitt explains why his institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

‘We look at our research outside-in’

UniSA standing acting vice-chancellor Marnie Hughes-Warrington explains why her institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

’We accelerated our research path’

Bond University vice-chancellor Tim Brailsford explains why his institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

This will not go down with senior medical researchers in need of ego-ecotomies but it is a brilliant way to enlist allies who will want to protect budgets in which they are vested.

And it is very bad news for all the research lobbies that already feel medicos get more than a fair share. Science groups point to past breakthroughs that won’t be repeated without more money. They have a point. A veteran research policy analyst points out that back in the 1980s, the Australian Research Council was funding the science that started AI.

Even the humanities establishment complains it is underfunded, but before anybody announces it should get no public money at all – that is close to what they receive. There was a big funding announcement last week for academics starting on ideas from scratch (discovery research). Engineering was the usual big winner with 105 grants (40 per cent), biology followed with just under 100, while two creative arts and writing projects were funded.

Government need not worry much about other research advocates basically because no other lobby lobbies like the medicos lobbies. Universities especially fail to make enough of a case for more cash by demonstrating what is in it for taxpayers.

One problem for the research establishment is that the core of university culture is a 1000-year tradition of pursuing knowledge for its own sake and if there is a community benefit – well that’s a bit of luck.

Plus most research funding in universities goes to individuals or teams of academics, making an institution-wide research strategy less improbable than impossible to establish or fund. “Researchers tend naturally to work in silos. The selection of research topics is left entirely to the discretion of individual investigators, with little to no alignment with broader institutional goals or collective aspirations” Cahill says.

Then there is the higher education herd instinct. Universities generally want to teach and research what the competition does – it’s why members of the Australian Technology Network have teaching and humanities degrees and research programs and why university marketing campaigns look so similar – they are all competing with each other on metrics that matter mainly to them.

Cahill, who advises the Kids Research Institute, argues universities need to focus resources and ask communities what they want.

Some universities get this – Swinburne U does. “Do we need to be the 10th university that teaches Chinese or Italian?” Pas­cale Quester asked when she became vice-chancellor. “No … we are the Swinburne University of Technology, we are going to be working with industry and students on creating the technology of the future.”

Others are getting it. Flinders U in Adelaide has a new cross-discipline research strategy to focus on “wicked” policy problems, nominating cost of living, housing, crime, degraded environment and infrastructure-transport as issues that research­ers across the university – from arts to engineering, science to social science – should combine to work on.

It’s not a good idea – what makes it a great one is the university has a community survey asking all interested what they want the university to address. This is “an unprecedented opportunity for Australians to decide which issues leading researchers should prioritise in their communities”.

It is a hell of a sell that will ­surely make sense to South ­Australians.

Convincing academics who want to research what interests them and the couple of hundred people who might read their next journal article will be harder.