Australia has not properly utilised the research funding available overseas

Macquarie Business School executive dean Eric Knight.

Securing a sustainable, long-term increase in core funding into Australian-based research, research infrastructure and research commercialisation has emerged as an important item in the Universities Accord negotiations.

A key question is: what new sources of funding could the government use to power up Australia’s research ecosystem across the next decade? With the country’s balance sheet challenged, there are creative options the government can consider to grow the pie and maximise our international research reputation.

Specifically, the government has a relatively unrealised opportunity to leverage global research funding for Australia-based chief investigators. On a net basis, there is more research funding outside Australia than within it. Yet Australian researchers face ineligibility challenges for large funding pools such as the National Science Foundation in the US. Canadian and European research agencies are more open, but even then more could be done to grow awareness in Australia and ease the application and administration of funds within Australia.

Horizon Europe is a case in point, an EU research and innovation program running since 2021 until 2027 with a budget of €95.5bn ($152bn). It has been seeking to work with research-intensive countries because of its focus on research quality, building global research teams, and in advancing areas of global significance such as climate, energy and mobility; health; and food, bioeconomy and natural resources.

The Group of Eight and the European Australian Business Council have come out strongly in support of Australia becoming an associate member of Horizon Europe, arguing it would provide greater access to EU research funding for Australian researchers and businesses. But Australia has yet to become such a member, even as countries such as Israel, Switzerland and New Zealand (as of December last year) do so.

Why would overseas funders be open to funding Australian researchers directly? There are quality and strategic reasons.

The quality reason is that world-class research teams often involve researchers across universities and countries to substantiate scholarly and real-world impact. Can Canadian researchers really address climate change without having to engage with what is happening in Australia? Can quantum researchers in the US really miss out on the outstanding science being undertaken in Australia?

Moreover, concentrating defence-related research in trusted geographies offers a pragmatic reason as well: Five Eyes countries may wish to have more integrated, co-planned research pipelines. Although there is diplomatic work to do here, this is precisely the role the Australian government can play well beyond any one university or research funding agency. For example, how much of the approximately $300bn in submarines we have invested comes back to Australian researchers in the form of US and US defence research funding available to Australian researchers?

The same principle of internationalisation applies to sources of funding in corporate R&D and private philanthropy. For example, it is American businessman Chuck Feeney who is one of Australia’s great research benefactors via the Atlantic Philanthropies. His giving has supported 20 health, medical research and university institutions across Australia. Providing greater visibility (and incentives) to foreign companies and philanthropists to invest in world-class Australian research requires government support to market Australian expertise. Doing so also may open up in interesting ways new conversations within our own domestic context for further R&D investment and philanthropic giving.

These are not easy solutions, nor even the most ideal: hopefully the Accord is able to make the national interest case for lifting government investment in our research ecosystem. But if we need to look for ideas for the next two decades, let’s look to new ways to grow the pie. Partnering strategically with global research funders is a good place to start.

Eric Knight is executive dean of Macquarie Business School and winner of the Susan W. Schofield Oral History Award at Stanford University for his latest book, Voices from the Hennessy Presidency.