Government Must Act on Research Reviews’ Call for Additional Investment in R+D
25 March 2004
The Federal Government must act on the recommendations of its own reviews into research and significantly increase its investment in R&D and innovation, including research in universities, in the upcoming Federal Budget, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) said on Thursday.
“NTEU estimates that the Government needs to invest approximately an additional $2.4 billion in R&D expenditure between 2006-07 and the end of the decade, simply to maintain its share of expenditure as proportion of GDP at existing levels,” said Dr Carolyn Allport, NTEU President (see Attachment 1).
“This is the minimum funding commitment required and any other result in the upcoming Budget will simply serve to lock in our decline in R&D investment relative to competitor OECD countries.”
“While the NTEU needs to examine the detail of the recommendations in the reviews released by Dr Brendan Nelson yesterday, the Union supports the common theme in all three reports on the need for increased government investment for the research activities of Australia’s universities and publicly funded research agencies,” said Dr Allport.
The reports recommend that the Government:
- Allocate an additional $1billion in funding for a number of important Australian landmark facilities, such as the very large telescope, including financing their ongoing operating costs.
- Increase the funding of university block research grants.
- Provide funding for a new contestable collaborative fund, in the order of $500 million over a ten-year period, to support research programs of national significance.
“One of the reports, Evaluation of Knowledge and Innovation, also estimates that universities had to use an additional $450 million of their own resources in 2003-4 as leverage to obtain competitive research grants from the Australian Research Council, which is diverting resources from universities’ other core activities such as teaching.”
“The three reviews, together with research by ISI Thompson on Australian academic research publications and citations, demonstrate that Australian researchers are performing at or above worlds’ best practice over the last decade, but more money is needed to push this effort further.”
“Increased investment in R&D is vital to secure Australia’s economic growth, meet the environmental and other challenges that face our society and create more skilled jobs.”
“It is not enough for the Education Minister to say the reviews will provide an important input into his Government’s decisions regarding future research policy and funding,” said Dr Allport. “The challenge now is for the Minister to convince his Government, that R&D is an essential investment in the future prosperity of this country, and to deliver real increases in the upcoming Budget.”
For information and comment:
Dr Carolyn Allport, NTEU President
Andrew Nette, NTEU Policy and Research Coordinator