Canberra warned against ‘cherry-picking’ bits of research review

A panellist on Australia’s landmark research review has repeated warnings against “cherry-picking” from its recommendations and urged the university sector to pressure the government to accept the whole package.

Kate Cornick said the research, development and innovation “flywheel” – the idea that foundational research builds knowledge, which is translated into businesses, which create wealth, which is reinvested back into foundational research – was not “working effectively” in Australia.

“If we’re forgetting to fund the foundational research that feeds those companies, we’re not going to really kick that flywheel off,” Cornick told a webinar hosted by Universities Australia on 21 May.

Cornick, the newly appointed CEO of the Tech Council of Australia, was a panel member on the Strategic Examination of R&D (Serd). The federal government funded only a handful of its recommendations in the 12 May budget, and only by scrapping a research commercialisation programme.

Cornick said the panel had not expected the government to adopt every recommendation “in one go”, and the budget’s implementation of some of the proposals – particularly the establishment of a National Resilience and Science Council – was a “positive first step. But we absolutely need to keep the pressure on.”

She said that during the review, medical device company Cochlear and biotechnology giant CSL had repeatedly been cited as the “shining stars” of Australian R&D. “Let’s face it; those companies were founded last century.

“We really need to think about how we’re creating those next-generation businesses that are going to build real confidence and prosperity for Australia that can then be reinvested back into the fundamental work – which is ultimately foundational research. There is a long way to go.”

Science minister Tim Ayres said the budget had “really delivered” for research, development, commercialisation and innovation. “[We are] making sure that we’ve got the new science that we can commercialise here in Australia,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“Making sure that we are commercialising these inventions, this intellectual property, this science onshore here in Australia to create good jobs in outer suburbs and in our industrial regions – that’s what that agenda is all about.”

Cornick said universities were under enormous pressure to commercialise technology, even though the “vast majority” of entrepreneurs – about 96 per cent in Australia, and 90 per cent in the US – had no university affiliations.

She said innovation relied on work developed by academics over decades. The knowledge harnessed by artificial intelligence entrepreneurs, for example, had first been published in 1956. “If that had not happened, they would not be able to innovate,” she said. “They may not be able to cite those papers but…they stand on the shoulders of giants.

“We get a bit too focused on…universities [delivering] economic outcomes right now. The critical role of universities in our economy is not about creating innovation for tomorrow. It’s providing the platform to create the innovations in 20, 30, 50 years’ time.”

The budget also earmarked financial support for Australia’s association with Horizon Europe. Cornick said that although it was hard to say whether involvement in the world’s biggest research funding scheme would “achieve our dreams”, global connections were “absolutely vital” to Australia’s R&D community.

“Around 97 per cent of knowledge is produced outside of Australia,” she said. “We have to engage with that knowledge. Not engaging with it [is] knowing less than 3 per cent of the story.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com