Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2008. This bill before the House is yet another Rudd Labor commitment that was promised at the last election and is now being delivered by the Rudd government. The Australian Research Council was originally established through the Employment, Education and Training Act 1988 but later it became an independent statutory body under that act. The functions of the ARC are to provide advice to the government on research matters, to administer the National Competitive Grants Program and to make recommendations to the minister on the allocation of funds for that program.

The National Competitive Grants Program covers two main elements: Discovery and Linkage. Discovery projects provide funding for individual researchers of projects across many varied areas of research. Linkage projects are about getting government, industry, community organisations and higher education providers to support cooperative research. Future Fellowships will be administered as a new scheme under the Discovery element of the National Competitive Grants Program.

This bill provides nearly $950 million over the forward estimates for ARC funding, both for the ARC’s existing research schemes and for the new Future Fellowships scheme as proposed in the bill. It provides funding for the establishment of the Future Fellowships scheme, which will provide opportunities for mid-career researchers of significant ability to undertake important research in Australia. The bill also provides indexation to existing appropriation amounts in the act—and these are quite substantial. It provides an additional out-year financial forward estimate, being the amount of $731 million for the financial year starting 1 July 2011. The Future Fellowships scheme will make available funding for 1,000 four-year fellowships over the next five years.

At present, many highly qualified mid-career researchers find they have few options to work locally and have to go overseas to further their careers. The aim of the Future Fellowships scheme is to attract and retain Australia’s best and brightest international mid-career researchers, and Future Fellowships provides an incentive for overseas based Australian researchers to return home after gaining important and valuable international experience in their fields. The four-year fellowships will offer up to $140,000 a year to mid-career researchers, along with funding of up to $50,000 a year for the researcher’s administrating organisation to assist in the funding of travel, infrastructure and equipment.

In recent months, as a member of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Innovation, I have been privileged to be present at every hearing of the inquiry into research training and research workforce issues in Australian universities. As that inquiry has gone around the country there have been many submissions taken and some very interesting evidence put before the committee. Although the inquiry is not yet finished, I can certainly comment on some of the public submissions that have been handed up. Overall there has been great support for the Future Fellowships scheme coming from many universities and other organisations involved in research and associated fields. Universities such as Edith Cowan University in Western Australia commended the scheme as announced in the budget. The Curtin University of Technology, also in Western Australia, welcomed the new and exciting initiatives such as the Future Fellowships and the existing ARC fellowships. They applauded these, saying they will assist in attracting and retaining mid-career and senior researchers. The University of Sydney noted the difficulty in transferring from ARC research fellowships and QE2 fellowships to Australian professional fellowships and sees the introduction of the Future Fellowships scheme as a good potential solution to the issue, along with its helping to support the National Health and Medical Research fellowship system. The University of Sydney submission also noted that low salaries and esteem in Australia are an issue and that the federation fellowships were good in this regard. The new future fellowships should help in terms of attracting new researchers back.

Victoria University’s submission calls for initiatives to be developed to encourage mid-career researchers and sees the launch of the ARC Future Fellowships as encouraging and a good start in an area where more needs to be and should be done. The University of Western Sydney submission notes that future fellowships for mid-career academics could play a strong role in providing opportunities for career advancement for research graduates and staff while calling for a priority in the allocation of these fellowships to attracting researchers to the sector rather than rewarding those already in it. The University of New South Wales submission welcomes the Future Fellowships program as the first step to providing an attractive entry back into Australia for overseas based researchers. And the submission from the University of South Australia describes the Future Fellowships scheme as an excellent initiative with the opportunity to recruit 1,000 outstanding international and national mid-career researchers to Australia, but calls for more investment to lift Australia’s international competitiveness in research. Monash University in my home state of Victoria in its submission also welcomes the announcement of a four-year investment of $326 million to be directed to funding future fellowships designed to attract and retain 1,000 talented mid-career researchers from both Australia and abroad.

The inquiry submission from the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations also welcomes the scheme as a significant first step in addressing the urgent need for more opportunities for mid-career researchers whilst also noting that early-career researchers could benefit from a similar scheme. The submission from the Innovative Research Universities Australia group, which comprises Flinders, Griffith, James Cook, La Trobe, Macquarie, Murdoch and Newcastle universities, notes that Future Fellowships is a very welcome initiative aimed at enhancing career pathways through the provision of opportunities for mid-career researchers.

If Australia aims to be a smart nation, we must invest in research and innovation to keep ahead of the world. Future Fellowships is an important funding component that will help us achieve this goal. The announcement on 3 September by Senator Kim Carr, the Minister for Innovation, Science and Research, of the Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme adds another important component to this investment. The Australian Laureate Fellowships will provide opportunities to researchers at the peak of their careers, thus providing a path beyond the mid-career funding we are talking about with this bill. With $239 million to be allocated over five years, the program will be run by the ARC alongside the Future Fellowships scheme.

As I said before, in going around the country on the inquiry and talking to so many different people in different universities about their training and research and about what they see is wrong with the current system, it came through time and time again that the lack of a career path actually meant that many people missed out, were pushed out or lost interest. There is a hole where we need them in research. There are not enough people there; there is not enough attractiveness for some to stay in the system. They go out and work in industry—and I cannot blame them for that, because they have lives to lead and they do need to earn money to live—but we need to make sure that with proper funding we stay in front of the game. The introduction of both of these schemes demonstrates the Rudd government’s commitment to fostering research and excellence along with building a stronger and more diverse research community. I commend this bill to the House.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2008 currently before the House. This bill provides funding for the Rudd Labor government’s new Future Fellowships scheme—an initiative Labor first announced prior to the last election. This is a scheme that has been widely welcomed and much anticipated by Australia’s research community. I can attest to that anticipation because, as the chair of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Innovation, I can confirm the comments that were made by the member for Deakin in relation to the evidence that has come before us in the many public hearings that the committee is currently conducting around the country. It is a much anticipated bill, from the research community’s perspective. It is anticipated because the Rudd government’s Future Fellowships scheme begins to tackle one of the key challenges we face in Australia in the area of research, and that is the continuing exodus of some of our best and brightest mid-career researchers. Whilst overseas exposure, international research collaboration and greater integration are all crucial to the continuing development and future of Australian research, we continue to lose many of our best and brightest mid-career researchers to lucrative job opportunities overseas that usually offer more money for research, better research infrastructure and more support.

The allure of overseas positions is further compounded by the lack of distinct career pathways and adequate support for many early- and mid-career researchers in Australia. This is a problem that this government is determined to tackle in a definitive and decisive way. The value of research and the importance of expanding Australia’s research capacity cannot be overstated. Research is associated with innovation, new discoveries, new ideas, technological breakthroughs, critical debate, creativity and dissent, as well as new ways of seeing the world and understanding our place in it. This is true of the research that is undertaken across all disciplines, whether we are talking about traditional sciences, arts, humanities or social sciences. Failing to recognise the critical role research plays in driving progress and carving out new opportunities, and failing to support excellence in Australian research is simply not an option in today’s competitive global environment, where the demand for new and cutting-edge technologies has never been greater and the emergence of global challenges, like climate change, requires us to find new ways of doing things. Innovation is a pathway to progress and to optimising our competitive advantages, and quality research is the foundation on which innovation is built.

If we are to go forward as a nation, confident in our ability not only to meet the challenges that lie ahead but also to take advantage of the opportunities that tomorrow is sure to bring, then boosting our support for Australian research and investing in Australian talent is crucial. That is why this bill and the Rudd government’s Future Fellowships scheme are so important. The Future Fellowships scheme will encourage mid-career researchers to stay in Australia and continue their research at Australian universities. It also provides an incentive for outstanding international mid-career researchers to conduct their research in Australia.

Under the Future Fellowships scheme, the Rudd government will offer up to 1,000 four-year fellowships to some of our best and brightest mid-career researchers over the next five years. Preference will be given to those researchers who can demonstrate a capacity to collaborate across industry and/or research institutions and/or with other disciplines. Each successful applicant will receive up to $140,000 a year over the four-year period of their fellowship, and host organisations will receive up to an additional $50,000 a year to support related infrastructure and equipment for research projects.

The Future Fellowships scheme is due to commence in early 2009 and will cost $844 million over three years. This is an $844 million investment that the Rudd Labor government is making in Australian research which will provide critical support to some of our most promising mid-career researchers, who are often at a pivotal point in their careers and whose most promising work often lies ahead. By encouraging more of our top mid-career researchers to conduct their research in Australia and by attracting top mid-career researchers to Australia from overseas, the Future Fellowships scheme targets a particularly important tier in the research cycle, one that Australia can no longer afford to ignore. The Rudd government’s Future Fellowships scheme is about fostering research excellence in Australia and expanding our research capacity, providing added incentive and offering additional support to Australian researchers at a time when research in Australia has been on the back foot.

The last decade has not been kind to Australian research. In government spending and investment in research we have fallen well behind many of our international competitors. Under the Howard government, Commonwealth spending on research and innovation dropped 22 per cent as a share of GDP and, to our great shame, we became the only OECD country where public funding for tertiary education actually declined. Growth in the number of students commencing research degrees has stalled. For the first time on record, business investment in R&D actually fell between 1996 and 1997 and 1999 and 2000. It should be remembered that business accounts for a large share of spending on research and development in Australia. It is one of the core engine rooms driving innovation in this country, yet between 1995 and 2004 Australia was one of only three OECD countries to reduce its tax benefits for business research and development. Not only did we do so at a time when most other OECD countries were increasing their level of support for business R&D but, of the three countries to reduce R&D tax benefits, Australia made the deepest cuts. This is not a record that those sitting opposite should be proud of and it is certainly not one that the Rudd Labor government intends to repeat. It paints a stark picture of the challenges we now face in trying to turn around the fortunes of Australian research and breathe new life into research and development.

This is not to say that Australian research has somehow dropped off the international radar, however. When it comes to research, Australia is blessed with enormous talent and creative drive. Despite the last decade of neglect, Australian researchers have continued to make significant breakthroughs in a number of areas. For all of us it should be a great source of pride that Australia produces three per cent of the world’s research papers despite accounting for just 0.3 per cent of the world’s population. It is our responsibility to match this commitment, drive and talent on the ground and in universities across the country by providing Australian researchers with the level of support they deserve. That is what the Future Fellowships scheme is designed to do.

More importantly, the scheme is part of a broader program announced by the Rudd Labor government to invest in, and provide greater support for, Australian researchers and research institutions. In April last year, Labor released a 10-point plan to boost Australia’s innovation performance. The plan included a commitment to invest in knowledge creation. The Future Fellowships scheme is part of that commitment. The plan also identified the need to accelerate knowledge transfer, a goal that underpins the Rudd government’s new Enterprise Connect network that links Australian industry and business to new ideas, new research and the latest technologies capable of giving them a competitive advantage over their international counterparts.

The 10-point plan also includes a promise to internationalise Australia’s innovations. Opening up Australian Research Council and CSIRO programs to overseas participants is one such example. It includes a promise to strengthen innovation infrastructure, which is precisely why the Rudd Labor government has announced its $500 million Better Universities Renewal Fund, as well as the $11 billion Education Investment Fund introduced by the Treasurer in the last budget.

Labor also committed to investing in skills and training to combat the chronic skills crisis we have inherited from the previous, Howard government. Halving HECS fees to encourage more students to study maths and science at university, doubling the number of available undergraduate scholarships and investing in trades training centres in secondary schools across Australia are all part of that commitment.

We promised to improve transparency in governance when it came to Australia’s innovation system, a motivation that underpins the Rudd government’s decision to establish industry innovation councils and appoint an ARC advisory board. Focusing incentives for business R&D, developing a set of national innovation priorities and improving government innovation programs were also included under Labor’s 10-point plan, with each of these recently the subject of Dr Terry Cutler’s review of Australia’s national innovation system. The government is due to respond to this review with a policy white paper by year’s end. While there is still a long way to go, the Rudd government has wasted no time in laying the foundations needed to foster research excellence in Australia and to take Australian research in a new and exciting direction.

In addition to future fellowships, the Rudd government recently announced its $239 million Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme, a program that will provide Australian laureate fellows with funding of up to $3 million over a five-year period for research projects that promise to deliver significant national benefits to Australians. Each year, 15 new Australian laureate fellows will be identified for funding over a five-year period. By also funding postdoctoral and postgraduate researchers under this scheme, the Rudd government is helping to build world-class teams that will give rise to the next generation of research leaders.

For a country like Australia, promoting international research collaboration is particularly important. As a net importer of knowledge, promoting the freest possible flow of information and forging stronger links in terms of overseas partnerships and research collaborations has obvious benefits for Australia. That is why the government is opening up Australian postgraduate industry awards currently available under the ARC linkage scheme and allowing them to be awarded to the highest calibre postgraduate students irrespective of nationality. It is also why we are the removing restrictions on the use of ARC funds for travel for international collaborators and making enhanced international collaboration a priority for all ARC fellowship schemes.

Greater collaboration, connectivity and building stronger links are all vital when it comes to expanding our domestic research capabilities and better positioning ourselves to take advantage of the opportunities that exist in today’s increasingly integrated world. Not only does that mean building stronger links between research institutions in Australia and their counterparts overseas; it also means building greater partnerships between industry, the research sector and government within Australia.

Indigenous researchers and Indigenous studies research also stand to benefit from the Rudd government’s raft of new research initiatives. Recently the ARC and the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies concluded an in-principle agreement to enhance funding arrangements for Indigenous researchers and research studies. This includes a commitment to create new Australian research fellowships specifically targeting Indigenous research studies and Indigenous researchers. With a planned start date of 2010, these new fellowships will be available under the ARC Discovery Indigenous Researchers Development scheme and will complement, though be more senior to, Indigenous researcher fellowships.

Earlier this year, the Rudd government announced the establishment of the Excellence in Research for Australia initiative, which is set to begin replacing the Research Quality Framework in 2009.

These are all important initiatives and they all announce the Rudd government’s commitment to fostering research excellence and building a robust national innovation system in Australia. The Future Fellowships scheme is part of that future, so I am happy to recommend this bill to the House.

Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise, as the last speaker, to speak in support of the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2008 and to sum up debate on it. I thank all speakers for their contribution to this important debate. This bill provides extra funding of around $950 million over the forward estimates for the Australian Research Council to implement the Future Fellowships funding scheme and for indexation and continued funding of the ARC’s funding schemes. It is a measure that underpins the delivery of the Future Fellowships scheme and, as such, provides much needed funding which will support researchers of high capability, particularly those classified as mid-career researchers.

Commencing in 2009, up to 200 new future fellowships will be awarded per year. Over a five-year period, from 2009-2013, Future Fellowships will offer four-year funding of up to $140,000 a year to 1,000 top Australian and international researchers in the middle of their careers. In addition, each of the administering organisations will receive funding of up to $50,000 per year to support the related infrastructure, equipment, travel and relocation costs. The fellowships will be administered as a new scheme under the Discovery element of the National Competitive Grants Program. This is a significant initiative that sends the clear message to our best and brightest that we value their talents. We are saying, ‘You are our national treasures, the brains trust of the nation.’

In recent weeks, we have been captivated by the work of a group of researchers in Switzerland. On 10 September this year, the group sent the first beam around the 27 kilometres of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator complex, the Large Hadron Collider. While the recent work of these researchers has received worldwide attention, what is instructive to point out is that getting to this point has involved over two decades of preparation. Indeed, the basis of the research comes from the original work done by Isaac Newton on gravity hundreds of years ago. I, like many others around the world, will continue to follow the progress of this research with fascination. Indeed, it holds out the great promise of unlocking some of the secrets of the universe.

Equally, when we come to the measures in this bill, the outstanding work conducted by our most talented researchers is the foundation stone upon which Australia is building a world-class, internationally competitive innovation economy and, of course, some of the attention-grabbing scientific breakthroughs that we all want to see. It is essential that we encourage, support and nurture generations of exceptional Australian and international researchers. The Australian government values the important contribution made by researchers to our community’s short- and long-term prosperity and is committed to fostering research talent at all levels.

The Future Fellowships scheme will act as an additional incentive to attract high-calibre researchers in all disciplines across the spectrum of pure, strategic and applied research. All in all, the government has committed to a suite of improvements to ARC funding which will enhance international collaboration opportunities for our research community. Alongside the Future Fellowships scheme will sit the recently announced Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme, which will allow the best research leaders in the world to qualify, while ensuring that most of that work is done in Australia. In addition, under the ARC linkage scheme, Australian postgraduate awards are available for the highest calibre postgraduate students, irrespective of nationality.

Other changes include removing restrictions on the use of ARC funds for travel for international collaboration and making sure that enhanced international collaboration is in fact a priority for all ARC schemes. Some of these changes put the ARC at the forefront of internationalism, in comparison with some of their overseas counterparts. In other instances, this new approach to publicly funded research in Australia will bring ARC schemes into line with the current best practice of agencies elsewhere.

This approach is about investing in the creation of new knowledge and supporting the application of that knowledge for the benefit of the community, a community in which smart economies can do well. It will certainly be welcome in my own electorate of Bennelong, an area with an emerging technology corridor which is increasingly linked to the very fine research efforts of Macquarie University.

We know that if we invest in knowledge it has spin-offs, not just for individual students, academics and institutions but also for the broader community as we build a knowledge based society to underpin both productivity growth and social inclusion. An important part of this is knowledge transfer and exchange between companies and universities, which is not just about commercialisation but also about the production of smart, reflective graduates with critical thinking and communication skills. Certainly, the emerging technology corridor that I speak of around North Ryde requires all of these skills as well as the technical capabilities to develop new products, new business models and markets. Interaction with local universities, as happens with Macquarie, is critical to that success.

I am confident that as we see the rollout of these initiatives and the other points that I have made—the future fellowships and the laureates—innovation centres across the country will benefit. The higher education sector is certainly going to be a major beneficiary. This, as other speakers on this side have pointed out, is in stark contrast to what we have seen in recent years. We should not forget that the Howard government presided over a four per cent decline in public funding of higher education between 1995 and 2004. This compared with an average increase of 49 per cent among other OECD countries. Even taking into account private funding, total funding per student dropped by one per cent, as against a nine per cent increase across the OECD. As a result, Australia lags in the most recent OECD composite measure of investment in knowledge.

These are the kinds of figures that are lamented by researchers and senior academics. The figures also help explain why, after strong productivity growth in the 1990s off the back of the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era, productivity growth in fact stalled completely after 2003. It is why the new Dean of Business at the University of Technology in Sydney, Professor Roy Green, has concluded that our good fortune in recent years has been due not to wise stewardship but, in fact, to being able to compensate for the productivity slowdown with the wealth effects of an entirely fortuitous commodity boom. What we need of course to reverse this mentality is, as I have said, an innovation economy, and that is embraced by the Rudd government. By investing more in our best and brightest, we will help achieve this goal and put in place the building blocks for a real transformation. As Professor Green further points out, we need to reconnect with the unfinished business of the Karpin review of 1995 and put a fresh focus on building innovative capability in Australia’s workplaces. All in all, it is now time to honour this effort and our researchers and provide them with the support they need.

One of the country’s outstanding scientific talents, the Nobel prize winner Professor Peter Doherty, has said on many occasions that Australia cannot afford to waste its best and brightest; that they require decent long-term prospects if they are to make the discoveries and forge the high technology companies that we need. The development of excellent researchers is perhaps the single most important objective of any innovation system, and the returns from investment have been quantified. A 2003 Allen Consulting report said that the returns on investment in ARC funded research were high in absolute terms and high relative to the average returns associated with all publicly funded research.

In conclusion I would again like to thank everyone who spoke on this bill. I appreciate the input of all. The bill will provide funding for the Future Fellowships Establishment budget measure. It will also apply indexation to existing appropriation amounts in the act and create an additional out-year financial forward estimate. The government intends to provide around $900 million over nine years for the Future Fellowships scheme. It is one of a number of initiatives that we have introduced to improve our research capacity. The funding will be through the ARC and will continue to provide significant and diverse benefits to the Australian community, which is why I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.