Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to complete this debate in relation to the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2019, which means that funding caps within the Australian Research Council Act 2001 are consistent with past precedents.

This bill will ensure that the ARC can continue to support Australia's best researchers to undertake the highest quality fundamental and applied research and research training. The government continues to support efforts in this space in numerous ways. For example, in recent weeks the Morrison government has announced over $24 million in research funding for new ARC training centres and approximately $242 million for ARC centres of excellence around the country. We have also announced the 2019 Australian Laureate Fellows who will share in $54 million to lead their world-class research teams for five years. This funding underpins the research careers of hundreds of researchers, which in turn underpin Australia's position as a leading power among the world's scientific and knowledge economies. I'd note in relation to Senator Ayres's comments before that it is important—very important—that Australian industry and business are also major contributors and leaders in relation to research and development.

The State of Australian university research 2018-19: ERA national report, released by the ARC in March, found that Australia is increasingly performing above world standard in terms of research quality. The report found that Australia exceeds international standards in 11 broad disciplines, including technology, mathematics, medicine, engineering, and sciences relating to our earth and environment.

More broadly in other areas, I note that on 10 October 2019 the foreign minister and Minister for Women, Senator Payne, released the ARC's Gender and the research workforce report, which uses data from the Excellence in Research Australia assessment to give a new insight into Australia's research workforce. A key statistic out of this report analysed the ratio of men to women in the research workforce, which was 56 to 44 in 2018, a small improvement on the ratio of 57 to 43 in 2015 but denoting that further work remains to be done there. It shows that the proportion of male and female researchers varies greatly between research disciplines, with female researchers outnumbering men in just five of the disciplines out of the 22 that are measured by the report. It's through the work of the ARC that we know about this gender disparity, and it's through the ARC that we work to address it through initiatives such as the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship and the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship.

Initiatives such as these show the significant role of the ARC in Australia's research landscape, which gives us both the insight and the power to create real change in our research sector. Thanks to the ARC, the impact of this research is also now known, since the release of Australia's first national assessment of how universities engage outside academia and how they work to translate their research into benefits for society. The Engagement and impact assessment 2018-19 national report, a critical initiative of our government, was released by the ARC in March last year and makes transparent the value to ordinary Australian taxpayers of the government's $12 billion in research funding. It's now possible to explore the data presented in this report, as well as the 240 highly rated impact studies; they are available through the ARC website. These studies paint a rich picture of how Australian research is saving lives, strengthening the economy and improving our quality of living.

Funding the ARC is part of our government's investment in the future of Australia, and, over the next four years, with the passage of this bill, the ARC will deliver over $3 billion in funding for thousands of research projects. This will help to underpin Australia's research strengths as well as ensuring many benefits are leveraged by Australian industry, for Australian jobs and across the Australian community. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.