Red tape declining but so is funding, says outgoing science chief

While Australian universities’ paperwork obligations are generally on the rise, the burden has been eased for academic researchers, according to the departing head of their professional body.

Science & Technology Australia (STA) chief executive Misha Schubert has highlighted the introduction of a two-step application process for research grant applications as a major victory for her membership.

She said the resolution of Australia’s preprint debacle, which saw grant applications spiked for merely referring to unreviewed scientific articles, had been another of the “policy wins” welcomed not only by university researchers but also by their industry collaborators.

Ms Schubert said she had observed a growth in universities’ reporting responsibilities over the past decade. “The business community has argued really powerfully…that they want to see a reduction of red tape to liberate people’s precious time,” she said.

“Industry partners [want] swift and efficient processes in government granting schemes. [They need] co-investment [forms] that they can fill out swiftly [and] predictability around the timeframes. That certainty is absolutely essential for industry confidence to participate in collaborative research, just as it is to maximise the time of university researchers working on cures for cancer – rather than lengthy applications to describe how they might try to cure cancer.”

Ms Schubert, a former journalist and Universities Australia communications director, leaves STA on 2 February to lead a superannuation lobby group. She said the two-stage grant application process, introduced on the recommendation of a review panel that included STA president Mark Hutchinson, had been a common-sense measure to boost researchers’ productivity.

“Many people over the years have tried to calculate how many research hours each year go into just writing grant applications essentially for their own jobs,” she said. “Application forms [for] the major granting schemes...run in some cases up to hundreds of pages, with only one in five of those projects able to be funded, given the quantity of funding available.”

Ms Schubert hailed the former government’s A$2.2 billion (£1.1 billion) research commercialisation package as another significant policy win during her tenure. But the main game still lay ahead, she said, with Australia languishing below most advanced economies in its funding of research and development.

“Scientific and technological innovation…will unfold at a scale and a pace never before seen in human history,” she said. “The choices facing Australia are really stark. We either start to deepen our investments in R&D ambitiously and boldly, or our economic competitors will cut our lunch.”

She said the UK had demonstrated its intent by ramping up science funding since 2017. The US, through its National Science Foundation, was pouring billions of dollars into a “hugely ambitious reindustrialisation agenda” focused on regional economies.

“Those governments aren’t making investments on a whim,” she said. “They’re doing them from a clear-eyed strategic sense that they are going to seize the future. Australia needs to do likewise.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com