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Chief Scientist slams handcuffing research funds to uni reforms

Australia's Treasurer hints at compromise to keep cash flowing even if reforms killed

There are faint hints that the Australia's federal government might reconsider the policy that ties future research funds to its attempt to deregulate university fees.

At the same time, the Chief Scientist Ian Chubb has gone on the record to call the policy a serious problem for research.

The faint scent of a change in policy came from the lips of treasurer Joe Hockey speaking to ABC Radio yesterday (reported by The Guardian here), saying the government is “trying” to work through how to retain the AU$150 million it's threatened to pull from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.

He added that “we want to do more in terms of research and we obviously want to support our scientists”, but declined to give a commitment because it's “a substantial amount of money”.

The Chief Scientist said he doesn't think the research community has been overstating its concerns about the risk of a research shutdown.

While there is a funding review due May, Chubb said funding is going to be needed before that.

“I'm hoping that the government will release the bridging finance that we need,” he told the ABC's AM program.

“We need to get the existing facilities through that [review] so that the budget after this coming one is where we see the rubber on the road.”

The NCRIS funding reaches most sectors of Australian research, from astronomy to advanced manufacturing, oceanography to genetics, and has supported major Australian supercomputing facilities including the 1.2 petaflop Raijin.

Chubb also reiterated his long-standing call for Australia to sort out its research priorities so as to settle what research areas it sees as important to fund in the future, while still maintaining investment in fundamental research.

Depressingly, while serious science has to battle for funds, the government found money to find out that homeopathy is ineffective. ®

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