Australia does not spend a bang-enough bomb on R&D and partnerships between the defence sector and universities are “arguably calcified,” Peter Dean, Esther Soulard and Adeline Williams warn in a new report.
Even when there is “sufficient coverage” in capability research – as per AUKUS – access to funding for academics and industry is “not always straightforward, visibility is scarce and fragmentation systemic.”
They use the tech pillar of the submarine alliance to present a complexity of cases and cultures that demonstrate how industry has under-spent and government has bureaucratically balkanised research and development.
“Government investment in R&D lacks strategic coherence, with current responsibilities for defining research priorities dispersed across more than a dozen government portfolios. Despite numerous reviews of the research sector and policy initiatives, national research priorities have had minimal bearing on Australia’s research profile,” they warn.
They also propose a classic call in the genre of what research commercialisation requires, but never gets; “simplified IP and contracting processes, targeted partnership funding and structured support for spin-offs.”
And they set out substantial recommendations for an innovation, science and technology that supports AUKUS, including:
- Whole-of-government defence-related R&D effort, including AUKUS
- Bringing universities into the classified loop on what tech is needed next
- Prioritising security clearance processing for ”researchers and innovators.”
But the very strength of their case for more public and private spending on research and development is weakened by the comprehensive evidence they set out, describing how chaotic the existing organisation and funding models are. Even if much more R&D funding was allocated, the public sector would find ways to soak it up.
Still, there is no faulting the authors for optimism, proposing universities establish, “academic recognition and reward pathways for researchers conducting classified Defence research.”
Just the thing to ensure campus protests from opponents of AUKUS.