Australia will have a National Innovation Council to “create a unified and coordinated national effort encompassing goal setting, strategic planning and evaluation,” for research and development.
The proposal is at the heart of a national system proposed by Robyn Denholm and colleagues’ Strategic Examination of Research and Development (SERD).
The SERD sell:
The final report is in line with discussion papers released last year by the SERD team and sets out a comprehensive plan for Government oversight, “encompassing goal setting, strategic planning and evaluation.”
A National Innovation Council reporting to the PM and Portfolio Minister would have functions including oversighting RD&I efforts into six National Innovation Pillars; health and medical, food and agric, defence, environment-energy, resources, technology. Each pillar will have a long-term, “aspirational” national goal to guide prioritisation, coordination, and strategic focus. There will be 18 subgoals, which focus on “high-risk, high-impact” challenges.
Public spending will be via National Strategic Initiatives which are partnerships between government, industry and the research sector.
“Ultimately, this approach will position Australia’s RD&I system to grow, lifting our economic complexity, productivity, and global competitiveness,” is the understated assurance.
What’s in it for the research system
- “Protecting foundational research” in HASS and STEM by “reversing the decline in competitive grants”
- Determine the full cost of research, and crucially, allowing universities to specialise in research by changing registration requirements
- “Balance” support for the national research priorities, “while preserving opportunity for independent research that drives new discovery across a broad range of STEM and HASS disciplines.”
- Ongoing funding for research infrastructure
- Increase PhD stipends in national priority fields.
And as for grants:
Publicly funded research agencies “should align their activities” with the six research pillars. CSIRO should be “a core contributor.”
The R&D TI stays
The SERD, crucially, does not exclude big business. “There should be no ceiling on R&D expenditure eligible under the Research and Development Tax Incentive. Access to these benefits should be firmly tied to companies demonstrating significant, measurable contributions to the wider Research Development and Innovation ecosystem.”
And there are ideas that may take some selling in the community: “while superfunds must create a return for their members, it is also in industry superfund members’ interests that they support the prosperity of Australian industries by investing in the very best domestic assets.”
What about GDP: we do not spend enough, but how much and who should do the spending continues to be a question.
The take-away is: “There is a need to more clearly link science and research priorities to national priorities through specific outcomes-focused, long-term national goals backed by public investment spanning the whole research-to-innovation pipeline.”
Reaction: The major lobbies mostly liked it, when they did not love it. Australian Academy of Science chair Chennupati Jagadish (ANU) said the best time to implement a robust R&D system was 30 years ago. “The next-best time is now,” he said.
“It provides government, business and the research sector with a robust and coherent national roadmap for R&D reform. The report recognises that the challenge is systemic and needs urgent attention,” he said. Although the Academy, being the Academy, also called for the government, as well as business, to cough up and “reverse its own under-investment.”
Universities Australia thanked the panel for “serious ideas” adding; “with the right policy settings in place, a stronger R&D system could help put Australia back on a path to future prosperity.”
“It is now up to the Government to make the most of this opportunity and respond with ambition,” UA stated.
By which FC thinks CEO Luke Sheehy meant money.
Science and Technology Australia was a fierce and cogent critic of some of SERD’s discussion papers, but welcomed this final report as, “the first pivotal step in tackling the long-standing challenges facing Australia’s research, development and innovation system that will lead to lasting and intergenerational opportunity.”
But Cooperative Research Australia (the CRC Association as was), counselled caution.
Overall it approved the model, “in many respects, the report proposes to create super CRCs – larger and more strategically focused on national priorities.” However, “the risk we are watching closely is disruption without investment,” CEO Jane O’Dwyer said.
“If existing programmes delivering real outcomes are not built upon, Australia will lose capability that has taken decades to build.”