To put it bluntly, we are falling behind. We are facing an ideas bust, not a boom.
Indeed. Better to have highly paid baristas so they can afford ultra low interest rates on a mega mortgage. And why not double down on the ideas bust by then cutting key funding to the best agency that has provided the pathway, and in some cases the actual inventions, that lead to prosperous outcomes. When the Turnbull government cut $100 million from CSIRO last year it quickened the job losses at the agency – nearing 1000 since Abbott’s unscientific rise to power, with another 40 jobs to go from the manufacturing division (makes my blood boil that one) – it’s meant the already lean leader in science is having to find more ways to get its research and skills into the economy.
While providing a quicker return on its funding by chasing commercial development, it comes at the expense of ditching blue-sky research, something Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel is not shy in stating. More from the ABC (my emphasis added):
Australia’s premier science agency, the CSIRO, has ramped up its partnerships with business and universities to get more high tech products out on the market.
As it marks its centenary, funding pressure has seen the CSIRO focus even more on commercial inventions to keep cash flowing into the organisation.
Dr Keith McLean, the CSIRO’s manufacturing director, said the organisation is investing in growth areas which are more likely to get a commercial return such as high tech manufacturing, rather than heavy industry.
“We’ve cut back some of our capability in the biology space for instance, we’ve cut back some capability in some of the traditional metal areas that we work in,” Dr Mclean said. “We’ve reduced capability in some of our surface coatings technologies.”
The agency has also increased partnerships with universities. The Federal Government said the CSIRO has so far signed agreements with more than 20 universities to commercialise scientific research.
Australia’s chief scientist and former entrepreneur, Dr Alan Finkel said the big budget cuts faced by the CSIRO over the past few years have hurt the organisation.
“It doesn’t just hurt innovation, it hurts blue sky research, applied research and everything the CSIRO and universities are trying to achieve,” Dr Finkel told the ABC in an interview.
Actually in the scheme of things, $100 million is not “BIG” – its about a couple weeks of concessional super contributions lost to high income super “savers” or a few weeks house price appreciation in Sydney.
There is no debate about the efficacy of a government run organisation like CSIRO to turn public funding into commercial and economy-wide success. Witness Cochlear, or CSL (formerly Commonwealth Serum Laboratories). Hello? Wifi?
It’s government funding on risky capital ventures that provide the impetus for development from the commercial sector, not the other way around with “government getting in the way of risky entrepreneurs”. This increased focus on commercial ventures from CSIRO is a great step but is a drip in the ocean for what is really needed.
What Australia needs now is a huge increase in funding – think Apollo program – for CSIRO and other government agencies with a structural, strategic approach to scientific research and technological engineering, which starts with channelling youth into the STEM field.
The funds are easily available via superannuation sector (see my Research Bond idea) or stopping the wasteful concessions on super and housing.
As Jillian Segal rightly states:
STEM graduates provide the building blocks of any modern economy. They are what Australia will need to compete in the sectors that rapidly emerging technologies will create. They will give our business community the ability to innovate and respond to disruption. They will be the key ingredient to attract foreign investment into a new economy. They will be the jobs of the future.
Not household services or more baristas and barbers.