Australia’s science and research priorities: conversation starter

Australian Chief Scientist’s Science and Research Priorities consultation process

April 6, 2023

The Australian Council of Deans of Science (ACDS), constituted in 1995, represents the executive leadership of Australia’s University Science Faculties, Colleges, and Schools. Our members are responsible for the strategic development and delivery of the programs of teaching and research in
Australian university science, and we act as a voice for Australian university science.

The ACDS is pleased to have the opportunity to make this submission to the Australian Chief
Scientist’s Science and Research Priorities consultation process. Please see below our responses to the suggested questions.

1. What are Australia’s greatest:

a. challenges that science could help to address?

Challenges that science could help to address include climate change and its impacts on biodiversity and habitats, food security and sustainability, addressing the energy crisis through renewable options, leveraging locally abundant critical minerals to develop new materials and technologies, bolstering our defence mechanisms and better preparation for the next pandemic.

It is also critical that Australia develops new intellectual capital and sovereign capabilities in core disciplines to ensure resilience and responsiveness to these challenges in the future.

On the basis of the above, we propose that Australia’s Science priorities become:

• Climate change: Conserving Australia’s natural wonders (eg the Great Barrier Reef).
Mapping, information and detection systems to accurately monitor climate change, climate
change mitigation and management strategies, bushfire mitation and management
strategies, recognizing and incorporating indigenous knowledge.

• Biodiversity and conservation: Protecting habitats from the impact of climate change and
agriculture, conserving species that are critical to healthy ecosystems and Australia’s
economy, recognizing and incorporating indigenous knowledge.

• Food sustainability: Modern processes to improve the quality and productivity of food
systems, resistance to disease and pests, access and use of Indigenous food, quality and
nutritional value of plant-based foods.

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• Renewable energy: Pursuing circular economy approaches to deliver clean and effective
energy solutions and transitioning to net-zero emissions by 2050.

• Critical minerals: Leveraging Australia’s rich resources of vital and strategic critical minerals
to enable the development of new devices and other technologies, for example lithium
battery-based electric cars.

• Defence technologies: Including detection, triaging and management of physical and cyber
threats and development of new technologies such as nuclear-powered submarines (e.g. via
AUKUS)

• Biotechnology: Including development of vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics and other
biologics or synthetic compounds for human health, agriculture and the food industry. Such
outcomes will better prepare us for many scenarios including the next pandemic.

• Data Science: Effective analytical and AI systems, data integrity and security to enable
evidenced-based scientific analysis, decisions and actions across all scientific disciplines

b. opportunities we should seize?

Australia should seize opportunities to partner with government and industry in research and development, via an expanded science-industry presence in Australia, to translate and deploy its world-class research.

We should also seize opportunities to solve scientific challenges through mission-driven programs, along the lines of the MRFF approach to addressing challenges in Medicine. This should be achieved as part of a carefully considered alignment between fundamental and applied research, by connecting the entire value chain of research, from scientific discovery and knowledge generation, through to translation, application and impact, and everything in between.

c. strengths we should maintain or build?

Australia has strengths and critical mass in a wide range of scientific disciplines, with universities often ranked highly in international subject rankings. These strengths enable Australia to solve a broad range of challenges and must therefore be maintained and continue to be supported and leveraged for maximum national benefit.

In contrast, we lag many OECD partners in our capacity to translate our successes in knowledge generation into tangible outputs and outcomes of benefit to Australia’s social and economic well- being. We therefore need to build on our disciplinary expertise to address this “translation deficit”. This requires a better coordinated and governed research funding ecosystem that connects and supports activities across the research value chain, together with incentives to drive collaboration across institutions and between key partners and end users.

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2. Does Australia have the capability and capacity needed to address these challenges, opportunities and strengths? If not, how could we build this?

Higher degree research (HDR) students and early-career researchers (ECRs) contribute enormously to the research output of Australia but are currently in a perilous situation as career progression opportunities and security are at an all-time low. These young scientists are the future leaders of research in Australia and should be valued and supported to progress in their careers and be filled with hope for the future. To build capability and capacity, it is essential to provide hope and career stability for our future research workforce. This will enable better performance and a more courageous approach to addressing and solving grand challenges (the “big hairy audacious goals”).

To build our capabilities, it is also critical to bolster the interrelationships across the entire research value chain, from scientific discovery and knowledge generation, through to translation, application and impact, and everything in between. This should include due consideration of the importance of fundamental research and its role within that value chain. It should also celebrate the importance of supporting the advancement of knowledge without regard to its potential purpose. So many such discoveries have been critical for solving pressing issues years – or even decades – after they were first reported. Contemporary examples include seminal work over 30 years ago in developing our understanding of RNA biology and the subsequent development of vaccines to protect against
COVID-19.

Industry engagement and participation are essential for research translation and deployment. The predominance of SMEs in Australian industries presents a significant challenge, especially in some science disciplines, as these companies often don’t have sufficient funds to invest in R&D or to co- fund research in universities. There is a pressing need for stronger incentives to support large industries being based in Australia or local industry participation in research.

Mission-based funding for non-medical research, along the lines of the MRFF, is desperately needed, as proposed in the pre-budget submission by Science and Technology Australia. This latter proposal is strongly endorsed by the Australian Council of Deans of Science.

Federal government research funding schemes are currently fragmented. It is essential that research funding schemes are better coordinated to provide a pathway to achieve impact across the research value chain, ideally at a higher level of government, to maximize the impact of government investment in research.

The Australian government has a long history of supporting national research infrastructure, via the
National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and other schemes. However, a human resource capability gap has emerged in terms of extracting maximum value from existing infrastructure and in developing new infrastructure capabilities. Highly trained professional staff, typically with PhD qualifications and with deep expertise that can help researchers to devise new experimental strategies and instrumental capabilities to unlock the full potential of the infrastructure, are required. However, funding for these colleagues often falls through the cracks of the largely binary staffing arrangements in contemporary Australian universities. They are not academic staff, who have an imperative to devise their own research agendas. Nor are they simply technical staff who are required to keep the infrastructure functioning. Rather, they are individuals with research training and highly-developed problem-solving skills who can work directly with
(and/or as a part of) research teams to develop new experimental capabilities in support of
Australia’s fundamental-research portfolio.

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