Australia: Accord won’t stop R&D decline without bold decisions .
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Overview
DATE
13 May 2024
AUTHOR
Mike Molinari
The news that university spending on research and development as a share of GDP has recorded its biggest two-year decline in more than 30 years should worry all Australians.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that while higher education expenditure on R&D (HERD) reached almost $13.99 billion in 2022, up from $12.67 billion in 2020, the increase was not enough to keep pace with GDP and investment dropped in real terms from 0.61 per cent to 0.55 per cent.
This decline in funding makes it even more difficult to create the economic and societal impact that we need to see from our research spend, and risks Australia falling behind in what is rapidly becoming an R&D arms race in areas such as biotechnology, clean energy and AI.
The dust has barely settled on the release of the Albanese Government-commissioned Education Accord report, but there are already question marks about it being able to turn around that decline.
From an impact perspective, this expert review of our higher education system promised so much but delivered so little.
Buried in its 334 pages are recommendations for the future of how universities, government and the private sector will interact in research and learning.
Those recommendations are vague and ill-defined and this creates a risk that hard decisions in an area critical to the future of this nation will be left on the shelf.
The Accord was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make Australian research fit for purpose in a 21st century where intellectual property is growing stronger as a force for good than natural resource endowment.
Mike Molinari
Managing Director, Australia
The Accord was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make Australian research fit for purpose in a 21st century where intellectual property is growing stronger as a force for good than natural resource endowment.
It is laudable in its aims to simultaneously grow the national economy while enhancing social development and environmental sustainability.
Its recommendation for a Solving Australian Challenges Strategic Fund to provide a funding signal to universities to deliver greater impact from their research is a giant step in the right direction.
But the Accord should have gone further and defined the size and scope of this fund. It should have suggested how a tertiary sector that is fixated on its researchers achieving publication citations to boost university global rankings would achieve this.
Putting block funding of basic research to one side, the focus needs shift off publication as a measurement of the value of research and be put onto commercialisation and impact.
The UK has a thriving deeptech ecosystem underpinned by its leading universities and assesses their research every seven years.
Its Research Excellence Framework, established in 2006, puts a 25% weighting on impact and this feeds into the annual allocation of almost $A4 billion of core funding.
This creates a direct link between impact and funding which drives behavioural change in universities and their academics.
Oxford University averaged about five spin-out companies per year from 2001-2010. Since the introduction of the impact metric, it has averaged 15 spinouts per year.
The Accord acknowledges that Australia pulls up short in global comparisons of commercialisation of R&D, and also that our R&D expenditure its lowest recorded level in 17 years.
Disappointingly, it recommends a formal strategic, cross-portfolio examination of national research funding to enable a multi-agency government strategy that sets medium and long-term targets.
A review suggesting a review. With respect to the people who wrote the report, we need another one like we need a hole in the head.
And do we really need a Research Investor Forum working with the usual business peak bodies “to explore mechanisms of keeping universities, industry and government informed of significant research problems that need to be addressed”?
The Accord authors think so.
What we really need is for our policy-makers to now make bold strategic decisions so investors can do the same.
