Home > Media releases > 2006

CONCERN FOR A SECURE CAREER PATH FOR SCIENTISTS
11 October 2006

Grave concern for the future health and competitiveness of the nation's scientific research has been voiced by Australian Academy of Science President Professor Kurt Lambeck in the wake of today's announcement of the latest Australian Research Council Discovery Project grants.

Despite the fact that an overwhelming number were deemed suitable, only 20 per cent of the 4,033 applications eligible for the $365 million in grants on offer have been approved.

The grants support research projects and individual researchers and teams of researchers and provide opportunities for emerging and established researchers to do research of national and international significance.

Professor Lambeck said: 'Only 49 applications were deemed ineligible, leaving 3,137 potentially solid, viable research proposals out in the cold. The situation for Australian research becomes even worse when you consider that the success rate has dropped by 4.1 per cent compared to last year's ARC grants.

'The Academy is not advocating smaller allocations to more projects. This is a wonderful scheme which the Academy fully supports. But we do need a recognition by Government at federal and state levels as well as business and industry that pure and applied scientific research across all disciplines brings benefits to all Australians – and a consequent boost in funding from the Federal Government for the ARC grants.

'Indeed, Minister for Education Science and Training Julie Bishop said today in her statement on the latest grants that "the projects funded today affect the whole community".' Professor Lambeck added: 'Think of the huge additional benefit to all Australians if even another 20 per cent of the unsuccessful projects had received funding.

He pointed out also that the proportion of Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship research awards within the Discovery grants were seriously under-represented. He said: 'This is a major concern for mid-career scientific researchers, who have to engage in ferocious competition for this, one of the few sources of major funding available to them.

'But out of 175 fellowships in all categories for this round, only 50 went to ARF/QEII grant applicants – and these researchers are among the cream of our future scientific crop. A number of our best people are increasingly being lured overseas. 'If the funding situation does not improve, what's now a fast-flowing trickle will become a flood.'