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Scientists Should be Funded to Follow Their Own Interests

The continuing push for CSIRO to raise more of its funds from private sources may destroy its greatest strength

The Canberra Times, 11 July 2002

Predictably, Science Minister Peter McGauran has denied accusations that there is a leadership crisis in the CSIRO. The Minister says that CSIRO chief executive, Geoff Garrett, and the CSIRO Board have the Government's full confidence, while Dr. Garrett himself assures us that there is a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm among the CSIRO leadership.

These assurances may be quite accurate, but they fail to answer the original charge, made by former Entomology Division Chief Max Whitten. Professor Whitten, writing in the July edition of Australasian Science magazine, says that CSIRO is in danger of becoming just another consulting firm and that half of its divisional chiefs are looking for other work.

The official responses sidestep the real issue, namely that the continuing push for CSIRO to raise more and more of its funds from nongovernment sources may be destroying its greatest strength.

This policy of privatisation by a thousand cuts has been pursued by both sides of politics for about fifteen years now. From the beginning there have been clear warnings that even a modest dependence on private-sector funds would compromise the independence of CSIRO and degrade its long-term performance. The same concern applies to Australia's universities, in which government funding now accounts for less than half of total income.

The value of allowing scientists and scholars the independence to pursue their lines of inquiry according to their own judgment is evidently not rated very highly among the current generation of rulers. Yet major scientific discoveries don't just pop up from nowhere, they arise from a broad and deep context of inquiry, and a long accumulation of diverse streams of knowledge.

A symptom of this dependence on deep context, well known amongst the scientifically literate, is that discoveries often pop up in unexpected places. High Court justice Michael Kirby recently cited the example of research on the AIDS virus, which originated from a decade's work on the equivalent virus among chimpanzees. That work was under way well before the AIDS virus was identified in humans. The work was pursued because the simian symptoms were very puzzling, and this attracted the curiosity of scientists.

In my own field of earth science, work that eventually spun off a way to store radioactive wastes in a relatively safe form had begun two decades earlier, and its original goal was to understand the properties of materials a thousand kilometers down inside the earth. In these and countless other cases, the judgement of good scientists that a question was worth pursuing has yielded major benefits that were quite unanticipated by the scientist or anyone else. This is the real value of curiosity-driven research.

The lesson is not confined to science. A healthy democratic society will not just tolerate, but actively cultivate quality scholarship of all kinds, pursued for its own sake. The common result of such a policy is a well-informed diversity of views. Well-informed citizens may be very inconvenient for governments, but well-informed debate is the essence of democracy. A government that fails to support diverse scholarship is failing to support democracy, the central value of the Australian political system.

Equally, a government that thinks it can pick winners in basic science is guaranteeing long-term mediocrity. The reason is simply that by focussing on today's perceived winners we neglect the cultivation of tomorrow's winners. Worse, by the time a minister knows a particular field is a winner, so does every other minister and entrepreneur in the world.

Perhaps the government's privatisation policy is intended to emulate the best American private universities. If so, it is sadly misguided. I have studied and worked in several of the best U.S. private universities, and they do not focus on narrow vocational training for undergraduates, nor on short-term research for industry. Rather, they offer a broad liberal arts education and they engage in fundamental, curiosity-driven research. Those are their core values, and the reason they have served themselves and their country so well.

The core funding for the U.S. private universities comes from their portfolio of invested endowments. This gives them independence from both government and big business, and that independence is jealously guarded. Australia lacks the culture of the wealthy philanthropist that created those universities. We should instead heed Professor Peter Karmel's recent call for the government to return to an arms length relationship with universities, with an independent statutory body as an intermediary.

But what, one might ask, does all this have to do with CSIRO, which has always had the mission of supporting manufacturing and agriculture. The point is that the early CSIRO leadership had the wisdom to give their scientists a long leash. That policy paid off handsomely, as is documented in the recently launched CSIRO history Fields of Discovery , by Brad Collis.

Collis characterises CSIRO as a goose that has laid many golden eggs. One example, reported by Whitten, quoting former Labor minister John Kerin, is that research on stored grain returned $20 for every dollar invested. How many private sector companies with short-term, market-driven focuses can match that?

The Prime Minister, evidently, is quite ignorant of the strength of CSIRO and of the benefits it has delivered. This was revealed when Mr. Howard, in the course of launching Collis' book, said he looked forward to the day when CSIRO scientists could join our cricketers as world leaders.

This level of ignorance, which unfortunately is typical of recent governments, not only bodes ill for Australia's future, it is insulting to a great many talented and devoted people.

Australia's scientists, in CSIRO and the universities, have for many decades now been punching well above their weight. Their performance compares very well with our renowned athletes. This is well documented.

Lately, however, our scientists' standing has begun to slip. This decline coincides with the modern era of shrinking government funding, instigated by the Hawke-Keating governments and carried forward with greater zeal by successive Howard governments.


	Scientists Should be Funded to Follow Their Own Interests The continuing push for CSIRO to raise more of its funds from private sources may destroy its greatest strength The Canberra Times, 11 July 2002 Predictably, Science Minister Peter McGauran has denied accusations that there is a leadership crisis in the CSIRO. The Minister says that CSIRO chief executive, Geoff Garrett, and the CSIRO Board have the Government's full confidence, while Dr. Garrett himself assures us that there is a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm among the CSIRO leadership. These assurances may be quite accurate, but they fail to answer the original charge, made by former Entomology Division Chief Max Whitten. Professor Whitten, writing in the July edition of Australasian Science magazine, says that CSIRO is in danger of becoming just another consulting firm and that half of its divisional chiefs are looking for other work. The official responses sidestep the real issue, namely that the continuing push for CSIRO to raise more and more of its funds from nongovernment sources may be destroying its greatest strength. This policy of privatisation by a thousand cuts has been pursued by both sides of politics for about fifteen years now. From the beginning there have been clear warnings that even a modest dependence on private-sector funds would compromise the independence of CSIRO and degrade its long-term performance. The same concern applies to Australia's universities, in which government funding now accounts for less than half of total income. The value of allowing scientists and scholars the independence to pursue their lines of inquiry according to their own judgment is evidently not rated very highly among the current generation of rulers. Yet major scientific discoveries don't just pop up from nowhere, they arise from a broad and deep context of inquiry, and a long accumulation of diverse streams of knowledge. A symptom of this dependence on deep context, well known amongst the scientifically literate, is that discoveries often pop up in unexpected places. High Court justice Michael Kirby recently cited the example of research on the AIDS virus, which originated from a decade's work on the equivalent virus among chimpanzees. That work was under way well before the AIDS virus was identified in humans. The work was pursued because the simian symptoms were very puzzling, and this attracted the curiosity of scientists. In my own field of earth science, work that eventually spun off a way to store radioactive wastes in a relatively safe form had begun two decades earlier, and its original goal was to understand the properties of materials a thousand kilometers down inside the earth. In these and countless other cases, the judgement of good scientists that a question was worth pursuing has yielded major benefits that were quite unanticipated by the scientist or anyone else. This is the real value of curiosity-driven research. The lesson is not confined to science. A healthy democratic society will not just tolerate, but actively cultivate quality scholarship of all kinds, pursued for its own sake. The common result of such a policy is a well-informed diversity of views. Well-informed citizens may be very inconvenient for governments, but well-informed debate is the essence of democracy. A government that fails to support diverse scholarship is failing to support democracy, the central value of the Australian political system. Equally, a government that thinks it can pick winners in basic science is guaranteeing long-term mediocrity. The reason is simply that by focussing on today's perceived winners we neglect the cultivation of tomorrow's winners. Worse, by the time a minister knows a particular field is a winner, so does every other minister and entrepreneur in the world. Perhaps the government's privatisation policy is intended to emulate the best American private universities. If so, it is sadly misguided. I have studied and worked in several of the best U.S. private universities, and they do not focus on narrow vocational training for undergraduates, nor on short-term research for industry. Rather, they offer a broad liberal arts education and they engage in fundamental, curiosity-driven research. Those are their core values, and the reason they have served themselves and their country so well. The core funding for the U.S. private universities comes from their portfolio of invested endowments. This gives them independence from both government and big business, and that independence is jealously guarded. Australia lacks the culture of the wealthy philanthropist that created those universities. We should instead heed Professor Peter Karmel's recent call for the government to return to an arms length relationship with universities, with an independent statutory body as an intermediary. But what, one might ask, does all this have to do with CSIRO, which has always had the mission of supporting manufacturing and agriculture. The point is that the early CSIRO leadership had the wisdom to give their scientists a long leash. That policy paid off handsomely, as is documented in the recently launched CSIRO history Fields of Discovery , by Brad Collis. Collis characterises CSIRO as a goose that has laid many golden eggs. One example, reported by Whitten, quoting former Labor minister John Kerin, is that research on stored grain returned $20 for every dollar invested. How many private sector companies with short-term, market-driven focuses can match that? The Prime Minister, evidently, is quite ignorant of the strength of CSIRO and of the benefits it has delivered. This was revealed when Mr. Howard, in the course of launching Collis' book, said he looked forward to the day when CSIRO scientists could join our cricketers as world leaders. This level of ignorance, which unfortunately is typical of recent governments, not only bodes ill for Australia's future, it is insulting to a great many talented and devoted people. Australia's scientists, in CSIRO and the universities, have for many decades now been punching well above their weight. Their performance compares very well with our renowned athletes. This is well documented. Lately, however, our scientists' standing has begun to slip. This decline coincides with the modern era of shrinking government funding, instigated by the Hawke-Keating governments and carried forward with greater zeal by successive Howard governments.