Basic research fails leadership and funding test
THOUSANDS of meritorious applications every year are not being funded.
LAST week's university press releases lauding their Australian Research Council Discovery Project success masks a harsh reality: the system of funding basic research in Australia is failing.
Rather than genuinely promoting and supporting research, the system is suffocating it. The problem lies with government, in the paucity of funds and schemes, and with a culture of neglect and indifference towards research among university leaderships.
ARC reports show that in 2009-10, Discovery funded a minuscule 22.7 per cent of applications, and 23 per cent of investigators.A total of 925 projects were funded from a total of 4068 applications. For early career researchers, the figures are even worse: only 15.5 per cent were successful. This figure has been constant for the past decade, while the number of applications has been rising and our national research effort needed to be growing. Total funding was $325 million. Â Read more