SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 6 - 8 may 2009

President's address

Thursday, 7 May 2009

Distinguished guests, Fellows and friends of the Academy. As President of the Academy, I welcome you to the fifty-fifth anniversary of the formal ceremonies of the Australian Academy of Science.

I am repeating myself once again, but I do so knowingly, when I say that a key element of Science at the Shine Dome is to celebrate outstanding Australian contributions to science through the achievements of our new laureates. Those of you who attended the New Fellows Symposium yesterday will agree that our newly elected Fellows represent what is best in Australian science, in terms of creativity, intellectual leadership and the underlying awareness of the importance of directing their talents in directions that are important for society as a whole. These are characteristics that will, I am sure, be equally true for our medallists, some of whom we will hear from later this morning, and some this evening.

Recognising and rewarding good science is one of the most important things that the Academy can do because it underpins the quality that we can bring to our other programs. Recognising and rewarding good science is what we celebrate this week. But assuring that there will be good science done in the future is also one of the Academy’s important functions and a constant challenge. It is about some of these activities that I address you this morning.

Science starts with education in our schools, something with which the Academy has been directly involved for at least the past fourteen years. I talked about our Primary Connections and Science by Doing programs last year and noted that both were then at critical stages. I can now report that the next stage of both programs have been approved for funding by the Department of Education [Employment and Workplace Relations]. At the completion of the new Primary Connections contract, we aim to have a trained science curriculum leader, using the Primary Connections resources, in every school. I encourage you to visit our education website for the latest information on this program.

At the end of the new Science by Doing contract we expect to see considerable progress made in the development of a novel inquiry-based secondary school science program for national implementation.

In continuing to be an advocate for improved science education in our schools, we are signalling that education is too important for its advocacy to be the responsibility of teachers alone. Thus we are working with teachers and curriculum developers to improve science and literacy teaching. As part of this I specially welcome those who are with us today.

In the words of the past president of the US Academy of Science, Bruce Albers, the quality of a nation depends on the collective wisdom of both its leaders and its citizens. It is the broader community that elects our politicians and if this community does not understand the benefits of science and technology, then there is little incentive for politicians to raise the issues above their horizons. This understanding starts with education in our schools and continues thereafter.

An important element in safeguarding the future of Australian science is to create an environment where there are quality careers for the next generation of research scientists, where outstanding young scientists can widen their horizons in preparation to becoming tomorrow’s science leaders.

We are not alone in this concern and the government responded to it with the creation of 1000 mid-career positions over a five-year period. We applaud these actions because investing in human infrastructure is at least as important as investment in material infrastructure. Nevertheless, we feel it necessary to point out the obvious: that with some 10 to 20 research intensive universities and perhaps some 30 to 40 disciplines worthy of nurturing, that the scope for developing critical mass in any area of science and technology will be a challenge indeed.

Many of the future developments in science will occur at the interfaces of present disciplines and use technologies that have yet to be developed. But at the same time young researchers, through pressures to complete their PhDs in minimal timeframes, and to maximise research publications, are increasingly driven to narrow their research focus.

The Academy attempts to facilitate the passage from focussed researcher to the broader thinker in a number of ways. We use our Frontiers of Science program to bring together emerging leaders to examine new research directions across disciplinary boundaries, with the challenge to discover something entirely different that we didn’t know that we needed to know in the first place.

Our Think Tanks, likewise, have a strong focus on early- and mid-career scientists. The purpose of the Think Tanks is to bring together researchers from a broad range of disciplines to think about novel applications of existing science and technology to a societally important problem. As well, the participants are encouraged to identify gaps in knowledge that need to be addressed in order to translate the science into policy and action. The last Think Tank was on Preventative health: Science and technology in the prevention and early detection of disease. Amongst outcomes, the Think Tank was able to provide timely inputs to the deliberations of the National Preventative Health Taskforce as well as formulate a series of recommendations of relevance to both policy developers and decision makers in establishing priority areas for future consideration.

One of the recurring messages that comes from these and our other activities that focus on early-career scientists is the value of bringing researchers from different fields together to address issues beyond their immediate boundaries. Even within the defined limits of preventative health, for example, I was struck by how often we were introducing mid-career researchers to each other: people who I thought should already have known each other. Also, I was struck by how frequently the observation was made, ‘if only I had known what was going on in your field, my science would have been further advanced by now’. It indicates that there is a need for creating environments in which early- and mid-career researchers are brought together to discuss issues that transgress the usual discipline boundaries. Our experience is certainly such that I believe that, as part of creating an improved landscape for scientific research in Australia, the Academy must continue to make a serious effort to help the next generation of scientists in advancing their careers and developing their leadership roles.

We would like to do much more but we are limited by our financial resources. As our Treasurer will explain later, these have not exactly been helped by the financial downturn and current grant support does not provide a platform for long-term planning.

We have been fortunate this year in being able to fund the Think Tank program from the Theo Murphy (Australia) Fund in collaboration with the Royal Society and we will hold another later this year under the same umbrella. But we need more bequests to the Academy to support these programs so that the benefits can reach a much larger audience. I will not be passing the plate around just now, but I do encourage you to talk to the Treasurer if you are interested in supporting these programs.

Another area that I wish to touch on briefly is the international linkage program of the Academy. Keeping Australian science linked to the global effort is an important activity that we all recognise and I doubt if there is one amongst us whose career and achievements cannot be traced back to early international interactions, out of which a long lineage of collaboration has grown and without which Australian science would be much the poorer today.

This is of course widely recognised by a multitude of existing exchange programs and the Academy’s part in this can only be small. But it fulfils some important niches that I want to emphasise because I sense that the program may be under threat.

A major part of the Academy’s program involves the management of exchange programs on behalf of the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR), under the International Science Linkages program.

The funding provided is modest and we preferentially direct it to younger scientists and to excellence. This is in recognition that it is today’s science that sets the direction of tomorrow’s benefits, and in recognition that it is these early contacts that become so important in later career stages. These exchanges are also important for accessing facilities that may not otherwise be available and which in many instances have created the home-base experience that allows the technologies to be established here.

The value of what the Academy adds to this program is not just good management. It also assures excellence of the program through the peer review selection process provided by Fellows with their considerable knowledge of the international science scene. Adding value is very much a feature of the program, with the last review undertaken by the Academy indicating that these funds were leveraged by a factor of 7 to 8.

The Academy’s international program also includes the bilateral or multilateral workshops, often in collaboration with the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and with the financial support of government agencies. The China example, starting in 2004, continues to be an outstanding success and a model to follow, having opened up science and technology discussions at both the highest levels and at the coalface. Last year’s workshop on remote sensing, for example, is already opening up new joint research avenues with access to new satellite Earth-observing systems, as occurred at the time of the Victorian bushfires. This year’s workshop topic will be Towards sustainable coastal and deltaic systems under climate change and will build on what has been previously discussed as well as branching out into public health issues.

What the Academy provides includes knowledge of the key players through our inter-academy networks, and assurance of quality. This latter becomes particularly important from the partner side who, even when the exchange has moved beyond the point where we can play a major executive role, prefer to keep the Academy involved as a way of ensuring continuing quality.

The China success proves the model and it is one that we are endeavouring to extend to other international partners.

These Academy programs are comparatively small and do not always fit into the grand schemes of governments so we have to be watchful that they do not disappear. To lose the seeding grounds for the next major science and technology developments will not prepare us well for a future beyond political timelines.

The other part of the international linkage program is the relationship with international science bodies. These include the International Council for Science and the InterAcademy Council. These focus particularly on the science linkage between developed and developing nations and regions. Why are we spending time and resources on these bodies? I think that the answer would be something like this. The world is facing a number of big issues whose resolution does not lie in the hands of the developed world alone: population, food security, health, environment and climate, energy, water and other resources. There is a need of multiplicity of instruments to provide reliable evidence-based science to help the policy makers, both at individual country levels and at regional and global levels.

National academies are one of the instruments that can provide this advice and this was recognised by the previous secretary general of the UN who encouraged the setting up of the InterAcademy Panel and Council as a source of independent scientific advice that by-passed government-dominated agencies.

One of the activities of the InterAcademy Panel is to assist in the development of effective national academies that can play a beneficial role in the science and education developments of their countries. But there is also a larger global interest. These countries hold key votes at international forums, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, where the political decisions are made. Thus empowering national academies to be more effective in advising their governments is beneficial all round. The Australian Academy of Science is internationally seen as one of the academies that can contribute to the development of effective national academies and it is one area where I believe we can contribute more, particularly in our own region.

Implicit in this is that Governments do listen to academies and act on their advice and that, of course, is one of the greatest challenges that we face.

This leads me to the final matter that I wish to report on briefly.

In my address last year I referred to our 2007 Research and Innovation Policy document ten-point plan for ensuring a strong S&T based economy that was internationally competitive. I noted that there were many parallels between these points and the then new government’s actions and promises, and that we would be looking forward to be able to tick off on many of our ten points in twelve months time.

There has been some convergence in the past 12 months. This includes the implementation of the already mentioned new mid-career Future Fellowships. It includes extra Commonwealth undergraduate scholarships, the introduction of HECS remissions and refunds for maths and science students, and the continuation of the Federation Fellowships as Laureate Fellowships. These are all important steps in maintaining the foundations for Australia’s science and technology future and in expanding the career opportunities for Australia’s present scientists. Also important has been the significant expansion of the university capital works fund that will provide an enhanced research capability in a number of scientifically important areas.

Of greater concern is that after the initial flurry of enquiries into Australia’s R&D sector there has been little follow-up response to the various recommendations, and the big-picture of the government’s long-term plans for science and technology is yet to emerge.

I accept that, in the words of Minister Carr, ‘the global economic crisis …has cast everything in a different light, including our agenda for innovation, science and research’. But, as the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, sScience and Innovation report, Building Australia’s research capacity, noted recently; the global economic meltdown should not become a reason for inaction on the government’s commissioned reports.

The government has recently articulated ten ambitions for innovation, science and research. It is hard to disagree with these. But I am concerned that promises have become ambitions and would be most concerned if the implementation of R&D initiatives is deferred until the financial crisis is resolved.

The concerns expressed in the Cutler and Bradley reviews, that Australia is falling behind in building the requisite education and research foundations, are likely to become even more urgent in view of the announcements by many of our competitors to use the financial crisis as an opportunity to expand investments in education and research. This was indicated most spectacularly by President Obama in his address at the US National Academy of Sciences last week. We will watch this space closely when the new budget is announced and that will be the time to see what we can tick off on.

Friends and colleagues, I thank you for your attention. What I have said represents only a small part of what the Academy does and has achieved this year. In addition to the Annual Report, I encourage you to look at the various reports and submissions on our website – soon to be revamped – and to communicate with Council and the secretariat on any issues that you think we can do better or that we don’t do and should do.

But let us now begin with the important part of this morning’s celebration - the induction of the new Fellows.