HIGH FLYERS THINK TANK

National Research Priorities Strategic Forum

The Shine Dome, Canberra, 26-27 June 2002

Welcome on behalf of all four Academies
by Tim Besley

Tim Besley is President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Chairman of Centec Ltd and Deputy Chairman of NICTA, ICT Centre of Excellence. He has held executive positions in several large organisations and his recent Chairmanships include Leighton Holdings Limited, Telecommunications Service enquiry and the Commonwealth Bank. He was the Chancellor of Macquarie University until 2001.

It is my pleasure, on behalf of all four Academies, to welcome you here today to a Forum that focuses on the important national issue of setting research priorities. I would like to congratulate the Government on the consultative process that it has put in place to determine firstly the framework, and secondly, the priorities themselves. This process ensures that it is a genuine consultation and not the kind where one gets the response, 'Thank you for your views. They will be considered.' I guess we have all written letters like that, and all complained about the ones we have received. So it is a pleasure to acknowledge the planning that has so obviously gone into the consideration of R&D priorities.

I want to say just three more things before we move to open today's proceedings. The first is that the setting of priorities is a whole-of-government process. We are not talking just about the ARC or the NHMRC or the block grants to universities. Priority setting will take in the R&D conducted under the auspices of departments whose mandates include health, defence, environment and industry – and have I left anyone out? – as well as education and science. That means that we are advising government on R&D that is good for Australia, not just our friends in their laboratories.

The second is a more personal contribution. It concerns the use of the word 'priorities'. I think 'priorities' may give the wrong message, conveying not the idea that some areas of work would simply be more favoured than others when it comes to doling out the money, but rather that these would be the only areas to be funded. Getting the words right is a significant start in gaining confidence for any new regime, and it is a point that we need to pay some attention to. We need to get the public on board. Sometimes I feel that when we talk about priorities the public out there believes that we are trying to ram something down their throat. Maybe it would be better, as I said at the earlier meeting, to talk about 'issues of national importance' to which research priorities might be given.

There is then the issue of what areas we are looking at. Are they specific, are they general? Are they thematic, or are they subthematic? There are some, of course, already in the arena which are relatively specific, such as those enunciated for the ARC, Nano- and bio-materials, Complex intelligence systems, Photon science and technology, and the Genome and phenome areas. At our meeting recently here, Robin Batterham – as I think you heard at the National Press Club earlier today – suggested one thematic scheme title might be Beyond Kyoto, which gives us the opportunity to bring in many issues which can be contributed to significantly by the expertise that lurks in these four Academies and others. So it is important, I think, that we keep an eye on not being too broad nor too specific, and recognise that some of these will be refined as we go along.

Further, we need to recognise that things change, and that although we may get it right this year, within a year or two we will need to reassess what we are doing. Like education, R&D could be another of Minister Nelson's 'railway lines into the future'. If they are, we had better be aware that on real railway lines there are hills to be climbed and descents where we sometimes need to apply the brakes, there are signals to observe and points to be set, and, finally, the engines need lots of fuel.

I look forward to an interesting forum today. I urge you to participate to the full. Don't hold back on radical ideas, and don't be afraid to disagree. It is meant to be that sort of day, so please make the most of it. Again let me welcome you. I hope you enjoy it, and I now hand over to the chairman for the first sessions, whom you have heard from today at his eloquent best at the Press Club.