SEPTEMBER 2003 conScience
CSIRO Facing a Short-Term Future
Michael Borgas outlines the concerns of CSIRO scientists over
the Flagships program.
In a tawdry culture of short-term dollar-driven outcomes, CSIRO
is struggling to remain viable. Yet CSIRO is an icon and has been
a mainstay of scientific endeavour in Australia for 77 years.
Thousands of gifted Australians have served the nation through
it with remarkable results.
The secret of CSIRO’s success and standing in Australia and
internationally had been its capacity to use the talent of its
staff over a breadth of research. This allowed a range of public
goods:
- developing industry and enhancing its competitive advantage;
- providing high quality, disinterested scientific advice to
government and the public;
- undertaking non-commercial, public-interest research; and
- educating Australians about science and technology.
Now, CSIRO’s value is increasingly identified with a few
new “Flagships” designed to bring about improvements
in the lives of Australians. Contributions to new metal processing,
a healthier environment, preventing disease, and efficient farming
are planned.
These projects are top-down, highly managed and intricately planned,
drawing mostly on known science. Flagships are absorbing increasing
proportions of taxpayer funding of science in CSIRO, and staff
see them as massive managerial and bureaucratic enterprises that
lack originality, the bedrock of productive research.
Declining government funding over a decade has forced the plan
for Flagships and is linked to pressures for raising resources
from a private sector that has yet to demonstrate meaningful investment
in R&D. This has consumed decades of public investment in
CSIRO’s intellectual capital as commercial opportunities
are mined out, followed by lost jobs and increased short-range
work with reduced prospects of significant impact.
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The creativity
of former years is turning into internally destructive competition
between groups forced to cope with instability and decline. CSIRO
is an example of run-down public infrastructure that, on current
trends, will not be available for our children to draw on.
Given Australia’s small economy and the investment required
for research, the approach from government is an invitation to market
failure and the collapse of CSIRO. The talent and dedication of
a generation of staff and leadership that once were enough to propel
CSIRO to success and growth will be wasted.
Confidence among the population in science-driven “progress”
ensured nation-building on the back of CSIRO research. Times have
changed and trust in science by policy-making “elites”
has fallen as policy is driven by commercial imperatives, trusting
the “market” to select the best science. However, the
experience of generations of scientists is that the key formula
for success is to give the best people the resources and freedom
to use their ingenuity and creativity.
The main criterion for high impact science has been bold scientific
leadership. Sadly, this is no longer widespread in CSIRO, nor anywhere
else in Australian science.
Flagships and commercial enterprise will serve a purpose, but without
significant, new and lasting investment, this comes at a cost. It
reduces our ability as a nation to engage broadly in research and
the public good, and we are already losing many exceptional scientists
who are not committed to temporary agendas.
Now, more short-term commercial funding is required for work outside
of Flagships, leaving little or no scientific effort for the long
haul. We suffer a loss of capacity and a limit to careers and learning
for young Australians. Ironically, these “outcomes” will
hurt the ability to form new Flagships in the years ahead.
Flagships are hyped for high impact, but they address a narrow range
of issues, relegating other problems that require painstaking research
by committed people. It is vital that we find better ways for supporting
groups of the best people on a long-term basis in CSIRO.
Dr Michael Borgas is President of the CSIRO Staff Association
and a senior scientist in the Division of Atmospheric Research.
conScience is a column for scientists to express views on national
issues. Views expressed are those of the author.
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