Agencies freed from external funding obligations

Australia's premier science research agencies have been freed of the mandatory need to earn up to 30 percent of their government-supplied income from external sources.

Federal Science Minister Peter McGauran said the government would scrap the external earnings target policy which required CSIRO to earn 30 per cent of its budget allocation externally and Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) to earn 20 per cent each.

Based on their current budgets, the organisations should have earned a combined $226 million last year to satisfy their target numbers.

The stimulus to jettison the policy came from a review by Chief Scientist Dr Robin Batterham.

The review found the decade-old policy had achieved its purpose by fostering a commercially-aware culture in those organisations and making them more responsive to client needs.

However, it also uncovered negative aspects of the policy which it claimed were growing larger over time.

Among other things, the review found, the policy distorted the objectivity of research direction and resource allocation decisions. It biased research planning toward areas of greater external earnings potential to the detriment of areas of national need.

It also inhibited research collaborations which required sharing of revenue streams and IP. This aspect of the targets policy was particularly detrimental to the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program.

The review recommended that levels of external earnings continue to be measured, but incorporated as just one element in a wider suite of performance measures.

The suite of indicators to be developed as the new yardstick of performance should include a "triple bottom line" of social, economic and environmental effects, the review recommended.

Five suggested indicators were improved competitiveness, innovation, sustainable resource use, improved knowledge and skills, and inputs to science and technology policy development.