Australia needs a science strategy

Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, is firing up discussion about building a strategy for science through judicious investment, good planning and long-term commitment.

Chubb recently published an editorial in Science and followed this up with the presentation of the paper Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Australia’s Future in Canberra. 

His comments coincided with a meeting in New Zealand of science advisory delegations from around the world that discussed the importance and challenges of providing policy-relevant science advice to governments.

Chubb’s main manifesto is the lack of a strategy to help Australia maximise the value of its science resources and the short-term thinking that is resulting in a lack of sustained support for science.

“It troubles me that Australia remains the only country among the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) without a science or technology strategy,” he said in the editorial in Science. “The consequences are and will be felt in our performance, in a world more reliant than ever before on science and science-trained people.”

Chubb’s comments focus on building Australian competitiveness, supporting education and training and strengthening research and international engagement. This includes the use of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to boost Australia’s competitiveness.

“School participation in science and mathematics, particularly at senior levels, has fallen, when the trend should be heading the other way. The level of collaboration between our researchers and our businesses is one of the poorest in the OECD,” Chubb stated.

Among a number of recommendations, Chubb calls for creating an Australian Innovation Board to identify priorities that would receive earmarked funding, adding to the rolls of science teachers, adopting a long-term R&D plan and using science as a tool in Australian diplomacy.

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, who also spoke at the event in Canberra, recognised that science is at the heart of industry policy and indicated several times that the Abbott government would shortly take measures to address Australia’s “atrocious” business-research collaboration record.