Australia's scientists and technologists welcome increased funding for CSIRO and ANSTO in the mid-year budget update, but investment in research and development is not keeping up with rising costs.
The Australian Government has committed an additional $233 million for CSIRO and $40 million for ANSTO to produce affordable nuclear medicines.
"This is a welcome shot in the arm for science, but research and development investment in Australia has not kept up with inflation for more than 15 years. Our overall national investment in R&D is only 1.68 per cent of gross domestic product. That's way below the average of 2.7 per cent among OECD nations. Meanwhile, South Korea invests 4.9 per cent of GDP in R&D, the United States and Japan 3.4 per cent," Science & Technology Australia (STA) CEO Ryan Winn said.
"Each dollar invested in CSIRO's R&D accrues $8.80 in benefits to the economy, so there's a clear case for putting R&D at the heart of economic reform. If you don't invest in R&D, you don't innovate and you don't create new products and services. You lose your best ideas to overseas and productivity will collapse. More than a decade of decline in national investment has flattened the batteries of the economy."
Despite this welcome boost to CSIRO, there are smaller yet meaningful cuts to other R&D funding across the system - from the Global Science and Technology Diplomacy Fund, and $73 million from Australia's Economic Accelerator reprioritised to non-research areas across the Education portfolio, which is money permanently lost from Australia's research effort.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers described this budget update as one of delivery, responsibility and restraint, and the STEM sector is the ideal partner to support these goals.
"We appreciate that the Federal Budget has many complex pressures but can be delivered with appropriate discipline and still pay big dividends for the economy. Rather than creating pressure on the budget, investment in research and development creates economic opportunity," Mr Winn said.
"When delivering the Budget in May, the Treasurer spoke of five seismic changes shaping the world - shifts from globalisation to fragmentation, hydrocarbons to renewables, IT to AI, a young population to an older one and in industrial bases, and noted these challenges put a premium on resilience. The answer to all these challenges is deep investment in Australia's STEM capability."
"A strong economy, resilient to global shocks and inflation pressures, is a diverse economy. To wrench our nation out of the cost-of-living rut we find ourselves in and navigate the five seismic changes identified by the Treasurer, we must proactively transition our economy to being knowledge-based and skills-driven, underpinned by a strong R&D sector."
The Strategic Examination of Research & Development report, led by Robyn Denholm, was handed to the government this month. STA looks forward to the public release of the report and working with the government to deliver the necessary reform to implement a robust R&D ecosystem that underpins our economy and wellbeing.
"R&D is essential to lifting Australia's economic complexity, advancing our industrial base, boosting productivity, creating jobs and addressing intergenerational inequity. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to act with courage and invest in the economy boosting power of research and development," Mr Winn said.
