Science funding ‘isn’t just a tap you can turn on and off’, Professor Suzanne Cory will say at lecture series for the ABC

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The government must invest in scientific research, jobs and education to build a knowledge-driven economy and secure the nation’s long-term prosperity, eminent molecular biologist Professor Suzanne Cory will say as she delivers the 2014 Boyer lecture series for the ABC.

Cory is aware that her call comes at a time when Australian scientists are on edge. Last year the prime minister, Tony Abbott, axed the position of a dedicated science minister from cabinet. The CSIRO has suffered deep funding cuts of $115m and hundreds of jobs at the national science research institute are set to be lost.

It is a fiscally irresponsible situation, Cory told Guardian Australia.

“Investment in science is absolutely vital for the future prosperity of the country,” she said. “I know the government are trying to be fiscally and economically responsible, but it is fiscally irresponsible not to increase our investment in science if we are to have a prosperous future.

“It’s clear we’re at a tilting point in the Australian mining boom – mining is slowing down, trade manufacturing is collapsing with the loss of many jobs in that sector, and there are growing socioeconomic disparities.

“I think it is fairly clear we must transform to a knowledge-driven economy.”

Cory’s work as a cancer researcher with the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research has significantly improved the understanding of immunology and the development of cancer treatment.

There was a dire need for consistency in scientific funding, Cory said, with too many projects shutting down before reaching their potential because funding grants were not renewed. Australia still lacked a strategic, long-term scientific investment plan that looked beyond election terms, she said.

“In science and technology development, funding isn’t just a tap you can turn on and off because when you stop funding you damage projects and lose people with vital knowledge,” she said.

“There needs to be security of funding over the longer haul in order to develop knowledge and ideas.

“The government’s proposed [$20bn] medical research future fund is a good, bold idea. It’s just that it’s not sufficient to just fund medical research, which stands on the shoulders of all the other sciences which need comparable funding.”

On Monday Professor Ian Chubb, Australia’s independent chief scientist, made a series of recommendations to government that addressed Australia’s lack of science strategy.

Teachers across science, technology, engineering and maths from primary through to tertiary education must be better equipped to deliver course content with confidence and inspiration to encourage students into science careers, the report said.

As a passionate advocate for quality free education who was herself inspired by excellent teachers, Cory was pleased to see the importance of education emphasised by Chubb.

“I think there have always been good science teachers, but I don’t think we have enough of them for an increasing population,” Cory said.

“Many are teaching outside areas trained in, so are lacking in confidence. But the world has changed too, and the way pupils learn requires a different approach. The Australian Academy of Science has developed programs from primary through to secondary schools and schools using that innovative and hands-on approach say it makes a big difference to the response they get from students.

“So we must train more teachers in this way and get them into our schools.”

Cory remembered the teacher that sparked her own interest in the field and said most scientists had similar stories of a teacher who changed the course of their career.

“It was my year 9 general science class, and my teacher, on the day Sputnik was launched, was just transformed with excitement,” she said.

“I could just see her passion for this moment in science, and she didn’t care whether it was the US or the USSR who launched it. What she cared about was how much Sputnik would teach us about the universe, and that passion and excitement left a huge impression on me.

“That’s when I began thinking about science more seriously.”

Her current work is focusing on how cells decide whether to live or die, and what that can teach us about treatment for cancer and degenerative diseases.

Cory said she experienced few barriers in her own career – which she attributed to the innovative and inspiring culture at the Walter and Eliza Hall institute where she was a former director and has spent most of her career – but said many women were not so fortunate.

In her fourth and final Boyer lecture, Cory will speak about the difficulty of keeping women in science and the barriers that prevent them from reaching their full career potential.

Several recent studies have highlighted how women are underrepresented at the tertiary level in fields such as computer science, maths, technology and engineering. Those who do forge careers in those sectors often end up leaving the field earlier than their male colleagues.

A study published last month from the National Science foundation in the US revealed a workplace culture of hostility towards women had pushed female engineers from the field, or prevented them from entering it in the first place.

“We need to encourage more girls into the primary sciences at school because that opens up many different kinds of science at tertiary levels,” Cory said.

“If women don’t have that strong foundation, avenues will be closed off. If you consider university graduates and post graduates across the whole gamut of science subjects, Australian women are even slightly ahead of men in the numbers of graduates and PhDs.

“But that conceals a deficit in certain types of science, such as engineering and maths.”

At the point in their careers where women in science should have gathered enough experience to move into independent researchers was also where a big drop-off of women across all fields of science occurred, Cory said.

“From my own life experience that drop-off period coincides with when many of them are contemplating and beginning families,” she said.

“That’s why we need to make sure we have sufficient numbers of high quality, affordable day care places, we need to have flexible attitudes towards employment and promotion during that period, and we need to foster increased sharing of those responsibilities between women and their partners.

“Employers will have to look flexibly at both men and women in the workplace.”

But perhaps the most important element of keeping women - or anyone - in science was inspiration, Cory said.

“When there are always great discoveries happening around you and people who are innovative and inspiring, science never stops being fascinating,” she said.

”We need to promote and educate society about these inspiring people.”

• The first of Cory’s Boyer lecture series will take place in Melbourne on Thursday night before a private audience, and will be broadcast on the ABC’s Radio National program from Saturday 6 September at 1pm. The series will be available online and published by ABC Books.