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Australian science: good but not good enough

We may punch above our weight in some research areas, but we need to aim higher, says Professor Ian Chubb, Australia's chief scientist.

Asking ourselves difficult questions is never an easy thing to do.

We might find that we don't like the answers because one of the consequences of honest self-reflection is that we often need to change.

We've seen this occur in sport when a team which did not meet expectations embarks on a major post-mortem in order to identify its weaknesses and improve its performance.

Or we can avoid the question altogether. We can, if we choose, happily believe that we 'punch above our weight' — as we do in research — and since we never ask about the weight class we are happy with the thought. Is that good enough?

I have not known any rating system to be beyond question. There is usually some aspect that makes each one less than perfect (apart from one's own position); and there are those who would argue that if a method is not perfect, there is no point using it. Would we not be better off, they imply, just not knowing? Then we can pull the comfort blanket all the way up to our chin and we can snuggle up and be happy.

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Punch above our weight?

My office recently analysed Australia's scientific performance.

The work is simple, but informative.

We don't make the assumption that we are looking at information so precise that it is simply a factor to fit into an equation, but we do need information sufficiently robust to form a judgement.

By averaging over large data sets, idiosyncratic elements largely cancel each other because they appear in the returns from all countries. Perfectly cancelled? No; but we are not looking for the second decimal point, we are looking for the signpost.

We started by looking at the 'we punch above our weight' line. It is true that we produce about 3 per cent of the world's research output from 0.3 per cent of the world's population. Sounds good; is good. But the ratio puts us somewhere like 9th or 10th in the world. By that count, we do 'punch above our weight', but is it in the class we want to be?

Then we looked at citations per research paper. The objections to this approach are well known, and we know them, too. But unless Australia's research profile is uniquely dominated by work on country-specific topics, or in fields where low citations dominate, and any other unique characteristic, inter-country comparisons are informative.

When we used research outputs from several countries over a 15-year period, it is clear that Australia does not out-perform most of the countries with an embedded scientific culture and systems of governance that we might be like, say, many of the Western European countries, Scandinavia, the United States, and Canada.

A supplement to our main paper shows that the citation rates of 30 per cent of Australian papers are above the European average while more than half are below the world average citation rate.

So while our best researchers are up among the best, we do appear to have a long tail.

We could, if we chose, ignore the implications. We could argue that the metric isn't good enough; or we could do what we often do, find another way to massage the data to identify a new fraction that works in our favour. And we could snuggle under the blanket in a state of blissful self-denial. But that would be a bit like cheating at solitaire.

Or we could ask ourselves that hard question: what can we do to do better?

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What can we do better?

Research support in Australia is rationed — it always has been — and most likely always will be. Then we add the processes of ranking embedded within most elements of a rationed system. We do not have a strategic approach maximising the impact of our research budget.

One answer is to do what most of the countries that out-perform us do: focus on a selection of priority areas first rather than assume they will be supported adequately as we continue to spread our funding thinly as a matter of course.

We are presently working on a process that, if adopted, will result in a suite of research priorities that will focus and influence government spending patterns. It will still be competitive, and still based on merit.

Establishing priorities will enable the Government to ensure that there is adequate investment in areas of research that are simply more important than others to national wellbeing — right now. They will ensure that Australian research is directed towards addressing matters that are most immediately important to our people, our economy, and our future prosperity. And ensure that they are supported well enough to enable researchers of the top rank to produce work of the highest quality.

The priority areas should be the focus of a proportion of government research and development spending. Not all of it. Our funding must always include support for basic, curiosity-driven research. This is the work that will continue to contribute to the bank of knowledge on which we can draw to meet the challenges of the future. And our efforts must always include support for research in all disciplines — within priority areas and without.

But Australia should be setting strategic research priorities, and focusing funding, something that already happens in countries like Scandinavia, the US and the EU. They know where they do research and they know they do it well.

We should not be happy under our blanket because we don't know what we should know. We should instead ask the question we know we need to ask. And respond.

About the author: Professor Ian Chubb is the Chief Scientist for Australia. Prior to his appointment he was the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University.



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