Science industry leaders have said they are “very relieved” by reports an infrastructure fund that supports more than two dozen research facilities will be given a two-year lifeline in next week’s federal budget, but warned the “short-term reprieve” would not stem the flow of Australian scientists overseas.
Under fierce pressure in March, the education minister, Christopher Pyne, agreed to provide $150m funding to the national commonwealth research infrastructure fund strategy (NCRIS), which supports 27 research facilities and more than 1,700 jobs.
Pyne had previously tied the $150m to his higher education reform bill, which has stalled in the Senate. He explained his about-face by claiming he had “fixed” the problem with a “surprise” that would be revealed in the budget.
On Thursday it was reported the fund would be given about $300m, or two years’ worth of funding, in next week’s federal budget. The money would be sourced from “block” grants supporting higher-education research and training, the Australian reported.
The chief executive of Science and Technology Australia, Catriona Jackson, said she was “very relieved” by the reports but that the money was only a “short-term reprieve”.
She said the industry was waiting on the release of a review into research infrastructure funding being carried out by businessman Philip Clark and the chief scientist, Ian Chubb, which was due mid-year.
“The whole sector is looking to the Clarke review and the government’s response to it to give these critical facilities long-term certainty,” she said.
Guardian Australia understands the review’s interim report has recommended a seven-year funding cycle, to be reviewed every four years.
One of the designers of the fund, Dr Phil McFadden, a former chief scientist of Geoscience Australia, said he was “delighted” it may be guaranteed another two years of funding.
But he said the piecemeal, short-term funding it had received from successive governments had seen waves of highly trained Australian technicians poached by labs overseas.
“These are people it costs this country a fortune to train, and other countries value them very highly.
“And they’re people, they have kids, so when they’re offered a 10-year contract in Germany or France, and we’re offering them, ‘I don’t know if you’ll have a job tomorrow’, then they pack their bags and go,” he said.
“We continue to train people for our competitors. It’s unbelievably stupid.”
Jackson said she would be concerned if any new funding for NCRIS was taken from other parts of the higher education sector.
“As we’ve said a number of times, if it comes from other higher education research funding such as the block grants, or the Australian Research Council, that is a very bad result,” she said.
“Pulling money out of one area of higher education to fund another is most unsatisfactory and scientists around the country will be very unhappy if that’s the case,” she said.
