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Media Release
STRENGTHENING AUSTRALIA’S
HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH SYSTEM
7 May 2004 MIN 698/04
Following on from the $5.3 billion Backing Australia’s Ability – Building our Future through Science and Innovation package announced by the Prime Minister yesterday, the Australian Government will introduce a number of reforms designed to provide strategic direction, to simplify research funding arrangements and to improve collaboration across Australia’s public research sector.
In accepting the principal recommendations of three major reviews of Australia’s research system, the Australian Government will maintain the current balance between competitive and performance driven block funding of research in Australia’s universities, as recommended in the Evaluation of Knowledge and Innovation.
The Government will also simplify the Research Training Scheme, which each year provides to higher education institutions more than half a billion dollars for more than 22,000 research students.
Any changes to the scheme will be finalised only after stakeholders have been consulted, and universities can be satisfied that they will have time to examine and then put in place the new arrangements in time for their 2005 funding allocations.
The Government is also considering whether to continue to ‘cap’ allocations provided to institutions through the Research Training Scheme and through the Institutional Grants Scheme, which provides funding to higher education institutions to provide support for research training.
The Government’s response to the reviews also includes:
- the introduction of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, which will provide successor funding to the Strategic Infrastructure Initiative (SII) and Major National Research Facilities (MNRF) programmes;
- additional funding for CSIRO National Flagships, including a contestable collaboration pool open to universities;
- extension of the Regional Protection Fund to protect regional higher education institutions from losses of income arising from the Knowledge and Innovation reforms; and
- the development and implementation of research quality and accessibility frameworks to more consistently gauge the quality of publicly funded research and ensure that information about it and its outcomes are available to researchers and the wider community.
Importantly, the Australian Government will expand the role of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council to ensure appropriate strategic coordination of our research effort.
The reforms to university research funding flowing from the reviews I commissioned last year, together with the massive funding boost announced by the Prime Minister, will ensure that Australia’s universities will continue to lead the world in their research efforts and make a major contribution to the welfare of Australia as a whole.
The Government’s response to the three reviews is available at backingaus.innovation.gov.au
Media Contacts:
Dr Nelson’s Office: Ross Hampton 0419 484 095
Dept of Education, Science & Training: Laila Lacis 0412 040 034
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