Australian advocacy groups have called for embellishing the country’s latest science priorities, but warned they would achieve little without more funding and an implementation plan.
Science Minister Ed Husic has replaced the nine priorities formalised in 2015 with a more “focused” set of five, rather than the four proposed last year. “Strengthening Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge systems” has been added to the priorities to achieve a “net zero future”, “healthy and thriving communities”, a restored environment and a “safe and resilient nation”.
“The priorities … recognise the breadth of knowledge systems that First Nations have developed on this continent over the past 65,000 years and seek to leverage that know-how for our economic and social benefit,” Mr Husic said. “(They will) give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in particular a greater say in funding research that affects them.”
In an interview with ABC Radio, he said the priorities and an associated national science statement recognised that “great ideas create great products and great jobs. They give us an advantage to do things differently than countries that will be our competitors on the world stage.”
Chief scientist Cathy Foley, who led the consultation on the updated framework, said Australians wanted Indigenous knowledge and knowledge systems to be “at the heart of everything we do”.
“Science is at the heart of almost every aspect of our lives and is particularly important as we address the challenges of our time. These priorities are a great starting point and I hope that as a science and research community we can work with industry and government to turn them into action,” she said.
Cooperative Research Australia said incorporating Indigenous knowledge into the science strategy would “unlock Australia’s full potential”. Innovative Research Universities (IRU) said the move “opens the door to new ways of thinking about innovation”.
IRU executive director Paul Harris said the government should “underpin this priority” and make new investments to promote Indigenous-led research, in line with a recommendation from the Australian Research Council (ARC) review.
He said the government should set a target of five per cent of ARC funding being allocated to Indigenous researchers, in line with the existing target for allocations to the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Universities Australia warned that “declining government investment in research and development” would threaten economic development. “The government’s commitment before the last election to increase investment in research and development to 3 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) is a step in the right direction, but we need to take action in the short term to support our research system.”
The Australian Academy of Science congratulated the government on its “discipline” in setting research priorities, but said they would be ineffective without a “robust implementation plan”.
It said that previous science and research priorities “lacked implementation, monitoring and evaluation and therefore did little to focus and scale up science and research in the identified areas”.
Academy president Chennupati Jagadish said Australia needed to “transform its economy to make it more complex and resilient to external shocks. This requires that we prioritise those activities that only Australia can do and those that we must do to have a seat at the global decision-making table.”
