STA: Discussion papers suggest SERD unfortunately overlooks discovery

The federal government’s Strategic Examination of R&D (SERD) process “has lost its way”, lobby group Science & Technology Australia (STA) has said, following a release of six issues papers from the SERD panel.

According to a statement from STA on Wednesday, the “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to build a more complex, innovation-based economy has instead failed on discovery research, and “misse[d] the opportunity to supercharge Australia’s research system and set the country on a pathway to prosperity” through a “strong focus on budget neutrality”.

SERD’s expert panel is led by chair of electric vehicle company Tesla, Robyn Denholm, who was also the Inaugural Chair of the Tech Council of Australia, among other roles.

STA asserts that the issues papers “suggest the process has lost its way” through an “excessive and unfocused emphasis on increasing business expenditure on R&D” as well as failures of describing “a coherent or ambitious future national system” and of vision.

President Professor Sharath Sriram said STA accepted that the review’s primary goal is exploring ways to lift business expenditure on R&D (BERD), but this mustn't be at the expense of basic research, and that it was possible to “walk and chew gum”.

“[I]ts strong focus on BERD in the issues papers has skewed all proposals towards translational research, and even then, limited to commercial outcomes. This is at the expense of foundational discovery research and research to drive good policy,” said Sriram, who also serves as the Chief Scientist of Western Australia. 

“Even in the paper specifically focused on foundational research, the vast majority of the proposals are in support of translational research – which is perplexing.” 

“This focus means that rather than leveraging the SERD’s chance to supercharge Australia’s discovery research capability, the nation’s scientists and technologists find ourselves in the dire situation of questioning whether funding currently directed to discovery research is under threat.” 

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