Sydney

Australia's Conservative government — facing an election by the end of this year — has announced a package that it calls the nation's largest ever boost in research funding.

Howard: came under pressure to stop making cuts. Credit: PETER POCKLEY

Revealed late last month by Prime Minister John Howard, the plan puts an extra A$2.9 billion (US$1.6 billion) into research over the next five years. It was welcomed by the science lobby as a change from the years of cuts that began with the government's first budget five years ago.

With its announcement, the government largely accepted the recommendations of year-long reviews of Australia's science base and capacity for innovation (see Nature 409, 123; 2001).

The new money became available under sustained pressure from industry, the universities and the opposition Labor Party.

A week before Howard's announcement, Labor leader Kim Beazley said that the pledge to rebuild the universities and expand research would be one of “four pillars” in Labor's election campaign. He also promised to create an online university for up to 100,000 undergraduate students.

But the government's proposal will only allow for a slow phasing in of 20 programmes — half of them new — which have been singled out for expansion.

The first year, beginning this July, will see research spending grow by just 3.5% from its present level of A$4.5 billion. And the overall five-year increase amounts to less than a third of the sum the ‘group of eight’ leading research universities says is needed.

Universities will receive most of the new funds, through grants from the Australian Research Council, investment in infrastructure, and two new ‘centres of excellence’ in biotechnology and information technology. The nation's largest research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, will not get any extra money from the package.