Sydney

Australia's hard-pressed universities can expect no financial relief from the new government until May of next year at the earliest, says Brendan Nelson, the country's new minister for education, science and training.

Facing the challenge: Brendan Nelson says he wants to concentrate on concrete changes. Credit: P. POCKLEY

But Nelson, a physician and former president of the Australian Medical Association who looks set to bring considerable energy and influence to his position, pledged to enact reforms that will help Australian universities to carry out internationally competitive research.

“The situation is not sustainable without reform,” says Nelson. He says that he will immediately set up a consultative panel to help him prepare a university-reform package, for consideration by Australia's cabinet within a year. The reforms may open up the possibility of extra funding in the May 2003 budget, he says.

“The universities have been reviewed to death,” says Nelson. “We know what the problems and challenges are.” The new panel will avoid revisiting the ground covered in previous reviews, he says, and will instead propose concrete changes in university governance, working conditions and the way in which specialist strengths are split between universities. Nelson wants to see “one or two universities become world-class”, but acknowledges that this is “not likely under current funding arrangements”.

After its November re-election, the Liberal Party government of Prime Minister John Howard shifted responsibility for Australia's science agencies from the department of industry to Nelson's department. Nelson pledges to appoint a scientific adviser in his office “who will have credibility in the science community and will live and breathe science”.

Nelson has wasted little time in challenging the universities to address their own shortcomings: at a recent meeting with vice-chancellors, for example, he told them that they had lost the support of “the everyday person”. Last year, the vice-chancellors lobbied for an extra A$1 billion (US$515 million) a year to make up for cuts made since Howard came to power in 1996, but Nelson has made it clear that they will have to settle for less. The government is committed to an “innovation package” containing A$2.9 billion in new funding over five years (see Nature 409, 655; 2001), but has delivered only A$160 million for this year.

Nelson was once something of a maverick in Howard's staunchly conservative government — he wore an earring when he first entered parliament in 1996. Now, however, as the measured and articulate face of the government's science policy, his style contrasts with the abrasiveness of his predecessor, David Kemp, whose own reform package for the universities was rapidly disowned by the government (see Nature 402, 113; 1999). Nelson's openness to discussion has been welcomed by scientific societies. The Australian Academy of Science and the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies have already drawn up their own lists of ideas for the new minister and his consultative group to chew on.