Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Worldwide criticism has greeted plans to drastically alter the structure
of the Australian Institute of Advanced Studies, the country’s most prestigious
university research centre. Last week the Australian government was accused
of overseeing the destruction of the Australian National University (ANU)
where the institute is based.

The institute was established after the Second World War to spearhead
research in Australia. It consists of seven separate research schools with
more than 1000 scientific and technical staff. Each year it attracts hundreds
of researchers from around the world.

Ron Oxburgh, professor of earth sciences at the University of Cambridge,
says that the seven schools are ‘the only academic scientific institutions
in Australia which have across-the-board international reputations’. He
added that the Australian government’s proposals jeopardise that reputation
by limiting the institute’s ability to plan long-term projects.

Last week the Australian minister for higher education, Peter Baldwin,
announced that the seven schools of the institute would be turned into ‘strategic
research centres’, each with a ‘distinctive mission and funding dependent
on performance’.

At the moment, the institute is funded through a block grant from the
Australian government. In effect, the institute can decide what research
will be funded; it concentrates on basic research.

Under the proposals, 5 per cent of the institute’s budget, rising to
12 per cent in 7 years’ time, will be allocated by the Australian Research
Council. The Council is the main organisation dispensing government money
for research in Australia. The ARC will review research every five years
and allocate money to other institutions if it is not happy with the performance
of the centres.

In a letter released this week, six senior researchers from the institute
said that giving so much power to the ARC was like ‘putting Dracula in charge
of the blood bank’.

Oxburgh also criticises this approach. ‘They would not have the drawing
power that they have had in the past,’ he says. ‘The institute has been
able to take a long-term view and has had some outstanding successes. The
more you make them responsive to short-term funding pressures, the more
you run the risk of losing that long-term advantage.’

The reorganisation of the institute is part of a plan by the government
to change education within the Australian Capital Territory where the ANU
– and the Australian parliament – are located. Baldwin has claimed that
the ANU and the University of Canberra have a history of ‘unproductive duplication
and destructive competition’.

Attempts to amalgamate the two institutions have been thwarted by opposition
from within the ANU and by political pressure. But if the ANU’s links with
the institute are weakened, amalgamation becomes more likely. The government
also claims that the institute has been elitist and has not been responsive
to the needs of other universities within Australia.

Last week, Laurie Nichol, the ANU vice-chancellor, said the plans posed
a ‘grave danger’ to the autonomy of the university. ‘The proposal to advise
government every five years on funding at the individual school level far
exceeds any control the government has yet exercised over the CSIRO.’ The
CSIRO is Australia’s chief non-university research organisation.