[LINK] Turnbull's $28 million 'Ideas Boom'

[Andy Farkas]

[Ya gotta love the placement of the poster]

https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/10/behind-the-glossy-ads-turnbulls-ideas-boom-looks-more-like-a-bust/

"The cuts to the CSIRO’s climate science capabilities are so serious,
thousands of scientists from all over the world have signed a petition
against them. The New York Times wrote an editorial. But the CSIRO’s
management has ploughed ahead. The Senate committee also heard
that the CSIRO was so worried about the plans to retrench scientists,
senior managers used private emails to communicate in the run-up
to the announcement. It shows us just how toxic the working
environment at CSIRO has become.

But the CSIRO is hardly the only part of Australia’s innovation system
in trouble. Universities are also struggling.

One of the little-recognised aspects of Turnbull’s innovation policy
was to change the way the federal government distributed research
funding to universities. The so-called “block” grants to university
research funding will be tweaked to change the way money is
distributed.

Critically, universities will no longer receive revenue related to their
output of research publications, like books and peer-reviewed journal
articles.

This sounds like a minor change, but it could have a devastating impact
on university research, especially in the humanities. Universities will now
be rewarded only for the amount of research revenue they generate,
not for the production of research itself. The implications are serious,
especially for fields of research that are non-commercial but in the best
interests of the community."

...
"The most dishonest part of the government’s Ideas Boom campaign
is in the funding. The Abbott government cut more than $3 billion from
research and innovation funding between 2013 and 2015. The Innovation
Statement restored just over one third of that – around a billion dollars."


-andyf