sydney

Niland: blames crisis on government cuts.

Australian universities are calling on the government to rescue academic science from what John Niland, the new president of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, describes as an impending “national emergency akin to a natural disaster”. This marks the first time the 36 member universities have united in support of a single field of study and research.

Niland, a professor of industrial relations and vice-chancellor of the University of New South Wales, delivered the challenge in Canberra last week in a televised address to a forum of academic and business leaders organized by the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS).

John Rice of Flinders University, president of the Australian Council of Deans of Science, says “university science is in danger of spiralling out of control”. He says the government is making “fundamental errors in believing universities are tertiary high schools whose sole customers are undergraduate students, and that research funding can be picked up by the private sector”.

Niland says the “deep trouble” facing science is being felt most in “the very foundations of science” — physics, mathematics and chemistry — where student interest is low, rather than in computer science or the life sciences where enrolments have grown.

Niland says a public opinion survey identified the following factors as contributing to the low morale in science:

• a sharp increase in tuition fees — from A$2,250 (US$1,512) in 1996 to A$4,779 (US$3,211) in 1997;

• fewer teaching staff — student/staff ratio rose from 12.3 in 1988 to 16.7 in 1997;

• ageing facilities (universities receive only about 70 per cent of the funding of those in the United Kingdom and Canada); and

• difficulties of beginning a research career as grants become harder to obtain.

According to Niland, a pass degree in accounting or law can lead to twice the salary of a professorship in science. An international index of salaries in research and development shows that, for every A$100 paid to the average Australian scientist, the United Kingdom pays A$104, France A$116, the United States A$141, Japan A$158, Hong Kong $166 and Germany A$170.

Niland claims “the crisis for science” is a result of government cuts to the university sector. He calculates from the government's current budget plans that the cuts will amount to 30 per cent from 1997 to 2001 if the anticipated growth in national productivity is included.

The government argues that the research situation in universities is far from critical. In a statement to the forum, education minister David Kemp wrote of “modest reductions” in the 1996 budget which mean that operating grants “will fall by less than one per cent between 1996 and 2000”. Kemp has not responded to the campaign, which is pressing him to restore science funding to international levels in the May budget. The government plans to use the budget to return public finances from deficit to surplus.

Others say that universities need to develop some self-criticism, in addition to targeting the government. Peter Cullen, president of FASTS, says universities must not only press for better funding: “They need to be rattled by this crisis into reshaping curricula and organization into a more effective balance between the basic and applied sciences.”