Sydney

Australia is seeking to revamp a training scheme for young scientists that has been irking the nation's universities.

The change is proposed in reviews of Australian research, released on 24 March, which also called for A$500 million (US$375 million) to be spent on boosting collaboration between institutions, and for a top-level advisory council to be set up to guide national science policy.

The three reviews looked at university research funding, research infrastructure and collaborations between universities and public research agencies. The government is expected to take them into account in a long-term budget plan to be released next month.

The recommendations include an overhaul of the nation's A$540 million per year research training scheme (RTS), which funds postgraduate students. Universities have complained that the complex formula it uses to allocate funding penalizes universities whose students complete their courses early.

Last year, for example, the University of Melbourne began legal action against the federal government for revenue it claims it lost because of the scheme. “The university estimates it has lost more than A$10 million over the past three years,” says Kwong Lee Dow, its vice-chancellor.

Federal science minister Brendan Nelson said after the reviews were released that the government would be making some changes to the RTS.

The reviews, conducted by scientists and government officials, also called for A$500 million to be spent over ten years to drive collaborations among universities, research agencies and industry.

“I am fairly optimistic that there will be funding for this, and I'm hopeful it will be on top of existing budgets,” says Kurt Lambeck, a geophysicist at the Australian National University in Canberra.

The reviews further suggest creating a strategic research council to make decisions about national research policy. This is seen as a mechanism for getting the main research agencies to work more closely together. But some people worry that it could just create more bureaucracy.

“There is no real indication of what the structure or function of the council would be,” says Snow Barlow, an environmental physiologist at the University of Melbourne and president of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies.