With the annual ‘flu season’ upon us, can you imagine a world where there’s no medicine to bring your child’s fever down? And with one in three Australian women delivering their baby via caesarean section, what will happen if there are no antibiotics to protect them following surgery? Many cancer patients rely on chemotherapy drugs to kill the cancer; imagine if we took those drugs away from your mum, your dad, or even yourself. What then? It’s all very sobering, and it’s not even that far-fetched.
The recent federal budget was touted as the next step in Australia’s roadmap to COVID-19 recovery. Science has proved invaluable in helping Australians navigate the challenges of the pandemic, and yet, on budget day, science seems to have been forgotten.
There was no support for the universities that employ these researchers. There was no job keeper to ensure that highly qualified researchers could remain in employment next year. There was no increase in spending to enable researchers to deliver the next breakthrough in medicine, engineering, agriculture or the environment.
In fact, there was a decrease in available funding.
STEM myths
Myth 1: Universities are already rich
Despite having a reputation for being having ‘too much’ money, universities in Australia invest their surplus income in maintaining critical infrastructure and meeting the shortfall in government funding.
Currently, government grants are not fully funded, which means Australian universities must match every dollar they receive to cover the actual cost of research.
Australian universities are investing more than $3 billion each year from international student fees into research – the kind of research that can help us respond to crises such as COVID-19.
Reality: Without international student fees – or government funding to substitute for their absence – it’s expected that 4,600 full time researchers will lose their jobs. Without them, it will be impossible to maintain our sovereign capability to deliver lifesaving treatments and sustainable interventions for our engineering, agricultural and tourism sectors.
Myth 2: Research spending by academic staff is wasteful
Research funding generates and sustains jobs. For every $1 invested into research, $4 is returned to the economy, through the development of new products, new medications, new approaches to business and productivity, cleaner and safer ways of working, and new ways to enjoy the natural environment.
Yet funding from the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council’s programs are not keeping pace with inflation, and have been declining in real terms for years.
Australian spending on research has sunk to 1.79% of GDP, well below the OCED average of 2.37%, and far below the world leaders in R&D spending, such as Israel and South Korea (>4.5%).
We are not alone: investment in research is declining in all advanced economies, with the exception of China, where government investment in research is increasing by more than 10% annually.
The United States has acknowledged this dichotomy, with a recent announcement of more than 20% increases in research spending for the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.
Reality: A substantial increase in the value of grants is needed just to maintain the levels of research support funding for projects at their current – already inadequate – level, according to Research Australia.
Myth 3: In times of recession, cuts are necessary
It’s expected that the pandemic has forced the world into a recession. During times of recession, revenues for government and businesses decline, and there’s a temptation to cut expenditure. However, over-cutting risks crippling a nation’s ability to grow beyond a recession. At both macro- and micro-economic levels, investment in the future is critical to survival in a post-recession world.
So, what happens when we diminish investment in research? The effects may not be immediate, but they can have consequences that last for decades.
Take, for example, the issue of antibiotic resistance. One of the world’s leading economists, Jim O’Neill, has predicted that within the next 30 years, deaths due to bacterial resistance to antibiotics will rise from the current level of 750,000 per year to 10 million per year (that is greater that that due to COVID).
Due to funding cuts made in the 1980s, there is a global shortage of researchers who are experienced in antibiotic development and stewardship.
By the same token, if we pull back from research now, how will we deal with the consequences of a rapidly ageing global population? Who will invent the next process to combat the effects of climate change such as food shortages? Who will come up with solutions to get us through the next pandemic?
Reality: Economies and industries that invest in research development will emerge more quickly from a downturn. By reducing investment now, the effects will be felt later and will last longer.
What’s next?
COVID-19 won’t be the last global or national health crisis that we will face. Yet, 53% of researchers exit science immediately after qualifying with a PhD to pursue another career, and a further 26% leave after certain period of time. Only 3.5% remain as academic researchers for the duration of their careers.
Why is it so difficult to attract and keep researchers in their fields?
- Changes to funding models are making it difficult, even for well-established researchers, to compete and obtain funding, let alone those who are just starting out. To put this into perspective, each year the National Health and Medical Research Council receives more than 5,000 grant applications. To write these would take one person approximately 1,250 years, but only 10% will be funded.
Estimates indicate that universities expend more than $1 billion per year on salaries of researchers for writing and assessing applications that can’t be funded due to a lack of finance; this has a significant impact on the mental health and morale of researchers.
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Having to constantly compete for jobs/grants means there is high job insecurity – often necessitating moves and upheaval every few years. This is evident in statistics from Australia, where as many as 70% of PhD researchers are from overseas and the percentage of academics within the university workforce has been declining for more than a decade, and there are fewer in tenured, full-time positions than there were in 2011.
- The intellectual benefits of pursuing a research career are substantial, but with training taking a minimum of eight years, during which long hours, a lack of job security, and a backdrop of stress and a high risk of depression and anxiety are the reality for many, fewer graduates are remaining in research. This means there are fewer highly educated people trying to solve global challenges.
- More than 97% of the funding to create the AstraZeneca vaccine came from public research money. That money did not fund industry; it funded academic researchers at the University of Oxford and their partners across the globe, over the past several decades. This tells us two things. First, there are staff constantly working to raise funds to move the research forward. Second, industry is not the driver of innovation; this firmly resides within universities and is essential for our economy – and those of other nations – to thrive.
Does it matter? When the greatest innovations are coming from the university sector, and we are losing the brightest minds, it will matter, especially when the next pandemic hits.
It’s not a case of if, but when.
Research investment is crucial
Given that Australia has almost no capacity to manufacture the products listed on World Health Organisation’s list of Essential Medicines, this begs the question: what happens the next time a pandemic hits our shores? Will Australia be able to provide the necessary medicines and vaccines to safeguard its population?
Right now, we are seen as global leaders in the quest to fight the pandemic. Australia led the way in establishing quarantine measures, implementing contact tracing, defining the epidemiology necessary to predict the virus’s behaviour, developing vaccines, and trialling new therapies. Will that still be the case if investment is not forthcoming?
If not addressed, the declining level of investment in research will lock Australia into under-performance for decades to come. Will Australia see the light and set its sights on a knowledge-based economy? Or will it continue its luddite approach to economic investment?
Perhaps the bigger question is why universities and researchers, myself included, have failed to make the persuasive argument that investment in research is crucial for all our futures.
Perhaps we need to change tack and persuade those whose lives are saved and changed, often without them even realising it, that research matters for them, their children, and their jobs.
We need to persuade business that our research endeavour matters to them, for productivity, profitability, and for sustainability. If we can harness these lobby groups effectively, surely government will listen?
Professor Ian Henderson is the Director of Institute for Molecular Bioscience at University of Queensland and Group Leader of Bacterial infections and immunology. Professor Henderson and his group identify new methods to diagnose, prevent and treat infections before they become life- threatening.
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Featured photo credit: iStock:1138371379
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