My new research shows Australia has spent more subsidising fossil fuel research indirectly via research and development tax credits than directly via grants.
A single brilliant insight is only part of the story of how diabetes became a manageable disease.
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A biomedical engineer explains the basic research that led to the discovery of insulin and its transformation into a lifesaving treatment for millions of people with diabetes.
Australia’s R&D expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product has declined over the past decade.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari shows his COVID-19 certificate after receiving his first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in March 2021.
Photo by Kola Sulaimon / AFP via Getty Images
Experts assess Nigeria’s response to COVID-19 so far and express worry that the country does not appear to have learnt much; it isn’t prepared for the next pandemic.
The lack of dedicated funding and support for research commercialisation, on top of the other obstacles academics face, means Australia’s poor performance is no mystery.
To drive living standards upward we need new technologies to relentlessly improve productivity.
An engineer demonstrates a car phone five months before the historic first call on a competing company’s commercial mobile telephone service in 1946.
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The ubiquity of mobile phones is a defining feature of the 21st century, but it’s been possible to place a phone call on the go since shortly after World War II.
Nicola Gaston, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
The government’s 10-year target is to increase research and development funding to 2% of GDP. Investment in science in the latest budget is out of step with that goal.
Lowering the tax rates on profits from patents registered in Australia is unlikely to increase local research and development. But it will be a gift for multinationals.
The federal government wants more university research to lead to businesses like the $1 billion-a-year Cochlear company.
David Crosling/AAP
The federal government is right to focus on improving Australian universities’ success rate in commercialising research, but can take specific steps itself to help achieve this.
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge is calling for ‘new ideas on how we can increase collaboration between business and universities’.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Government incentives might boost the numbers of collaborative research projects, but academics also must work on their relationships with industry practitioners to ensure everyone contributes fully.
Who should be allowed into U.S. labs and who should be kept out?
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The recent arrest of a Chinese-born scientist at MIT raises questions about the value of international science collaboration and its impact on the American innovation system.
Scientists around Africa are working at the cutting edge of research and their work is relevant beyond the continent.
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Thanks to major science infrastructure, human resource training and education investment in African nations, the continent is well placed to lead from the front.
The pioneering work being done in Australia to counter COVID-19 shows the benefits of long-term research investment.
Monash University/AAP
As well as extra funding for research beyond what has been announced in the budget for 2021, Australia must take half-a-dozen further steps to put the research sector back on a sound footing.
The early and mid-career researchers who bear most of the teaching and research workload are exhausted and underpaid. Many won’t survive the funding squeeze, but Australia can’t afford to lose them.
The work that’s done in research institutes and labs is crucial.
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While there are various good reasons for doing research and funding research, the chief reason is that research provides essential insurance against catastrophic events.
Traditional approaches to biomedical research and development are costly and time consuming.
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A symposium celebrated a roadmap for the American scientific enterprise laid out 75 years ago. What should be included in a US research plan that would last through the rest of this century?
Previous Vice President of the Academy of Science of South Africa and DSI-NRF SARChI chair in Fungal Genomics, Professor in Genetics, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria