Vice Chancellors 2005 Research Report Introduction

Professor John Hay, AC Vice-Chancellor

UQ Research Report 2005 is a showcase of the outstanding talents and achievements that position UQ among the best, research-intensive universities in Australia.

UQ’s strategy of attracting top researchers from around the country and abroad, of nurturing early career researchers and supporting strong individuals and groups, has reaped dividends in grants and awards. In the past year, the University has again been a national leader in obtaining funding from government-sponsored competitive schemes, and through private contributions.

We need to recognise, however, that the efforts of research-intensive universities such as UQ are hampered by several factors that are features of our Research and Development (R&D) landscape.

Let me comment on two of these. The Federal Government funds all of Australia’s 38 ‘public’ universities in the same way. That is to say, UQ is funded primarily by its undergraduate student load according to disciplinary cluster.

All universities are funded in this way, regardless of the amount or quality of research performed. It is true that we receive Institutional Grants Scheme and Research Training Scheme funds that are based on research performance. However, these combined are only 22 percent of the funding received from the Federal Government.

In order to maintain its research commitment to the people of Queensland and Australia, UQ must put in place major infrastructure (for example, libraries, major equipment as embodied in the Centres for Microscopy and Microanalysis and Magnetic Resonance, resources for the largest cohort of PhD students in the country and dedicated research buildings, to name just a few).

Only a minority of Australian universities meet these sorts of obligations. In this context, it is worth noting that the Group of Eight universities conduct around 65 percent of the research that is performed in the tertiary education sector.
Such achievements are particularly noteworthy, taking into account the continuing decline in Australia of expenditure on R&D as a proportion of Gross National Product (GNP).

The second major issue concerns business expenditure on R&D, where Australia ranks 14th among the comparative 21 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations.

While the Federal Government’s expenditure on R&D is not unreasonable, one of the challenges this country faces in research is bringing about a cultural shift towards more business investment.

Eighty four percent of basic research in Australia is performed in universities, yet there is a disparity in infrastructure funding compared with any of our 12 major competitor nations. We fund between one quarter and one half at best of what our competitors do in so far as research infrastructure is concerned.

As part of the constantly changing environment to which we must adapt, a report has been commissioned by the Australian Government which could substantially affect all universities, and research policy in general.

Sir Gareth Roberts, who recently conducted a review of the United Kingdom’s Research Assessment Exercise, is chairing an advisory group examining how the quality and impact of research outputs in Australia might be assessed. The group is due to report to Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Brendan Nelson, by the end of the year.

The research community at UQ welcomes the notion that the quality and output of our research be assessed, as we are among the best performed of Australian universities by any measure, and we would expect to do well, no matter what is finally decided.

Despite these changes and challenges, 2005 has been an outstanding year for the University.

Professor John Hay, AC
Vice-Chancellor

On this site