Archived News for Research Sector Professionals

More than 2,600 scientists have signed a landmark scientific consensus on the rapid and ongoing decline in the health of the world’s coral reefs.

The CSIRO and Australian based healthcare company Medical Developments International (MDI) have signed a technology deal to develop a new production process for the drug methoxyflurane, the pain-relieving ingredient used in Pentrox™, commonly known as the ‘green whistle’.

Observations from the CSIRO’s Australia Telescope Compact Array have confirmed the existence of the first known “middleweight” black hole, three years after it was first discovered.

The South Australian Government has announced that applications are now open for the SafeWork SA WHS Commissioned Research Grant Programme, aimed at improving work health and safety (WHS) outcomes throughout the state.

In an international scientific breakthrough, a Griffith University research team has been able to photograph the shadow of a single atom for the first time.

The Federal $200 million Clean Technology Innovation Program has been launched and is now open for applications.

Researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ) and Monash University have used the principles of ecology to explain why women are being driven out of academia.

The results of the study, published in the ecology peer-reviewed journal Oikos, reveal how a gender imbalance in science and academia is maintained by institutional barriers.

Dr Kate O'Brien from the UQ School of Chemical Engineering said in ecology a species can only establish itself and develop if the population exceeds a certain threshold.

“It's similar for researchers and academics who need to reach a certain point before they can attract more funding, more students to teach and high quality collaborators which can increase their research productivity,” she said.

“Yet there are barriers which prevent women from reaching this point.”

One of these barriers is the tendency of female academics towards part-time work in order to balance family and work commitments.

Working part-time is rare in academia while university managers find it difficult to assess the research performance of part-time staff using traditional methods.

The performance of academics and researchers is increasingly assessed using set metrics such as the number of papers produced in a year or the number of citations the research generates.

While these metrics can promote research output within an organization, they can also undermine diversity, which in ecological terms is fatal to a species as it underpins resilience.

“To use the ecology analogy, research productivity is similar to the birth rate of a new species,” Dr O'Brien said.

“Both need to exceed a critical rate if the population is going to grow and survive, or the academic is to become established in their field.

“However, research metrics are strongly biased towards full-time continuous employment and penalise academics who take time off before they become established.”

The ecological model also suggests that if women have children before becoming established as an academic, they will struggle to remain competitive with their full-time peers.

This explains drift of women from research into teaching, where performance is assessed on current rather than accumulated historical performance.

To address the gender imbalance Dr O'Brien and Associate Professor Karen Hapgood suggest that women who go part-time should be strategic and concentrate on either research or teaching.

In turn university managers should be cautious in judging success using metrics, and implement schemes to ensure that part-time work and career breaks are not “one-way tickets” out of research.

“The ecological approach demonstrates that any system which operates on a narrow criteria, be it a forest or a faculty, undermines itself by reducing both diversity and the pool of talent from which our researchers are drawn,” Dr O'Brien said.

“In a working environment dominated by those working full-time women need to be brave and be prepared to be the odd ones out.”

James Cook University and the Government of Papua New Guinea have formalised a research partnership with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement at JCU Cairns.

The Minister for Science and Research, Senator Chris Evans, has announced the part-time appointments to both the CSIRO Board and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) Board.

The Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) Project, a $50 million Federal Government project that aims to transform the storage of research data has revealed the location of its first five nodes in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Hobart.

The University of Queensland (UQ) is leading the program on behalf of the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE).

Dr Nick Tate, RDSI Project Director who is based at UQ, said each of the five nodes would receive funding under the Research Data Storage Infrastructure scheme. He announced that:

• Intersect  will establish a primary node in Sydney

• Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF) will establish a primary node in Brisbane

• Australian National University will establish a primary node in Canberra

• eResearch SA (eRSA) will establish a primary node in Adelaide

• The University of Tasmania will establish an additional node in Hobart

The department funds the program from the Education Investment Fund under the Super Science (Future Industries) initiative.

Professor Max Lu, UQ's Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, said further nodes would be announced in the near future.

“The project will be a significant boost for researchers around Australia who are capturing and processing of enormous data sets,” Professor Lu said.

“The powerful potential of ‘big data', combined with the significant computing capability that the Government is also investing in, will transform research in many areas, including astronomy, genomics, physics and environmental studies.

“The recent announcement of Australia's involvement in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is an example of this rapidly growing area. SKA's dishes will produce data each day equal to about 10 times the current global internet traffic.”

Dr Tate said the RDSI project's storage capacity was expected to grow to 100 petabytes.

“This is many times the size of existing systems,” he said.

The RDSI project aimed to develop a national network of distributed data stores where research data could be readily accessed, analysed and re-used and to support the retention and integration of nationally significant data assets.

It aims to:

• Identify, strengthen and develop research data centres, or nodes, that can hold and process high data volumes

• Identify research data holdings of lasting value and importance and contribute funding to their development at the most appropriate nodes

• Provide the widest possible range of general data sharing and movement infrastructure suitable for data-intensive research activities.

“The project's goal is to develop a coherent and integrated national research data environment, building on the strengths of different providers,” Dr Tate said.

“It aims to ensure a co-ordinated and collaborative use of these resources. This will support enhanced research outcomes through greater access to, and sharing of, research data.”

Dr Tate said consultations with the sector were held during 2010 and 2011, and the project office was established at UQ in 2011.

“Feedback revealed a preference for a distributed model for the RDSI in which services would be developed on the basis of existing local strengths, and the decisions on the location of the first five nodes reflect this,” Dr Tate said.

The University of New South Wales will host a new centre targeting primary care in obesity to improve access to services and management of the widespread, chronic condition.

The Centre for Obesity Management and Prevention Research Excellence in Primary Health Care has been funded by the Commonwealth Government under a $7.5 million ANU Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute program.

One in four adults and one in 12 children are obese in Australia and the UNSW-based centre will help people with lifestyle changes to achieve their weight goals, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Sydney, Deakin University and the University of Adelaide.

UNSW Professor Mark Harris will lead the new research program.

UNSW will also partner with the University of Technology, Sydney and the University of Queensland in the Centre of Research Excellence in the Finance and Economics of Primary Care.

Australian businesses can now access the R&D Tax Incentive program to help with the costs of innovation.  The R&D Tax Incentive will support firms of all sizes in all sectors to invest in research and development.

Businesses can now register to receive the R&D Tax Incentive for eligible activities undertaken in the 2011-12 income year.

"The R&D Tax Incentive is a generous, targeted, and easy to access program that offsets some of the costs of doing R&D so that more businesses innovate," said Greg Combet, the Minister for Industry and Innovation.

"We know that innovation is important - ABS statistics show businesses that innovate are twice as likely to boost their productivity and are 2.5 times more likely to increase staff.

"More businesses doing R&D will strengthen Australia's innovation culture and secure our nation's economy into the future."

For businesses with a turnover of less than $20 million, the R&D Tax Incentive doubles the rate of support compared to the old R&D Tax Concession. For all other businesses the R&D Tax Incentive increases the support available by a third. 

AusIndustry is holding registration-ready workshops to help SMEs, first time registrants and smaller consultants/tax agents better understand and register for the R&D Tax Incentive.

A smart form is now available so that Australian businesses can register for the new R&D Tax Incentive.

The registration smart form is available at www.ausindustry.gov.au, together with detailed guidance material and the details of upcoming workshops, or contact AusIndustry on 13 28 46.

The South Australian Government has announced Adjunct Professor don Bursill has been reappointed as the state’s Chief Scientist and Co-Chair of the Premier’s Science and Industry Council until December 2014.

The Auditor General of Victoria, Des Pearson will chair the Advisory Board for La Trobe University’s Centre for Public Sector Governance, Accountability and Performance (CPSGAP). 

The new Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Water Sensitive Cities, based at Monash University, will open this week.

The 2012 National Climate Change Adaptation conference has wrapped up in Melbourne, covering issues such as preventing food and water shortages, managing more intense natural disasters and their economic fallout and avoiding climate-driven extinctions.

The University of Tasmania has appointed Ms Ros Harvey to lead the SenseT project, one of the biggest coordinated investments in knowledge infrastructure in Tasmania’s history.

SenseT is a $42 million program which will use data from sensors to deliver real-time information to help industry and government make better decisions. It is expected to deliver significant productivity gains for the state’s economy as well as supporting improved management of Tasmania’s resources and the environment.

Initial practical projects will focus in agriculture and food production, emerging carbon markets, smart infrastructure and logistics, as well as catchment and flood management.

SenseT was launched by the Premier and the Minister for Regional Australia, Simon Crean, on 14^th June.

Ms Harvey, the architect of the state’s economic development plan, is currently Deputy Secretary of the Department of Economic Development Tourism and the Arts. She returned to Tasmania in 2010 after 15 years abroad.

Ms Harvey was the founding Director of the Better Work program – a partnership between the World Bank group and the UN’s International Labour Organisation based in Geneva. Better Work is globally recognised as a landmark program in the field of corporate social responsibility, global supply chains and pro-poor development.

The ANU Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute has announced $7.5 million in funding to establish three new Centres of Research Excellence in primary health care.

Australia’s four Learned Academies will form the Linkage Learned Academies Special Projects scheme to provide specialst research based evidence to the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council (PMSEIC) to form policy development areas of ‘strategic importance’.