On Christmas Eve 2021, the pub-test folly struck again. The two of us found ourselves, angry and heartsore, resigning from the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) highly respected College of Experts in protest at the minister’s rejection of grant funding recommendations. This was not a comment on the college, a laudable body of experienced research leaders committed […] … learn more→

An ill newborn’s life is hanging by a thread, and only the right diagnosis will afford her the treatment that may save her life. A cancer patient’s therapy can be tailored to the specific type of tumour they have, if only the doctors know what the molecular targets are that will make the drugs effective for that patient. Parents […] … learn more→

Sex is an expensive business, biologically speaking. Finding a suitable mate takes time and energy. Offspring are also a huge investment of resources. But sex does offer a rewarding possibility: children who are fitter than their parents thanks to new and “better” combinations of genes. Darwin realised that many animal species therefore carefully select their […] … learn more→

The acting minister for education and youth, Stuart Robert, wrote a letter last week to Australian Research Council (ARC) CEO Sue Thomas, listing four demands. These included changes to ARC funding models and an overhaul of the ARC itself. These “expectations” were repackaged for the public in a press release on Tuesday entitled “New direction for the Australian Research Council […] … learn more→

The COP26 meeting has sharpened the world’s focus on climate change. To adapt and thrive in a world of reduced emissions, Australian businesses and communities need access to the technologies and innovation made possible by the nation’s researchers. But most Australian research is locked behind publisher paywalls. Open access to research has become an important […] … learn more→

Project leadership is a complex, tricky beast. My first experience of leading a funded research project took place in 1989, in the UK. Since that time, I have been principal investigator (PI) on four projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and co-investigator on two others, as well as […] … learn more→

There are hundreds of poetry generation programs on the Internet – that is, systems capable of producing poetry automatically – but what can they be used for? Do these programs have an interest, beyond that of satisfying their designer? We have heard a lot about GPT2 or GPT3, these huge computer programs capable of producing very […] … learn more→

Chief Scientist Cathy Foley is leading an open access strategy for Australia. Foley estimates the Australian government invests A$12 billion a year of public money in research and innovation only for most of the publications that eventuate to be locked behind a paywall, inaccessible to industry and the taxpayer. At the same time, Australian universities and […] … learn more→

Most researchers don’t have to check the eligibility criteria of every funding opportunity that comes across their desk. Researchers from other countries do because there is a very real possibility that they won’t be eligible due to their citizenship status. This post discusses the situation of non-Australian researchers working in Australia, but the problem crops […] … learn more→

The impacts of COVID-19 on Australian university researchers are likely to have consequences for research productivity and quality for many years to come. According to an online survey of academics at the University of Canberra between November 2020 and February 2021, they have deep concerns about their ability to undertake research during the pandemic and […] … learn more→