The CSIRO cuts are just the tip of the iceberg for Australia's science funding

Australian science is on life-support, and the government isn't stepping up.

Up to 350 CSIRO researchers are set to go in the latest round of redundancies announced by Australia's peak science agency, with cuts now a familiar occurrence at the organisation. 

More than 800 jobs have already been slashed over the past 18 months in a workforce of approximately 6,000.

The issue is money and the writing has been on the wall for years.

In 1982, CSIRO made up 0.16 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Australia. By 2023–24, this had dropped to a new low of just 0.03 per cent.

"The cost of doing science has gone up," CSIRO CEO Doug Hilton told Sally Sara this morning on ABC Radio National Breakfast.

"We're going through the same sort of cost-of-living crisis as every family and every household in Australia has gone through in the last five or 10 years."

To try and keep the organisation "sustainable" it is slimming down its research portfolio, and in a statement a spokesperson told the ABC that some areas of science "need to be de-prioritised".

But CSIRO is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Australia's struggle to fund science.

An industry-wide problem

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which runs a large particle accelerator called the Australian Synchrotron, is also going through its own funding issues.

Last month, ANSTO announced the proposed closure of two scientifically-important instruments used with the synchrotron. These instruments attracted both national and international researchers to use them each year.

The scientists' union, Professionals Australia, estimated job cuts of up to 10 per cent of the synchrotron staff would follow.

"This is not research that you will be able to do somewhere else," researcher Marta Krasowska, who has worked closely with the synchrotron, said.

While government organisations continue to find new cuts to try to wrangle their budgets under control, the university sector isn't faring much better.

Universities around the country have sacked an estimated 3,500 staff in the past two years as international student numbers drop. 

Much of the funding for science research comes from government grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). 

According to the Australian Academy of Science — a science-focused not-for-profit — this funding has declined significantly, with a fall of 27 per cent over the past decade.

All of this is happening at a time when funding cuts in the US has seen researchers struggling to find funding internationally.

Australia prides itself as a country of innovators. From inventing wi-fi to developing life-saving polio treatment, Australia has made an outsized mark on science and research. 

But today's researchers argue they are in a glorified "gig economy" as they are constantly on rolling contracts and rely on winning grants to secure work. The time and effort it now takes to apply for grant applications takes them away from their scientific work.

Graduates also struggle to find long term jobs, and many end up moving overseas not long after they graduate, taking their knowledge and skills with them.

Even large science projects like the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory, which is set to open next year, has been funded in stops and starts, causing large delays in the project. 

Compared to similar countries, Australia is significantly behind on how much it spends on science. The average OECD country spends about 0.73 per cent of their GDP on research, while Australia sits at about half that, at just 0.36 per cent.

A review to 'recharge' science

Former science minister Ed Husic launched a review into Australia's Research and Development chaired by Tesla's Robyn Denholm which closed last month.

CSIRO chief Hilton told Radio National Breakfast he was "really looking forward to seeing their recommendations for recharging science in Australia".

With cuts across the entire industry, it's unknown whether the review will be enough to restart the heart of Australia's science sector.

The Australian Academy of Science has suggested it won't.

"Despite decades of speeches, reviews and strategic papers, our investment in knowledge creation and its application has nose-dived," Chennupati Jagadish, president of the Australian Academy of Science wrote in The Conversation earlier this year.

"We have gaps — in workforce, infrastructure and coordination — that will cripple our ability to secure a bright future for the next generation, unless we act now."

Despite the Labor government noting last year that research and development has had "a decade of going backwards", successive governments have failed to fix the problem. 

The future of Australia's science industry looks grim, and the warning signs have long been visible. But with continued cuts over so long, it would now take a large injection of money to jump start the system.

It's yet to be seen if Tim Ayres, the new science minister who was sworn in earlier this year, is willing to help revive it.