Dan Tehan and local-ish MP Kevin Andrews announce an $8.3m research spend for Monash U
It’s the Australian Research Council Training Centre for the Development of Tools for Fragment Based Design (drug research) at Monash U. The Commonwealth is kicking in $4.2m with Monash U and 12 partners matching the government money.
The news is presented as part of Education Minister Dan Tehan’s new strategy to give the glory for projects to local members – a great way to win support for research.
In this case, Mr Andrews represents the electorate of Menzies, (relatively) near to the Monash U campus at Parkville, where the centre is already established.
Parkville itself is in the seat of Melbourne, held by Adam Bandt for The Greens.
The pace is picking up as government members announce research funding
The third announcement of the new round of DECRA funding is by Liberal member for Curtin (and former Uni Notre Dame VC) Celia Hammond. (UWA issued the statement but Ms Hammond gets the quotes).
It covers Discovery Early Career Research Awards for UWA researchers; Catie Gressier (rare breed farming), Hugh Wolgamot (offshore engineering design), Ben Grafton (anxiety-linked negative expectations), Emilie Dotte-Sarrout (role of women in the history of archaeology) and Sajesh Thomas (electronic properties of molecular crystals).
The fourth, also yesterday, came from James Cook U – which announced Gergely Torda has $416 000 in ARC funding, “to examine whether coral reefs will be able to adapt to the pace of climate change as conditions for their survival deteriorate.”
Local MP, Phillip Thompson (LNP) joins Minister Tehan in a separate statement, speaking in favour of the research. “In Townsville we understand how important it is to protect this incredible natural wonder. Dr Torda is also a wonderful inspiration to local students that you do not have to leave town to conduct research that can make a difference in the world,” Mr Thompson said.
Political? Too right
The new announcement system is not going down well with people who think the government is politicising announcements and should just leave it to the ARC to release one long-list.
But as a way of engaging local members with research, by giving them good-news to sell to their constituents this is hard to beat – Phillip Thompson gets it. And members who get research will be its friends when Minister Tehan goes into budget-bat .