Research policy people are keen to ensure the Universities Accord is not all about funding student access

The Group of Eight has already made a case for a national research strategy (CMM March 27) and now a new paper from the Innovative Research Universities sets out the size of the pie and how it is sliced. The IRU makes no mention of the Accord but it is hard not to envisage Executive Director Paul Harris happily autographing copies for Accord chief Mary O’Kane and colleagues.  Research is prominent in just one of the Accord’s seven terms of reference.

The IRU paper starts with the high-level horrible; Australian expenditure on research and development stayed effectively flat for 20 years, while the OECD’s nearly doubled and China’s grew nearly six-fold.

But IRU also includes numbers that are important to anybody who believes universities should undertake discovery research as well as teach.

“Our analysis shows that overall growth in university research masks significant shifts in investment across different kinds of research and different universities over the last twenty years,’ Mr Harris says.

Shifts like the inexorable increase in spending on applied research and experimental development, under 40 per cent of higher education research and development 30 years ago and 63 per cent in 2020. “This transformational shift away from basic research has been sector-wide, but particularly prominent in regional and outer metropolitan universities,” IRU warns.

And shifts in discipline outlays. In 1992 spending on HASS, STEM and medical research was all under $1bn – now HASS is $2bn,medical is $3bn and STEM is $5.5bn.

IRU also warns the existing funding system shapes the sort of research universities do, with the ratio of infrastructure funding research block grants to total outlays halved.

This share will likely continue to decline as tied-programmes such as the Medical Research Future Fund account for a bigger share of spending.

And as for research growth funded by international student fees, most, “has occurred in a small number of universities.” Gosh, whichever could they mean?