As universities warn they could not cope with any cut in public funding policy paladin Frank Larkins reveals their rapid growth in discretionary expenditure on research. In a new paper for the L H Martin Institute, Professor Emeritus Larkins reports “to maintain a desired level of activity and the quality of the research output it seems that universities have been prepared to commit an ever increasing proportion of their discretionary operating expenditure to support research.”

Professor Larkins calculates that while total operating expenditure rose by 39 per cent between 2008 and 2014, total research expenditure increased by 48 per cent. The growth in discretionary research spending, without external research income and funding from block grants, was 66.9 per cent.

Want to know why Australia does well on global research rankings? One reason might be universities throw money at researchers.

Professor Larkins does demonstrate that total research spending came back 2 per cent between 2012 and 2014, to 39.2 per cent but given rising incomes, outlays in the period still increased $535m.

“Universities have collectively have determined that there are strategic benefits in according a higher priority to growth in research expenditure compared with the growth in resources directed towards other activities, principally teaching and learning activities,” he writes.