<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/14/albanese-urged-to-secure-the-future-of-science-as-csiro-reckons-with-ongoing-decline-in-funding>
"The CSIRO will embark on further cost-cutting to research units in a bid to
repair a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall, as Australia’s national science
and research agency reckons with an ongoing decline in funding.
The institution’s annual funding level as a percentage of GDP has been falling
with few exceptions over recent decades and is now at its lowest since 1978, a
parliamentary library analysis commissioned by ACT senator David Pocock showed.
Pocock requested data from 1980 in the analysis.
The analysis, which used GDP, CPI and population data to adjust for real
figures, showed the CSIRO’s funding has dropped from 0.16% of GDP in 1978-79 to
just 0.03% of GDP in 2024-25.
Under the Albanese government, the funding as a percentage of GDP has continued
to decline after it briefly rose to 0.05% in 2020-21 as a result of a Covid-19
funding injection by the then Morrison government.
While the nominal funding figures have remained relatively steady, the adjusted
figures represent real cuts to the agency over a nearly five-decade period.
Pocock said the CSIRO’s “value to our nation’s productivity, innovation and
overall wellbeing cannot be overstated”.
“Successive governments need to stop asking it to do more with less and start
once again investing in the kind of research that made us the lucky country
back when the CSIRO was first established,” he said.
At a Senate estimates hearing on Friday, the CSIRO chief executive, Doug
Hilton, acknowledged the agency’s budget allocation “has not kept up with the
cost of doing science”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
