It is hard not to be envious of Australia’s economy.

GDP growth has been above two per cent for twelve of the past fourteen years. The UK has achieved this once. The average Australian worker will earn more than the average UK worker this year and likely for many years to come. And to really make the point Australia came tenth in the world happiness index while the UK languishes in 20th.

The country is not without challenges but from the shores of England in winter it is hard not to feel envious of a country with weather, quality of life, and wages, that many in the UK can only dream of. It is reassuring, perhaps even comfortingly familiar, to see in the Department of Industry, Sciences, and Resources, announcement of the Strategic Examination of Research and Development, plenty of challenges that feel close to home.

Can’t get you out of my head

Australia is a leading research nation however it has some weaknesses within its R&D base. Gross domestic spending on R&D lags significantly behind the OECD average (the UK is now above the average). And as we know from the Australian Universities Accord the government has had long-standing concerns about business R&D intensity, the variety of the research landscape, and the interactions between university research and the wider economy.

So far so familiar. However, in reading the terms of reference this looks like a more comprehensive exercise than we have seen in comparable reviews coming out of the UK. It is about maximising the value of R&D, improving links between research and the real economy, supporting research mobility, advancing national priorities such as growth, growing research intensity, and doing so with due regard to regional distribution, risk, and international competitiveness.

In reality, this is everything that makes up the entirety of the research landscape. By contrast the UK’s Nurse Review was tasked with focussing solely on the landscape of organisations that deliver research. It was therefore not empowered to make recommendations on some of the underpinning infrastructure that supports the success of research organisations including reforming quality measurements, the impact of tax credits, or the mechanisms for the funding of research. It’s not that these areas haven’t been reviewed, see Smith Review, Tickell Review, Spin-Out Review, Technopolis Review of the REF, the Science and Technology Framework, it is that the Australian government has decided to review everything together.

As the Minister said in a press conference to announce the examination

The different elements that make up our overall system will be looked at. I want this it be wide-ranging, but I also don’t want us to make presumptions at the start, assumptions about where we get to, because clearly, we can do better.

The examination will take a year and it emerged from another report which came out over a year ago, so it has taken a while. However, one of the lessons of UK research policy making is the frenetic pace of moving between moonshots, industrial strategies, science super powers, frontier and foundational research, and a range of other proposals, policies, and debates has only added to the fragmentation of the research policy and funding landscape.

I believe in you

The breadth of the review also allows a range of organisations to find an area to hang their interests. The Regional Universities Network has weighed in on the potential productivity growth by supporting regional institutions. The Australian Academy of Science has found now to be the ideal moment to call for structural reform of a “stagnant, siloed, and atomised R&D system.” And Research Australia has called for more coherent funding, support, and workforce planning for health and medical research. This can only lead to a richer debate but it also allows participants to take a more reasonable view of the trade-offs within the research system and beyond it.

While there is commonality of purpose in growth and productivity reflected by the likes of Universities Australia bringing all of the debates togethers makes trade-offs of where funding should be spent, what areas of growth should have attention, and where and how the government should intervene more meaningful. The Nurse Review, by comparison, was not able to answer even the most fundamental question of whether there should be fewer well funded projects or continue with a system of lots of projects with declining cost recovery.

Inevitably, ask the research community if they want less research bureaucracy they will say yes. Ask if they believe there should be more investment in spin-outs with better terms for founders they will probably say yes. Ask if regional investment should come at the expense of national funding formulas, well that is harder. And this is because in government reviews universities, researchers, and businesses, are too often asked to make trade-offs within issues not across them. This means it may be perfectly possible to build a less bureaucratic system, or a more equitable research system, or a better funded, or more expansive system, but it probably isn’t possible to do all of them. This means good policy can be made but a good system cannot be built.

Spinning around

This examination is cross-departmental. The team undertaking the examination is independent but the secretariat is run jointly with the Department of Industry, Science and Resources and the Department of Education, in consultation with the treasury.

As many commentators in Australia have pointed out this is an exercise that is somewhere between twenty and thirty years too late. Clearly, there is a lot of work built up and a lot to work through in a country with immense research strengths. However, a review which looks across the whole system, in doing so forces discussions on trade-offs, has a clear unifying goals in productivity and the economy, and works across departments, presents a model for the UK to learn from in its next major research review.