I read a post recently about a new course that was being proposed to post-graduate students, 'How to secure funding for your project'. It seems fundamental, something that should be taught in first year undergraduate studies. Alas, it does not exist. The paranoid part of me has decided this is a conspiracy to keep competition low. The other, more reasonable side of me, is livid with how undignified the entire science funding situation is in Australia right now, and I mean right now, because ten years ago things were different and we actually achieved things that weren't profit driven (hello CSIRO).
Last Monday night I was delighted to catch an episode of an Australian TV program called 'Q and A', a panel-style program where the audience can ask questions. This episode was unusual because it was devoid of politicians and was full of intelligent scientists, it was so refreshing and is worth a read or watch, During the episode, brilliant physicist Brian Green points out that you wouldn't have a mobile phone if an investment hadn't been made in quantum mechanic research back in the 1920's, and how hard it was at the time for those researchers to get funding for a science the general population was not interested in, Speed forward to today and I find myself in kind of the same situation, and the funding opportunities are depressing.
I'm not researching anything ground-breaking. My research will not result in a new device. My research will not make the government money. My research, in fact, is doing exactly what the government has said over the last twenty years needs to be done, but they won't fund it themselves. My research looks at threatened species, outside of their commonly accepted (and plainly wrong) distribution ranges. Which is the clincher for studying sea turtles. I'm not on the Great Barrier Reef. I'm not on oil and gas territory. I'm studying a threatened species in a state that doesn't even acknowledge that they exist here, I'm not going to pull votes for politicians, who seem to ignore everything that was ever written before they arrived anyway (see the Australian Federal Government's Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles, 2003).
It's no secret that the current Turnbull government is happy to continue carrying out its vendetta against anything that resembles environmental protection or conservation a la Abbott, gutting CSIRO, watering down the good outcomes of Greencorps, the Climate Council, the EDO, Carmichael, the list goes on, so there is little hope for change there until the next election. The Parliamentary Library estimates that research and development spending has been the lowest (0.56%) since records began in 1978 -79. Well done Australian Government, I've never been more embarrassed to be an Australian environmentalist, that's a first! Meanwhile, the defence budget is being pushed to 2%, because you know, we need more bombs and guns, or votes.
