‘Sad day for publicly funded science’: up to 350 more jobs to go at CSIRO | Australia news
Australia’s national science agency is expected to cut up to 350 more research roles from next year as it looks for savings and new funding sources to plug budget shortfalls.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) held a town hall on Tuesday afternoon, where agency leaders outlined the troubling times ahead.
On top of the job losses at the beginning of this year and last year, another 300 to 350 jobs are expected to be laid off. The CSIRO added that it would seek between $80 million and $135 million each year to renew its aging property portfolio. Around 80% of CSIRO’s 800 properties are nearing the end of their useful life.
Doug Hilton, chief executive of the CSIRO, said in a statement that the changes will create the organization “with a sharpened research focus that leverages our unique strengths for decades to come, allowing us to focus on the deep challenges we face as a nation and deliver solutions at scale.”
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Hilton told staff that the agency would not prioritize research areas based on the secretary’s updated expectations. Guardian Australia recognizes that research areas affected by recent job losses will include health and biosecurity, agriculture, food and environmental research units.
CSIRO staff association secretary, Susan Tonks said it was “a very sad day for publicly funded science in this country” and that the cuts made under the Albanian government were worse than those made under Tony Abbott’s Coalition government.
“They are now responsible for cuts to public science that went beyond the Abbott government – cuts that current Labor MPs rightly criticized at the time,” Tonks said.
“These are some of the worst cuts the CSIRO has ever seen and they come at a time when we need to invest in and improve public science.”
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) described the news as “discouraging” for the research community and the Australian economy.
“CSIRO is an incredibly important part of the Australian research landscape, and Australia and the world have benefited greatly from CSIRO’s work over more than a century,” ATSE president Dr Katherine Woodthorpe said.
He said the move reflected many years of declining funding for state research institutions.
“This is part of the ongoing erosion of funding for government-funded research agencies such as the CSIRO and [the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation] – all of which adds up to an incredibly difficult time for our research community.”
“If we are serious about increasing productivity, we need to invest in science and technology, and Australia’s national science agency is a proven way to do this,” Woodthorpe said. “We know that every dollar invested in CSIRO provides a threefold benefit to the economy over time if you give it time to do the job it needs to do.
Following an 18-month review, the CSIRO decided to renew its “emphasis on inventing and deploying technological solutions” across six focus areas, according to a statement. These included the energy transition, climate change, artificial intelligence, advanced technologies such as quantum and robotics, farming, biosecurity, and “disruptive science and engineering to unlock the unknown.”
