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Australasian Biotechnology, Vol. 10 No. 5, 2000, pp. 2-3 FROM THE PRESIDENT FINAL ORDERS Peter Rogers, National President Code Number: au00047 Fellow members, my term as President finishes this month. It has been a busy year and I appreciate the support that I have received from members and fellow Directors. Martin Playne suggested that I should write some hard-hitting, fearless piece as this is my last editorial. Well I am not sure. Maybe we are all weary of talk about infrastructure, basic research funding, government incentives, venture capital funds and so on. We seem to be either talking about the industry revving up or complaining about the lack of government support. We applaud every IPO, every successful company listing and every new strategic venture from Canberra. But we don’t hear so much about the plight of scientists and the fact that many are doing it pretty tough. The science career path in Australia has always been risky. Ask any scientist if they can name a colleague earning over $100K - chances are they can’t, apart from the odd vice-chancellor, if they happen to work in a university. Ask if they can name someone in business and most will have no difficulty naming half a dozen. Ask a colleague if they personally know an Australian working in the US, or if they know of a friend, relation, or colleague recently made redundant and you’ll get a yes. Australian science is downsizing. It doesn’t matter how many incentive schemes (cf Batterham3) we have, if business does not invest in science and technology and that also means investing in people, we will never get to be an important technologically innovative society. The Australian biotechnology industry has a market value which in total wouldn’t get it into the top 20 of publicly listed companies. Surprised? Business spends a parsimonious 0.7%, on average, on research and development. And it is falling. Career opportunities for scientists are on the wane. Most companies have had at least two rounds of downsizing. In the first round, jobs that sounded good in theory were cut as they made no obvious contribution to profitability and therefore were thought of as an excess. (For black humour and real depth of insight read Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle). The second wave was tougher, as those remaining had to pick up extra duties. But there were great profitability returns and management was encouraged. In the case of the third and much larger tsunami, essential jobs are being eliminated in much larger numbers in areas that will not be noticed immediately. No prizes for guessing that this includes research and development. Ominously the tenure for business managers is reducing and three years may already be the norm. This only increases the pressure on research and development units and it makes it much harder to get sign off on- yes - three-year projects.
Du Pont recently made a serious study of productivity output from its technical staff in the 90s. They found that productivity increased markedly for the over-50s age group. Having identified a slump in output in midlife, around 45, the data perhaps surprisingly showed that the over-50s were focused on making a mark, and not on peripheral issues. It is not uncommon for the family GP, lawyer or dentist to be 60-plus, and for business leaders to be septuagenarians. Why not in science? Marty Bollinger, head of the management consulting firm Booz Allen, was quoted recently on the subject of research and development in an article on Management in The Australian newspaper2. ‘Research’, he thinks, ‘is the exploration of ideas and may involve serendipity and discovery’. Carl Venter’s view on this opinion would be interesting. If anything, the human genome project has shown that there is little difference between a corporate and an academic approach to science and profitability. Bollinger thinks that development is something that can be managed for efficiency - and that presumably research is not manageable in the same way or to the same extent; that research and development are quite different. By extrapolation, shouldn’t a risk-averse economy therefore favour development? It doesn’t seem as though we do - our investment is comparatively parsimonious in this department as well. Bollinger and others beg the question when they say that research and development can be neatly pulled apart- research, meaning in-house as well as collaborative work with research providers. Do they really mean that research just happens - serendipity style- to provide the appropriate research, the right outcomes, and for the right industry? Bollinger argues that research is too risky. He is on shaky ground using BHP’s troubled HBI direct iron reduction project to link research to unacceptable risk - surely this is a development project. This was based on existing technology. The fact that there were problems shows there is never a perfect fit of existing technology with implementation, unless you are extremely lucky. And of course it goes without saying that the choice of the management and situation paradigm should fit the bill. David Uren’s conclusion2 in his column in The Australian newspaper is however, very welcome. He says that short-term attitudes hamper R&D. He believes that corporations ‘have fallen short (I have taken the ‘may’ out of this) deciding to cut spending on their long-term development as a method of short-term cost reduction’. I read this one during the Olympics. Money can improve the physical ability of our (Australian) athletes but that ‘mongrel, mental toughness’ that gets our athletes over the line is the one thing that money can’t buy. It sure must help the old confidence though. And confidence and fire power are an awesome combination. Australia spent over $100 million on sporting programs during the lead up to the Sydney Olympics. Our technical base needs a bit more firepower and additional investment like this would do very nicely for a start. The mongrel bit can come later! It doesn’t take too much imagination to predict that the minimalist approach taken by many corporations as well as government towards their technical research infrastructure may sooner rather than later become for all of us very expensive indeed. As it was for Victoria’s gas suppliers and the Avgas manufacturer last year. Let’s move way from the doctrine of the amply fed horse - based on wishful thinking that some will pass through for the sparrows - to what is really needed. A comprehensive program of investment from big industry and meaningful government enticement. Back to Jack Welch1 for a final comment: ‘Australia’s got to be a place where intellectual capital is critical to the country, where it will be its resource base of some form and its got smart people. So I would want it to be so software, so wired, so tomorrow ‘ References
Copyright 2000 - Australasian Biotechnology |
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Because
of the tendency of industry towards redundancy for older workers, the average
age of scientists in industry is dropping. It is hard to believe that we can
afford to lose these bright minds and long term corporate memory at the present
rate. Listen to what Jack Welch1, fabled boss of General Electric
had to say last month during his visit to Australia: ‘You’ve a great population,
a highly educated population. But you don’t have enough’.