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NEWS
Go8 dominate ARC grants again
UNSW leads nation in race for research dollars.
AMA chief’ s prognosis: painful fees
Deregulation will probably hit medical students hardest, AMA warns.
Go8 universities were once again the big winners of Australian Research Council grants. Collectively, they picked up almost 70 per cent of the $ 354 million in allocated federal funds from the latest round.
Leading the way was UNSW, which received $ 45.3 million that will fund 119 projects, including 84 discovery works. University of Queensland and Australian National University were the other top beneficiaries, picking up $ 37.7 million and $ 35.7 million, respectively, ahead of the universities of Melbourne and Sydney, which garnered just over $ 32 million each.
In total, 35 of the nation’ s universities shared in the round, which will fund 941 projects. A single grant to the CSIRO worth $ 371,000 was the only funding allocated outside the university sector.
Professor Kevin Hall, deputy vice-chancellor of research and innovation at the University of Newcastle – which received $ 10.6 million in ARC funding – said the result was a huge achievement considering the strong competition. The bulk of its allocation will go towards funding 24 new discovery projects, including $ 800,000 towards a study on the mechanics of hard soils and soft rocks and their influence on the stability and serviceability of buildings.
Another $ 750,000 will go towards a project being undertaken within UON ' s school of psychology that aims to develop a model of episodic memory – the ability that allows people to recall specific experiences, events and times.
“ This funding will allow UON researchers to continue investigating some of the critical challenges facing our world and seeking the solutions that will make a difference,” Hall said.
Meanwhile, amongst the 26 Queensland University of Technology projects that received funding – totalling $ 10.4 million – was a $ 604,000 grant to professor Lyn English from the university’ s faculty of education for a four-year program aimed at developing primary students ' capabilities in STEM subjects across years 3 to 6.
The project will involve students in Brisbane and Tasmania and will include collaboration with researchers at the University of Tasmania.
“ The project also supports the numerous reports from our chief scientist, professor Ian Chubb, and from our industry and business leaders, who have been emphasising the urgency to develop our students’ STEM capabilities and appreciation of how those disciplines contribute to the betterment of our society,” English said. ■
Medical students will probably be amongst those feeling the brunt of any increases to university fees under a deregulated system, one of the nation’ s chief doctors has warned.
AMA president professor Brian Owler spoke to Campus Review ahead of the three-day Higher Education Reform Summit in Melbourne earlier this month. He argued that despite government assurances against hefty increases to the cost of degrees, medical schools risked being used to supplement other areas of university expenditure, such as scholarships and bursaries.
Owler argued that the highly sought after nature of medical degrees placed them amongst the most“ price insensitive” courses, with demand likely to remain constant despite projected fee hikes.
The AMA chief said without amendments guaranteeing some form of debt cap for students, the government’ s legislation would have a detrimental impact on the medical workforce.
“ If you have people graduating with large amounts of debt, then their choice of career is such that they do try to gravitate towards – for example – procedural specialties where there is the potential for greater income,” he said.“ It detracts from such things as general practice and working in rural environments, and from specialties where we need people, such as in rehabilitation and addiction medicine, where it is often much less well remunerated but still vitally important.”
Owler said students from poorer backgrounds would, meanwhile, find it even harder to pursue medical studies with the graduate-level entry requirements of most Australian courses already contributing to the overall debt accrued.
“ There are people within the universities whom I have spoken to that have these very real fears,” he said.“ Having some caps or reassurances on the levels of debt people are going to be able to accumulate [ is vital ].
“ Some people will cope, but the risk is that others who may have made very good doctors in the future will be priced out, essentially.” ■
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