CLEUGH, Dr Helen, Division Chair, Australian Capital Territory, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering DERBYSHIRE, Mr Peter, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering DOBBIE, Professor Michael, Chief Executive Officer, Phenomics Australia TYNAN, Dr Sarah, Director, Policy and Government Relations, Science and Technology Australia WINN, Mr Ryan, Chief Executive Officer, Science and Technology Australia CHAIR: Welcome. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to Senate committees has been provided to you. Do you have any comments to make on the capacity in which you appear? Prof. Dobbie : Phenomics Australia is part of Australia's National Research Infrastructure. CHAIR: I now invite those of you who have one to make a short opening statement, and, at the conclusion of any remarks, I'll invite senators to ask questions. Mr Winn. Mr Winn : Good afternoon, Chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I'm here in my capacity as CEO of Science and Technology Australia, the peak body for Australia's science and technological sectors. STA has a 40-year legacy as the sector's advocate. We represent more than 250,000 scientists, technologists, educators and engineers across our nearly 150 members. I do want to acknowledge Professor Michael Dobbie, CEO of Phenomics Australia, a National Research Infrastructure facility and STA member, who has joined me to answer specific questions about the rising cost of research infrastructure and research in Australia. CSIRO inspires great national pride. Its work and impact span our cities and regions in all aspects of Australians' lives, from biodiversity to understanding the stars, from agriculture to health and wellbeing. CSIRO is also deeply embedded in the broader research ecosystem. It is a vital partner in projects with universities and industry and hosts critical research infrastructure assets. Any reduction of CSIRO's capacity to maintain this essential support will have far-reaching and enduring ripples across the sector. The public and this committee were rightfully concerned about the announcements made last year and what CSIRO jobs mean for Australia. However, less known is how the strain is presented across the whole research sector. CSIRO is the canary in the coal mine. Commonwealth funding for R&D has increased modestly over the past decade, but, in real terms, adjusted for inflation, it has flatlined or declined. Just like households are feeling the pinch of the cost of living increasing faster than incomes, the research system is feeling the pinch of increasing research costs, from consumables to specialist equipment to wages, increasing faster than support from grants and appropriations. The sector is hurting. In 2025, STA found that around a third of STEM professionals were thinking about leaving the sector entirely. Low success rates for competitive grants have contributed to insecurity. This is not because funding agencies have less money at their disposal or because of cuts from government; it's largely because demand is high and the cost of research is pushing budgets further, meaning less projects can be funded. This is not sustainable. Australia must choose whether we value our research capability enough to fund it properly. The joint statement last week by Prime Minister Albanese and Canada's prime minister Carney patently illustrates how much STEM is important to our national and international collaborations. We must deepen our STEM research capability—not let it be a casualty of increasingly tighter budgets. We fully understand the constraint of the financial environment of government and the many complex demands on its pocket, but Australia's STEM capability is too important to our future wellbeing and economic prosperity to let it languish. Once a research direction is discontinued or capability is lost, it is complex and expensive to build. Australia cannot afford to let CSIRO or our broader research capability suffer a death by a thousand cuts. Our recommendations in our submission are practical and focused. We are asking for government to adopt an investor mindset to recognise that funding research, research infrastructure and CSIRO is patient capital; invest in Australia's sovereign capability; develop a new indexation rate for research funding that reflects the true cost—the rising cost—of research; and regularly review appropriations to ensure research agencies can sustain their operations, retain talented staff and maintain world-class infrastructure. The government's strategic examination of research and development report is due shortly. We hope the report's recommendations and this inquiry underpin a national conversation on how Australia values and invests in STEM capabilities. Australia has the opportunity to supercharge our economy through STEM based R&D. The STEM sector is ready to deliver but can only do so with government support. Mr Derbyshire : Good afternoon, senators. We would first like to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we are meeting on today, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and reflect on their long history of achievement as Australia's first scientists and technologists. We pay our respects to elders past and present. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today. Publicly funded research agencies like the CSIRO form the backbone of Australia's science research and development system. We're all aware of the impact CSIRO has had on Australian science and technology in the past. Wi-fi, Aerogard, the cervical cancer vaccine, polymer banknotes—the list is endless. But even now CSIRO continues to make an impact through research on drought-resistant crops, disaster preparedness and smarter health care. They are looking at using AI to predict the spread of bushfires and at lower cost solar to accelerate decarbonisation, and they were at the front lines of protecting us from COVID-19 through essential work on things like drug screening. But CSIRO has been doing this as its real funding has continued to fall. Analysis of data from the Parliamentary Library shows that since the 1978-79 financial year real funding for the CSIRO has fallen by an average of over $3 million a year. That's over $172 million lost in 2024-25 alone. So it's no wonder that CSIRO has had to cut over 800 jobs in the past 18 months and is now planning to cut up to 350 more. At the same time, the rest of the R&D sector is also facing declining funding. Research funding as a proportion of GDP now sits at 1.68 per cent. In South Korea it's 4.9 per cent. The OECD average is 2.7 per cent. That means there is no space in our R&D system to pick up any of this lost capacity. There is no safety net. This long-term underfunding of Australia R&D is harming Australia's productivity and competitiveness, weakening our economy for future generations. Our economic complexity is falling. Productivity has stagnated. Research and development are the solution. Every dollar spent on R&D returns $3.50 to the economy, and for some CSIRO projects that can be up to $8.80. Now is the time to invest in R&D, both at the CSIRO specifically and across the sector as a whole. While we await the release of the strategic examination of R&D and look forward to the suggestions for how to strengthen our R&D sector, the 350 CSIRO researchers who face losing their jobs cannot wait for the SERD to be implemented. It doesn't take a year-long review to see that proper, long-term funding for R&D is needed. CHAIR: Thank you. I'll go to Senator Darmanin. Senator DARMANIN: Thanks for coming today. I have a question for ATSE. In your submission you caution against robbing commercialisation programs outside of CSIRO to fund publicly funded research agencies like CSIRO. What balanced mix do you think best sustains a research translation pipeline from CSIRO and other institutions without starving discovery research? Mr Derbyshire : There is no perfect balance I think that we can give you here and now. I think the challenge has been that we need to ensure we have the capacity to do that fundamental, experimental, curiosity driven research. The development of wi-fi is perhaps the best example in Australia for that. It was developed because someone decided to look at radio waves coming out of black holes. There was no expectation of creating new technology that has now permeated throughout the world. It was someone with a bit of scientific curiosity, the skills and, more importantly, the support to do this sort of work. It's important to ensure that we always have that balance between fundamental research, whether it's done in universities or through the long-term patient capital that can exist through the CSIRO, and then we can also ensure that programs like the ON program at the CSIRO or other programs delivered by the Australian government, like the Australian Economic Accelerator, can help turn those research areas into new products, new innovations and, more importantly, new jobs in industry for the future. Senator DARMANIN: With that wi-fi example, what was the mix at that time in terms of the experimental research as opposed to a more commercialised industry partnership approach? It's very unpredictable, as you say, but can you give us a bit more of a guide on what you've seen over your time as to how things have been successful? Mr Derbyshire : I'm more than happy for my colleagues to jump in if they have some of the answers on this one. In our view, it's almost an impossibility to imagine how that could be measured, because, when we measure the fundamental research that led to wi-fi, we also don't necessarily keep track of all of the research that has to go beforehand or doesn't necessarily lead to direct costs. STA, I'm sure, has some modelling on that, if my memory serves. Mr Winn : Not on the particular numbers, but one of the things I would reflect on on the uniqueness of CSIRO in its own right is that, being an agency that has a budget to do things outside of grants and, equally, having the breadth of capability across it, it can identify really great ideas and keep pulling it through the system and actually get to that commercialisation much more efficiently than other organisations. What we see in the non-CSIRO context—let's just call it that—is often we have great discovery research that comes up in a university. We then struggle to keep pulling it through into other programs because of stop-start funding. So the efficiency of drawing something through that is really amazing. That is where the patient capital of CSIRO is hard to determine. There's never been a set number that I'm aware of that was set towards discovery versus applied research. But CSIRO has the ability to constantly adjust its priorities, and we've seen this over many years. We talk about last year's process, the PAWC process, being a big event. It was a big event, but actually CSIRO has been readjusting its priorities internally across areas to allow that moving and shaping with where the effort needs to be—on the discovery side, on different disciplines and others. Dr Tynan : Across the rest of Australia's R&D sector, the Australian Research Council and the two major funding streams for health and medical research, there is a balance between discovery research and the more applied side of things. I would need to double-check the figures, but roughly, in the ARC, the breakdown between the discovery program and the linkage program, which is the more applied end of things, is around 60/40 over time. On the health and medical side, you've got the NHMRC. It's rough, but it's generally towards the discovery end of things. The MRFF is more priority driven and coming at things from that priority focus—again, you have that balance where both sides of the system are working towards the entirety of the goal. Mr Winn : If you'd like, we can come back with some data that we provided to the Strategic Examination of Research and Development panel process, which provides an understanding about where the different programs across government are and where they sit across that discovery through the translational piece. That might give you at least a balance across government of where the balance of discovery versus plight is across the TRL levels. Senator DARMANIN: That would be great. Mr Winn : I'm happy to provide that on notice. Senator DARMANIN: Science and Technology Australia, your submission asserts that cutting-edge research requires cutting-edge equipment. We've heard some of the challenges with CSIRO in terms of the equipment and infrastructure. In a tight fiscal environment, what criteria would you apply to assess which shared national research infrastructure facilities are the highest priority to maintain? I know that's a hard question. Mr Winn : That's a big question. I'll start, but I'll pass to Dr Dobbie to add to this. What we do need is a sector led conversation around these things. What we've seen over many years, led by the Department of Education, is a national research infrastructure road-map process, which is a conversation that happens with the whole sector and the sector bubbling up ideas of, 'Well, where's the cutting-edge research and what's the infrastructure that aligns to that?' The NCRIS facilities, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, which is the program that the Department of Education administers for the whole government, provides some of that support. They are facilities, but they are multimodal. Often, some of those facilities are actually sitting in CSIRO or other organisations and, indeed, ANSTO as well. This shows the critical role that PFRA's play in this space. It's hard to know exactly where you'd put that balance, but we do need a regular refresh of that conversation every, I'd say, four to five years. We need that national capability around microscopy, advanced replication, astronomy and supercomputing, but it needs to be an integrated piece, and then look at where that infrastructure is best placed that is of the national value. I would add that there is a range of capabilities within CSIRO that serves CSIRO's own research needs. It's like a university. They'll set up their own labs and capabilities to serve their own research, but we do need to have a collaborative conversation about what's the national need and how to most efficiently deliver that—and CSIRO is a really efficient place to deliver that. Prof. Dobbie : I'll make some general comments on that. Just from my own personal observations and working through the national research infrastructure program over the last 20 years that it's been operating, I think fundamentally Australia thrives on the efficiency gains that have been had through collaboration. We have to collaborate. We can't be competitive within our R&D system. I think CSIRO provides a microcosm of that collaboration, but it's also a catalytic point within Australia's greater ecosystem. I think Ryan and Peter have referred to that. Those efficiency gains are had through having at least a piece of everything in terms of infrastructure and the different kinds of technology that I think are fundamental to have access for researchers to be able to access. Some of that is accessible directly through CSIRO; some of it CSIRO accesses in the ecosystem. CSIRO is part of that national and international collaboration, and that's what is at stake here—taking out a major piece of our infrastructure and our ability to do research in ways that we can't imagine today but will need to do tomorrow. Mr Winn : One thing I would add is that, a perfect example of—and I don't know the detail of the infrastructure that CSIRO is questioning at the moment—a national piece of asset that no-one else in Australia could run is the RV Investigator—CSIRO's research vessel. It's a platform CSIRO leads around its marine environmental research, but, at the same time, other researchers can access it through merit based access. That is an expensive vessel to run. We don't need 10 of them, and we don't want different universities to have such big vessels. Centralising that through the marine national facility at CSIRO is a perfect example of the value of the patient capital that CSIRO can bring around infrastructure. Senator DARMANIN: That is very helpful. Thank you. Earlier today, we heard evidence around a once-in-a-generation review that's being commissioned into the research and development in Australia. How do the terms of reference and what we're really trying to inquire into with CSIRO today fit within that broader conversation? What I asked before was really about infrastructure, but, more broadly, what is your view about where this sits within that broader R&D review given your comments just then about having a sector led conversation and leveraging all of the different parts of the sector we're talking about? Mr Winn: Absolutely. I'll start, but I'm sure AATSE will have views on this as well. It's been a fantastic conversation to have with the panel over the last year. It was a good process. It shows that we have a fragmented sector and a governance and an arrangement that has not stood the time of the modern research system we have now and that we don't have the sustainability and the right balance of focus in the system around incentives for business, around the right balance of support for discovery, around how we support careers, around the different programs and the plethora of programs and the lack of cohesive governance across programs. I think one of the really standout features that came through that process was the important role of a more cohesive governance structure around how we think about R&D in Australia. We look to models like the UKRI, in the UK, around cohesive investments around priorities and how we shape them from top down, but also how we support ground-up discovery based research, while at the same time aligning that around research infrastructure funding, around programmatic funding and around mission based funding so that we can sit those together. The publicly funded research agencies collectively are such a strong patient capital that I think everyone identified through that process, but they are at risk and a balancing act at the moment. Whether it's nuclear capability through ANSTO or national measurement through NMI—I can list all the PFRAs—they all sit in a unique place, but we need to connect that as part of a whole system. We're not a big country. We need to get our system aligned and operating well without compromising too much on the discovery or the commercial. We need to make sure we are focused on the goal. As a country, we have our own sovereign needs that no other country is going to solve, but we equally have strengths that other countries can and should be relying on as well. We can make this an economically prosperous country driven by great ideas. We've seen it in other countries. We've just got to take that opportunity. Mr Derbyshire : You stole a few of my lines, but that's alright; I'll forgive you! The only thing I would add to that is that we are a small country and we cannot do everything. We do have to set priorities for our research and economic development capabilities. We have to also ensure, however, that, whatever our short-term, medium-term or even long-term priorities are, we also have enough space in the system to prepare for what we don't know about. We had no expectation that the past three geopolitical upheavals would come as quickly as they did or the direction they would come from. Having our own sovereign capability, our own manufacturing and our own research and development helps us to prepare for these things. If we do not have a system more broadly—CSIRO plays an important part of that system—then how can we be prepared to create new jobs, new industries and be able to pivot like we did? A perfect example of that is in COVID. We had industries that were actually gin distilleries all of a sudden pivoting towards creating hand sanitiser, which is a fascinating way to do things. But we can't do that unless we have the manufacturing capability and the R&D capability, and we need to make sure we have that. CSIRO is, I think, the best example of that long-term patient capital that my colleague just talked about, because they can look at things and connect things together. The strategic examination of research and development, beyond bringing all of the pieces together, we hope, will also bring all of the priorities together so that we don't have a myriad of different organisations with different research priorities in different directions. We have to be flexible, but we have to also start focusing on what is going to be best for us. Senator DARMANIN: It sounds like that sort of independent review can help to guide how we prioritise the approach more broadly to investment in Australia around this. Mr Winn : I think it can head us towards a discussion about sustainability in the sector. What does that actually look like? It's that cohesiveness and strategy. We can't do everything all the time. We're not a big nation. But, equally, there are things that we are fantastic at. We need to be cohesive, planned, structured and sustainable in how we support that. You can't have a conversation in Australia about science without CSIRO. Senator DARMANIN: Thanks so much. Senator BARBARA POCOCK: Thanks, everyone, for being here and for your submissions. It's much appreciated. You've been talking a little bit about governance and the need for a system that's aligned, but isn't it the case—I think you've made this point yourselves—that the superior question is the level of funding. It's not just about tweaking governance. If we don't get near an OECD average of spending, we're fiddling a bit with the edges. I see you all nodding; you all agree with that. So the principal question here is about funding enough our science effort. So that's all agreed. Does anyone want to say anything more on that? Mr Winn : One thing I would say—maybe it's just reiterating the point I made earlier—is on sustainability. When you look at the rising cost of investments, the indexation of payments is not keeping pace with the massive increases in the component costs of research. Senator BARBARA POCOCK: Is it the case, in an organisation like CSIRO, which has a very large and broad research effort, as you've said yourselves, that funding is being moved to emergency facilities maintenance, for example, that puts pressure on the staffing budget? Do you have any knowledge of that within CSIRO or within the science investment generally? Mr Winn : Not explicitly. What I would say, from our conversations with CSIRO, is that there is an enormous infrastructure hole within CSIRO that hits $80 million to $135 million per annum. That's per annum, not a once off. We saw MYEFO provide a stop gap for that for this financial year. The reality is that it doesn't take simple maths to go, 'If you don't fill that hole, where can you take that money to fill that piece?' Staff are scalable, for want of a less crass description, compared to some of the infrastructure. CSIRO has been divesting land and other aspects for many years, and that has helped to stave off some of those issues. But—when your appropriations from government are increasing at two per cent, the price of clean shoes that you wear in a lab go up by 19 per cent, the price of gold you need for experiments is going up by 110 per cent and some of the gases are going up by 100 to 300 per cent—the equation falls apart quickly. We need an indexation rate applied to the appropriation amount for CSIRO but also for other grants in government so that we're not making the science sector cut itself. I'd confirm Minister Ayres's statement that the government has not cut CSIRO, but CSIRO is having to cut itself to live within the means it is living within. Mr Derbyshire : It changes the way in which CSIRO focuses its research. Helen, you were talking to me about it. Dr Cleugh : There are a couple of things I'd like to add into this discussion on top of what my colleagues have said. I think the conversation on funding is critically important—as you say, Senator Pocock—but it's about the funding that's needed to sustain a fit-for-purpose, right sized capability that CSIRO represents. I wanted to give a bit of flavour on two points. The first is that the cost of doing science is increasing with relatively flat funding. CSIRO for decades has been quite creative and innovative in meeting its mandate, if you like. It's very passionate about delivering national benefit and how to do that in the face of rising costs. It's not just the cost of doing science—and I totally agree with what STA, Peter and ATSE have said—but also the complexity of the world that we're in. We need to be more connected and interact with other agencies both within Australia and internationally. All of that actually has a cost associated with it as well as thinking really strategically about what the capability is that we're going to need to meet the things that we don't even know about—the preparedness piece that that my colleague here mentioned. All of those things come at an additional cost. It's what the national benefit is and what we need CSIRO to be to provide that patient capital that the others have mentioned. I think those are examples to demonstrate that this isn't really about solving the problem that CSIRO has with reprioritisation and slightly different management; it is about how there actually isn't enough money to do the things that CSIRO is needed to do within the Australian R&D ecosystem. The second point I wanted to comment on, reflecting the earlier discussions, is this role that CSIRO plays. The example that was given earlier was the Marine National Facility. One of the reasons that CSIRO was an obvious organisation to run that facility on behalf of the nation was all of its history of doing ocean science, and it prepared it to pick up that capability and run it. That's just one example. There are many. It's about CSIRO having this ability to actually also lead and guide where the conversations need to go in Australia, because of its deep expertise and its experience. That can really help Australia have those strategic discussions about where the priorities are, because it's been doing this research in these areas for so long. It has built up deep experience and wisdom, and it also knows where the international communities are going. We can connect with that and bring that science and technology back to benefit Australia. These are all the sorts of roles that CSIRO plays. They're critically important for the nation, but we need the sustainable funding base to enable it to fulfil those roles. Mr Winn : I might actually ask Michael to add on here, because the reason that having an NCRIS facility here is so vital is that infrastructure requires decadal planning. Some of these facilities have long-term start-up, running and decommissioning costs, and NCRIS facilities are really quite analogous to the work of CSIRO's infrastructure as well. Michael, is there anything you would add around the limitations you have in planning and running facilities like you do that could help guide the committee around what CSIRO's challenges are? Prof. Dobbie : Yes. The great strength—in fact, almost the jewel in Australia's ecosystem—is having a long-term commitment to providing infrastructure to support Australia's research, and that's provided through the NCRIS program. That's been running for 20 years. The benefits are seen because we not only have a long history of being able to build what we have today but we also have a long horizon, or a far horizon, to continue to invest in the things that we need. The things that we need cover the full range, from small bits of equipment in complex working environments to large pieces of equipment of which maybe you only need one. We need to actually provide national access to those. We need long-term planning for that. Some of that equipment and some of that expertise—infrastructure, again, is not just hard infrastructure. For us in phenomics, it's fundamentally people—skilled people—that take a long time to train and retain, and we want to make sure that that there is security and that there is certainty in the long term. That's Australia's strength. We've got this sweet spot where we can invest cleverly in the infrastructure. We can provide that infrastructure to researchers across the country, regardless of where their affiliation is. The CSIRO is very much at the heart of a lot of that capability that currently exists today. It needs to be respected, in that sense, and it needs certainty for its future, to operate in that efficient manner. Senator BARBARA POCOCK: I'm hearing an argument not only for a quantum of real research and to keep up with the changing costs of research; I'm also hearing that continuity of funding is incredibly important for that long time frame, for lots of significant research— Prof. Dobbie : Yes. Senator BARBARA POCOCK: and creating base capability. I want to ask about commercialisation, as another senator already has. One of the ways it seems that the CSIRO has coped with an effective real decline in resources is commercialisation. What are your comments on what that does to the research agenda? And are there limits on it? I think about the ARC Discovery and Linkage Projects split. Linkage Projects are sort of fifty-fifty, a lot of in-kind, often minimal, cash contributions, whereas we've heard this morning that 70 per cent minimum commercial contributions up to $100,000 are 100 per cent looked at very favourably. What are your comments on commercialisation and what it's meant? Dr Cleugh : I might start. It depends what you mean by commercialisation, actually, and I guess— Senator BARBARA POCOCK: I mean funding of research. I know there are other meanings, but I mean that. Dr Cleugh : Yes. The CSIRO has played a critically important role in enabling spin-off companies that Australia needed, and that's really important, but I think what you're getting at is actually what I would call the CSIRO's funding model. It was a point I wanted to make earlier, but then I forgot, so this is a good opportunity for me to make it. I think that one of the ways the CSIRO has managed the declining, in real terms, budget is to think about how it costs the research that it does and how that gets funded. Because it's had a decline in budgets, it's asked its clients, if you like—the organisations that purchase its research—to cover more and more of the cost of doing that research. That has its place, and I think it's appropriate that some commissioned research does do that. But my concern that I wanted to state earlier is that, in some situations, it could mean that the CSIRO is not able to involve itself in critically important research programs because there's an expectation by the funder. You used the example of Linkage; there are other government grants, as well, that require fifty-fifty co-investment. That's a real challenge for the CSIRO when it needs more than that to cover its funding. I am very concerned that that can lead to what I would call perverse outcomes in terms of Australia's ability to meet some of the big challenges it's confronting, because the CSIRO may not be able to be a participant in that collaborative research because its funding model precludes it from doing so. I think that is a concern. But—I'll just be really clear—I don't think that's a problem of commercialisation. Senator BARBARA POCOCK: I know. I meant funding. Dr Cleugh : I think that's a problem of the funding challenges that the CSIRO is facing, and it's trying to do the best it can against those challenges. Senator BARBARA POCOCK: Dr Cleugh, were you involved in the State of the climate report preparation over the years? Was that you? Dr Cleugh : When I worked at CSIRO, I was, yes. Senator BARBARA POCOCK: Do you have any insight you can give us on how that will be faring, given what we're hearing about the cuts? Dr Cleugh : I can't comment on that, I'm afraid. Senator BARBARA POCOCK: Thank you. CHAIR: Senator David Pocock. Senator DAVID POCOCK: Thank you very much for your time this afternoon. Some of the things I was going to ask have been well covered, so I was wanting to ask about figure 4 of your submission, which appears on page 4. It looks as though the funding for CSIRO, adjusted for inflation, fell from around $1.2 billion in 2021-22 to just under $1 billion this financial year, so that's, in round numbers, a fall of roughly 20 per cent over five years. I accept that some of this fall is due to the COVID measures, but what impact has the reduction had on science and technology research in Australia? Mr Winn : That's a big question. It's a tricky one because, like so much research, the impact happens over time. I fear that, if we're on the path we are, we won't see the loss of industries and opportunities for a number of years. When we look back at the successes that CSIRO and the government have achieved through the programs, whether it's low-gluten wheat or the support it provided through COVID and other things, these got us through the good times and the bad times. I fear that it's hard to quantify now. In some ways, it's the easy answer for government and others to say: 'Just live within your means, because you're not doing anything impactful now. It's interesting, it's great, it's inspirational, and it's fantastic, but nothing's going to hurt now.' I think that's the problem with so much of science. This is the build-up of the energy. Once we start taking our foot off the gas, we don't have the next industries. We can see enormous changes around renewable energies, around global politics and around pandemics and see agricultural challenges as a result of climate change. CSIRO has been at the core of so many of the opportunities that have shaped our agricultural industry. If we take this off now, the risk is what we can't achieve next. I know that's probably a bit of a cop-out answer— Senator DAVID POCOCK: What I'm hearing is it's harder to quantify now, but it potentially means that we're not having the wi-fi breakthrough or polymer banknotes sometime in the future, which will lead to a whole bunch of other things. Dr Cleugh : It's not quite the example you're seeking, but I think it's a comment that I can make, and that is that CSIRO has announced that it's going to have some job reductions as a result of the funding, and that graph points to that funding challenge. This has already been reported over the last 24 hours. There are risks that things like Australia's national climate model, ACCESS, may struggle to be delivered because of reductions that CSIRO may have to make in that area. That's not something that we have lost, looking in the rear-view mirror, but, certainly outside the windscreen and fairly in the near-term, that's a big risk for Australia—if it has not got its own sovereign capability that's continually improving our understanding of how the climate system works through the ACCESS model. That's one example, although not quite the one you're looking for, because it's not in the past. It's in the near-term. Senator DAVID POCOCK: Based on your knowledge, do you think it's fair to say that the Australian climate model is actually at risk with these— Dr Cleugh : I can't say, because I do not know what the CSIRO internal decisions are. What I can say is, if the science and support staff around the ACCESS modelling within CSIRO is reduced, that will severely challenge the ability of that model to be the best that Australia needs it to be to support our climate-sensitive economy and navigate the way into the future, because we can't rely on the past now. The future is quite different to the past, and we need that simulation capability. We're really fortunate, in Australia, that we have an NCRIS facility in the ACCESS-NRI, but it can't do its great work without the R&D. Yes, some of that comes from universities, but a really critical component comes from CSIRO because of its unique capability. The land component that sits in the ACCESS model—land is pretty important. That land model came from CSIRO because Australia has such unique ecosystems. Our vegetation is different to everywhere else in the world. So we need that Australian contribution to that climate model. That's, I think, at some risk—not the CABLE model but the ACCESS model in general, just to be clear. Prof. Dobbie : Senator Pocock, I acknowledge your advocacy for using some of the genomic technologies that are available through CSIRO to address our biosecurity threats. Those technologies were not designed for that. We need ACCESS because we don't know what the future challenges will be. Senator DAVID POCOCK: It seems to me that there are such huge opportunities in that space for a country that struggles so much to control invasive species. I think that's a great point. I want to ask about the human cost. We hear the government say, as you said, Mr Winn, that CSIRO needs to live within its means. My understanding is that, with the COVID supplement, CSIRO actually went out and offered jobs to early career researchers, and you brought on board a whole bunch of exciting young people who wanted a career in research in science. We're now seeing job losses at the same time that the same government is talking about the importance of STEM and of getting more young people and more girls and women into STEM. What sort of message are we sending to scientists and to researchers about the value that we place on them? Mr Winn : I would reflect on two points. I'm conscious of time as well, so I'll finish quickly. One is, when the announcements were first made—it was in the media—one of the first people to contact me on a LinkedIn post I made about this was the Australia's PM prize winner for last year for science teaching. She was like: 'How do I tell this to my students? How does this change the inspiration?' The other thing I would say is one of the amazing programs that CSIRO supports is the Young Indigenous Women's STEM Academy. That is an amazing program that helps identify amazing women and young girls in schools across Australia, including in remote communities, who are passionate about STEM and helps to build their capabilities, connect the dots and support them through universities. So saying that, as a country, we don't support STEM and not supporting CSIRO, which runs that program, is fundamentally undermining our draw for STEM professionals in Australia at a time when the government's own modelling through Jobs and Skills Australia is showing that, over the next 10 years, we will have a 24 per cent growth. That's the biggest growth of any category of occupations in Australia over the next 10 years. We need more not less. Not every researcher will end up in a research based STEM career, but research and research excellence in Australia lead to aspirations of STEM, whether it's an engineer, a doctor or a researcher. If we take our foot off that and show that government doesn't support these sorts of careers, then we have an enormous economic problem for the future. Senator DAVID POCOCK: Thank you. CHAIR: I've just got one question. If you take a blanket view of the need to cut spending by the government, why is research different? You mentioned before the cost of equipment and the cost of technology these days. Can you give me an indication why proportionately science is different to other areas because of the cost of technology and things that are not discretionary costs. People will often go straight to people, but there are some things you cannot simply cut because it's not possible. There are regulations that sit around them. An item becomes obsolete if it doesn't attach to something else. Can you give me an explanation of that. Mr Winn : I will go to a couple of quick examples. As I said before, if you work in a clean room or in laboratories, gloves that you need to use are 25 per cent more expensive than they were two years ago and clean room shoes are 19 per cent more expensive than they were before. These are things that people need to safely work in these environments. We also have an example where, just down the road, the Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility, another NCRIS facility, was upgrading its equipment and needed a cooling system around its equipment. It had budgeted for that, but the cost of that has increased by 100 per cent, so it's now twice as expensive as planned and they can't do it. It's fundamentally making it unsafe. To keep it safe, the costs are going up critically. Liquid nitrogen, which we use to keep samples and processes cool, has increased by 50 per cent since 2021. These are fundamental parts of safety infrastructure capabilities to do the things that we need to do for science. These things are not going up at one or two per cent like the appropriations. Prof. Dobbie : In addition to those examples, I think the general point is that science is based on technology, and technology, particularly new technology, is expensive. We can't avoid that. A lot of it has to be purchased from overseas. There are exchange rate considerations. A lot of it needs to be developed locally. It's expensive to develop new technologies, but that's our leading edge. That's our competitive advantage as a country. Do we want to be competitive or don't we? Mr Winn : Microscopy Australia has given us numbers around big microscopes—expensive, enormous ones—that have gone from the range of $3 million to $6 million to the range of $7 million to $13 million over the last 10 years. Equally, service costs to maintain instruments for some facilities have gone from $100,000 and $150,000 a year in 2006 to $250,000 and $350,000 a year in 2026. That's a 100 per cent growth. I'm happy to provide those. CHAIR: Thank you. You are able to provide that to the committee. I thank you for your evidence today..