So, what is Australia doing for the future? Cutting funding to science, that’s what. Since the beginning of 2024, 800 staff have been cut from Australia’s leading scientific research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and another 350 are to be cut in 2026, which brings the total cuts to over 16% of the organisation’s staff. The Labor government has dealt the CSIRO some of the largest job cuts in the organisation’s history. Science is one of the best defences we have in tackling Australia’s and the world’s future challenges – including climate change, ecosystem collapse, not to mention food security, and health emergencies such as that we experienced the first few years of this decade1.
This reminds me of something I heard years ago: “Politicians hate scientists because scientists keep finding out things which show that the political dogma of the age is either bullshit or dangerous”. If politicians can stop scientists finding out things, they will. This is because it stops them being embarrassed when pandering to, or shovelling money to, their donors. Given the dire predicament the world currently finds itself in with regard to climate change and ecosystem collapse, it makes no sense to drastically cut the Environment Research Unit, which will bear the brunt of these prospective cuts. Unless, of course, you want to stop scientists finding out that government policies are stupid or dangerous. This is the same technique, albeit at a smaller scale, as that used by the idiotic Trump regime.
The idiot Trump has proposed cutting funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the largest funders of basic research, by some 56% in 2026. Congress has yet to finalise NSF’s 2026 budget, but they are pushing back against Trump’s proposal and seem unlikely to agree to it2.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest funder of biomedical research. More than $2 billion in federal research grants were cancelled by the NIH earlier this year as part of Trump’s ‘downsizing’ of the federal government. Agency spending has also been slowed, and 1,300 employees have been sacked. Thousands of universities and other institutions rely on NIH funding for their research3, and if this is not forthcoming, many researchers will likely lose their jobs.
This is just at a time when China is becoming the world’s new science superpower in terms of gross spending on research and development. A new Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report has revealed that China’s gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD), was US$780.7 billion – 95% of US spending (US$823.4 billion), up from 72% in 2013. This, in 2023, translates to an 8.7%, growth in R&D expenditure in China while in the US it is 1.7%, and in the European Union it is 1.6%.” At this rate, China is likely to have passed the American GERD last year (2024). In the OECD – a group of most of the world’s wealthiest countries – in 2023 R&D expenditure grew by 2.4% in inflation-adjusted terms, down from 3.6% in 20224. China seems to be set to win the race to the future.
As I have said elsewhere, the main aim of the Chinese government seems to be building a future for the nation, while in the US, Australia and elsewhere the main aim seems to be making sure that shareholders (and those making political donations) get the maximum return on their investment each and every year. With such short-term thinking, the future is of little concern beyond the accumulation of more money by these very few.
Sources
- https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/greens-secure-senate-inquiry-csiro-job-cuts
- https://www.science.org/content/article/despite-trump-chaos-nsf-avoided-feared-dip-research-financing
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-institues-health-clinical-trial-funding-cuts-cancer-research/
- https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250404133241546
