The decisions of the former Minister for Education, Simon Birmingham, to reject funding for some research applications recommended by the Australian Research Council (ARC), have understandably caused concern and anger amongst researchers, academics and universities. However, it has all happene ...
In these days of fake news and social media hype people have lost trust in many public institutions. Social media is king and the prominence of news can be driven by clicks and algorithms. Trust is difficult concept to define and measure. It is a fragile belief that people and institutions can …
The Council of the ISAA affirms the fundamental importance of research for the Australian society, and globally. The Australian Government needs to support and fund basic and applied research in all disciplines. Council advocates the appointment of high-profile Science and Arts Ministers in any Federal government. Council advocates expanding resources…
Much change is occurring within the Australian Public Service at present as organisations search for cost savings that will allow their ongoing operations to fit within ever leaner budgets. Politicians and senior managers are fond of saying that “we can always do better” and that “efficiencies ...
Earlier this week the Commonwealth Bank released the latest report in its State of the States series. This is a quarterly series of economic statistics focusing on eight different indicators of economic performance aggregated to the state and territory level. Reports like this usually attract con ...
Some of the news during this week has caused me to reflect further on my previous post discussing the poor use of language in public debate. I can't help feeling that often the way we name or describe things is at best oxymoronic and at worst purposely misleading. Two newsworthy examples of this ...
This past week I attended my first ISAA Conference. I had no real idea of what to expect. Suffice to say that I enjoyed it immensely and that I would probably be able to have an argument with just one of the speakers. Having not been to a similar event for quite a while I was pleased to once again h ...