Australian universities call for basic research to be protected

Responses to research commercialisation discussion paper support ‘mission-led’ approach but emphasise importance of researcher-driven investigations

Australia’s proposed university research commercialisation scheme needs to provide for “basic research” alongside a focus on mission-led research and industry partnerships, a government taskforce has been told.

Responses to a discussion paper written by the taskforce, which is led by Siemens Australia chair Jeff Connolly, show concern about how the scheme would interact with existing programmes.