How not to manage public science – Deep and angry multigenerational groans as Australia’s CSIRO faces job cuts
ByPaul Wallis
EDITOR AT LARGE
ByPaul Wallis
EDITOR AT LARGE
DIGITAL JOURNAL
November 19, 2025
CSIRO Hobart -Awaiting call up....these Argo robots or floats ready for deployment around Australia are the new kids on the ocean observing block
November 19, 2025
CSIRO Hobart -Awaiting call up....these Argo robots or floats ready for deployment around Australia are the new kids on the ocean observing block
- photo by Bruce Miller 4/2008. Source - Bruce Miller, CSIRO. CC SA 3.0.
You need to be Australian to understand the depth of the furious response to job cuts at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, aka CSIRO.
It’s a unique organization and also a government agency. It’s publicly funded specifically because Australian science always has been chronically underfunded. The country simply didn’t have the capital back when. Now, funding core business seems to be being undercut by “budgetary housekeeping” that shouldn’t even be an issue.
CSIRO partners with private enterprise on a broad bandwidth of science and technology programs. The organization is famous for doing a lot with stingy acknowledgment.
The chronic undervaluation of Australian science is a much-unappreciated fact. The decades of systemic undervaluation are truly despised and very much resented. In terms of achievements, CSIRO punches far above its weight.
The recent announcement of job cuts at CSIRO has gone down very badly. These cuts aren’t even based on some primitive Trumpian anti-scientific pseudo-ideology.
The supposed reason, so far extremely badly articulated, is the “need to manage costs of the property portfolio”.
The sheer mediocrity of the cuts has pushed a lot of buttons. Absolutely nobody likes this scenario, and the gut-level reaction is making its views clear.
The cuts look far more like some petty spreadsheet formula getting too big for its ballet slippers.
Let’s pussyfoot around this a bit. You can’t cost basic property management? There are supposed to be provisions for that in any competent management budget. Why is this even an issue?
Most people understand that properties don’t manage themselves.
Even first-year accountants know what “depreciation” means.
This can’t possibly be the whole story or anything like it. Somebody’s managed to bury big-ticket basic costs in the backyard for years. How? Doesn’t seem likely, does it?
How long has this pitiful rationale for mismanagement been allowed to fester on the balance sheets? If this really is the case, there’s no doubt where and with whom any cuts should start. The CSIRO budget clearly needs to be idiot-proofed for the future.
We’ve heard it all before, and we still don’t believe it. It’s the same logic that values universities the same as office block buildings. It’s as though the buildings were worth as much as the training that generates billions of dollars,
Science valuations also apply elsewhere in this long, turgid parade of mindless penny-pinching. Salaries for Australian researchers are also pretty anaemic. I’m still wincing at comparative numbers I saw over a decade ago.
Where do you think all these trillion-dollar high-tech companies are coming from? We are pricing ourselves out of the big money of the future with this cheapskate approach to our own high-value tech and research.
The core problem seems to be a total lack of clear and trustworthy funding provisions for CSIRO. “A handout here and a handout there” doesn’t work.
A few suggestions:
IP royalties for CSIRO are built into research and development. That’s huge money even at relatively low percentages.
Licensing agreements, like every other semi-rational commercial venture on Earth. More big money.
Integration of cross-disciplinary research to maximize innovation opportunities. This is just common sense, and we have plenty of people who can benefit and contribute to it and from it.
Home-based R&D is bread and butter for CSIRO. This approach has generated a lot of business and innovation since day one. Costing is not exactly mysterious. All researchers know how to cost their work down to the last cent.
International research partnerships work well and can generate significant revenue.
Funding CSIRO is literally funding the future. Make it happen.
____________________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
You need to be Australian to understand the depth of the furious response to job cuts at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, aka CSIRO.
It’s a unique organization and also a government agency. It’s publicly funded specifically because Australian science always has been chronically underfunded. The country simply didn’t have the capital back when. Now, funding core business seems to be being undercut by “budgetary housekeeping” that shouldn’t even be an issue.
CSIRO partners with private enterprise on a broad bandwidth of science and technology programs. The organization is famous for doing a lot with stingy acknowledgment.
The chronic undervaluation of Australian science is a much-unappreciated fact. The decades of systemic undervaluation are truly despised and very much resented. In terms of achievements, CSIRO punches far above its weight.
The recent announcement of job cuts at CSIRO has gone down very badly. These cuts aren’t even based on some primitive Trumpian anti-scientific pseudo-ideology.
The supposed reason, so far extremely badly articulated, is the “need to manage costs of the property portfolio”.
The sheer mediocrity of the cuts has pushed a lot of buttons. Absolutely nobody likes this scenario, and the gut-level reaction is making its views clear.
The cuts look far more like some petty spreadsheet formula getting too big for its ballet slippers.
Let’s pussyfoot around this a bit. You can’t cost basic property management? There are supposed to be provisions for that in any competent management budget. Why is this even an issue?
Most people understand that properties don’t manage themselves.
Even first-year accountants know what “depreciation” means.
This can’t possibly be the whole story or anything like it. Somebody’s managed to bury big-ticket basic costs in the backyard for years. How? Doesn’t seem likely, does it?
How long has this pitiful rationale for mismanagement been allowed to fester on the balance sheets? If this really is the case, there’s no doubt where and with whom any cuts should start. The CSIRO budget clearly needs to be idiot-proofed for the future.
We’ve heard it all before, and we still don’t believe it. It’s the same logic that values universities the same as office block buildings. It’s as though the buildings were worth as much as the training that generates billions of dollars,
Science valuations also apply elsewhere in this long, turgid parade of mindless penny-pinching. Salaries for Australian researchers are also pretty anaemic. I’m still wincing at comparative numbers I saw over a decade ago.
Where do you think all these trillion-dollar high-tech companies are coming from? We are pricing ourselves out of the big money of the future with this cheapskate approach to our own high-value tech and research.
The core problem seems to be a total lack of clear and trustworthy funding provisions for CSIRO. “A handout here and a handout there” doesn’t work.
A few suggestions:
IP royalties for CSIRO are built into research and development. That’s huge money even at relatively low percentages.
Licensing agreements, like every other semi-rational commercial venture on Earth. More big money.
Integration of cross-disciplinary research to maximize innovation opportunities. This is just common sense, and we have plenty of people who can benefit and contribute to it and from it.
Home-based R&D is bread and butter for CSIRO. This approach has generated a lot of business and innovation since day one. Costing is not exactly mysterious. All researchers know how to cost their work down to the last cent.
International research partnerships work well and can generate significant revenue.
Funding CSIRO is literally funding the future. Make it happen.
____________________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
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