Dr. Shane Huntington

if you're in government because great people are doing the work, you still have to support them.

And that's where we're starting to really fail.

I think we've done well over the years because our people are so good and they've done a lot with very little.

But there's a crunch point where that's no longer gonna work.

And we are well beyond that crunch point now.

And it's gonna have very lasting detrimental outcomes for the country as a whole.

Post Crunchpoint, what effects have you seen in research in Australia?

So what I see at the moment is a research community that is so out of hope, I think.

I was speaking to a researcher this morning, someone I was assisting with a grant, and we were talking about the success rates of those particular grants being around 10%.

This person is spending an extraordinary amount of time writing that grant, but knows that she has almost no chance of getting it.

I don't really understand why we're treating some of our best people that way.

And it's not a small number.

It's the majority of them.

And you might think, oh, but you know, there's going to be some that obviously we shouldn't fund.

I agree.

I don't think we should fund more than about 40% of research applications.

People might think I'm harsh in saying that, but I think that keeps things competitive.

But 40% is a bit different to 10%.

10% changes the culture.

It means senior people are spending more time writing grants, less time training junior people.