On Monday, the government announced it would ''save'' $499 million in university research funding by freezing Sustainable Research Excellence grants at current levels for the next four years.

SRE grants support ''indirect'' costs of research, such as administrative, equipment and staffing costs not covered by research grants.

The government will find a further $500 million in higher education savings by cutting or freezing other programs.

The Group of Eight, which represents Australia's elite research universities, reacted angrily, saying the ''ill-conceived'' decision would lead to about 1450 jobs being lost across the country. Chairman Fred Hilmer said the funding freeze would ''have adverse long-term consequences for Australia's performance internationally in research'' and ''adversely impact on Australia's economic capacity and make our universities less attractive to international students and researchers''.

University of Melbourne deputy vice-chancellor of research Jim McCluskey said the university would lose between $90 million and $100 million in funding over four years and would have to abandon plans to hire 200 people. But Senator Evans said he was disappointed by the Group of Eight's reaction to the funding freeze.

''Saying that a re-phasing of the growth of SREs is a blow to research is just wrong,'' he said.

He saved particular criticism for Professor Hilmer, who said on Monday that the freeze, in combination with university places being uncapped, would degrade quality teaching and research.

Senator Evans said this was ''baseless'' and reflected an ''elitist view of the world''. He maintained the government would not resile from its commitment to make higher education available to all students, regardless of their background.

''I just think it's not right to somehow suggest there will be job losses,'' he said. ''There is no reason why a business like a university should be in a position where there are any impacts from this.''

Senator Evans said Group of Eight universities had enjoyed a 53 per cent increase in funding under Labor, with the University of New South Wales boosted by more than 70 per cent. ''They are getting enormous increased streams of funding across the board and one small part of this funding stream, the SREs, has had its growth re-phased,'' he said.

But Group of Eight director of research Ian McMahon said yesterday the announcement would affect universities' ability to plan for research projects.

''This money has been promised for some time and has very much been part of university planning,'' Dr McMahon said.