In the blizzard of claim and counter claim swirling about the CSIRO's current strategic direction in climate science, a revealing email surfaced at Parliament House this week. Penned by CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere research director Andreas Schiller, it suggested that the organisation aimed to make a "clean cut" on "public good/government-funded climate research". Sent two weeks before the CSIRO announced cuts to its climate change programs in February, the email also canvassed the possibility of axing 120 climate science staff, suggesting "if we aim for less, we will inevitably face the problem of keeping some of the climate scientists (who will no longer be aligned with the new CSIRO strategy, Dr Schiller wrote.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
At the time of the February announcement, the CSIRO intimated that affected staff would be reallocating to other climate work dealing with the real and immediate challenge of emissions reduction; and last year, CSIRO boss Larry Marshall sought to allay concerns that the organisation was moving away from pure to applied science by saying it would be almost doubling its investment in fundamental blue skies research. The Schiller email tends to undermine both claims.
The CSIRO's decision to redirect resources away from global warming research has been highly contentious, the more since as Dr Marshall claimed at the time that warming had been well modelled and that it was time to start doing something about it. More than 3000 climate scientists condemned it in an open letter to the Turnbull government, and The New York Times published on editorial on the matter on March 4 headlined "Australia turns its back on climate science". Whatever the wisdom of the move, it closely aligns with Dr Marshall's vision for the CSIRO over the next five years.
In an interview outlining his strategy last October, Dr Marshall said shrinking government budgets required the organisation to generate more of its own revenue. This meant a greater emphasis on applied science, commercial collaboration, and innovation efficiency, the later being one endeavour in which the CSIRO had long under-performed. Dr Marshall cautioned, however, that while it might be "easy" for the organisation to become an industry consulting company with "great revenue growth", this would be "a terrible thing for CSIRO to become. You wouldn't be creating strategic value for CSIRO or the country".
A cynic might suggest this was merely a sop to staff concerned about where the CSIRO was headed under Dr Marshall's leadership, and that the February climate change about-face was a more accurate reflection of his aims.
Dr Marshall's expertise in commercialising products and ideas was undoubtedly key to his being chosen to take over at the CSIRO. Being broadly sympathetic to the idea of user-pays science and the limits of government funding would have helped too. But if his administration is not become inextricably linked with a further erosion of the CSIRO's pure research capacity (and the drift overseas of its best and brightest), he'll need to do more than pay it lip service.
