Australia’s national scientific agency is expected to cut up to 350 more research roles from next year as it looks for savings and new sources of funding to plug budgetary shortfalls.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) held a town hall on Tuesday afternoon, when the agency’s leaders outlined the troubled times ahead.
A further 300 to 350 roles are expected to be cut, in addition to job losses earlier this year and in 2024, with the CSIRO adding it would be looking for between $80m and $135m each year to renovate its ageing property portfolio. About 80% of the CSIRO’s 800 buildings are closely approaching the end of their life cycles.
In a statement, the CSIRO’s chief executive, Doug Hilton, said the changes would set up the organisation “for the decades ahead with a sharpened research focus that capitalises on our unique strengths, allows us to concentrate on the profound challenges we face as a nation and deliver solutions at scale”.
Hilton told staff that the agency would prioritise some research areas – while deprioritising others – in line with an updated statement of expectations from the federal science minister, Tim Ayres. Guardian Australia understands the research areas affected by the latest round of job losses would include the health and biosecurity, agriculture and food and environment research units.
The CSIRO staff association secretary, Susan Tonks, said it was “a very sad day for publicly funded science in this country”, and that the cuts made under the Albanese government were worse than those under the Coalition government of Tony Abbott.
“They are now responsible for cuts to public science that exceed the Abbott government – cuts current Labor MPs rightly slammed at the time,” Tonks said.
“These are some of the worst cuts the CSIRO has ever seen, and they’re coming at a time when we should be investing in and building up public science.”
Sign up: AU Breaking News email
Ayres, the minister responsible for the CSIRO, acknowledged “reprioritisation is difficult”, but said it would help the CSIRO remain fit-for-purpose.
“Reform is essential to make sure the facilities, research priorities and technologies of yesterday meet the needs of tomorrow,” Ayres said.
“This review – the first of its kind in over 15 years – will mean that CSIRO exits or scales back research in areas where that work is being undertaken by other parts of the R&D system and builds the foundation for strengthening and focusing effort in areas of national industrial science priority.”
The ACT senator David Pocock said the announcement was “incredibly disappointing”.
“If we are serious about meeting the huge challenges ahead, from climate change to AI and robotics, the government must invest in the people doing the science,” he said.
“Australia can’t build a prosperous future on managed decline in our scientists and researchers.
“In opposition, Labor called for better funding, yet in government they are delivering cuts.”
The Greens’ spokesperson for science, Peter Whish-Wilson, said he was seeking an “urgent briefing” on the cuts.
“The minister must explain how the CSIRO has ended up cutting hundreds of jobs in order to find cost savings,” he said.
“Australian scientists are already warning of a crisis in Antarctic research due to the impact of an impending funding cliff. It’s time for the Albanese government to remove the uncertainty, protect jobs and increase funding to science.”
Addressing the media in Western Australia on Tuesday evening, Ayres said the government “believes in investing in science”.
“I’ve watched the management and leadership of the CSIRO working through these issues with their staff,” he said.
“There’s still more work to do, but they have come forward with that announcement … with prioritisation from a government that believes in our national science institution.”
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) described the news as “disheartening” for the research community and the Australian economy.
“CSIRO is an incredibly important part of the Australian research landscape, and Australia and the world have greatly benefited from the work that CSIRO has done for more than a century,” the ATSE president, Dr Katherine Woodthorpe, said.
She said the move reflected dwindling funding for government research agencies over many years.
“It is part of an ongoing erosion of funding for government-funded research agencies such as CSIRO and [the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation] – all adding up to an incredibly tough time for our research community,” Woodthorpe said.
“We know that every dollar invested in CSIRO [returns] a threefold benefit to the economy over time, if you give it the time to do the work that it needs to do.”
Ryan Winn, the chief executive of peak body Science and Technology Australia, said the CSIRO needed “greater investment, not less”.
“These cuts are compounded by the fact that CSIRO also needs to invest an additional $80 to $130m per year to ensure essential research infrastructure and technology facilities can be maintained,” he said.
After an 18-month review, the CSIRO had decided to renew its “emphasis on inventing and deploying technological solutions” across six focus areas, according to a statement. These included the energy transition, climate change, advanced technologies such as AI, quantum and robotics, farming, biosecurity, and “disruptive science and engineering to unlock the unknown”.
