Presentation given at the Friends of CSIRO Public Meeting to Save CSIRO, Melbourne June 12 2016

1. CSIRO AND PUBLIC
GOOD RESEARCH
Roger Jones
Public Meeting to save CSIRO
State Library Victoria
June 12 2016

2. Total expenditure $428 billion, R&D 2.3%

3. Australia’s changing research
priorities
2013
• Living in a changing
environment
• Promoting population health
and wellbeing
• Managing our food and water
assets
• Securing Australia’s place in
a changing world
• Lifting productivity and
economic growth
2015
• Food
• Soil and water
• Transport
• Cybersecurity
• Energy
• Resources
• Advanced manufacturing
• Environmental change
• Health

4. Australia’s research priorities
1. Food Optimising food and fibre production and processing; agricultural
productivity and supply chains within Australia and global markets
2. Soil and Water Improving the use of soils and water resources, both terrestrial
and marine *
3. Transport Boosting Australian transportation: securing capability and capacity
to move essential commodities; alternative fuels; lowering emissions
4. Cybersecurity Improving cybersecurity for individuals, businesses, government
and national infrastructure
5. Energy and Resources Supporting the development of reliable, low cost,
sustainable energy supplies and enhancing the long-term viability of
Australia’s resources industries
6. Manufacturing Supporting the development of high value and innovative
manufacturing industries in Australia
7. Environmental Change Mitigating, managing or adapting to changes in the
environment *
8. Health Improving the health outcomes for all Australians

6. What is public good research?
a. Research that makes the
economy grow, providing
wealth and jobs for the
public.
Australian National Audit
Office
a. A drain on public resources
and a covert attempt to
impose global government
– leave it to markets.
the IPA
c. The government policy,
frankly, determines public
good. That’s their decision.
Larry Marshall, CEO CSIRO
d. Scientific knowledge in its
pure form is a classic
public good. It is a
keystone for innovation,
and in its more applied
forms is a basic component
of our economy.
US National Academies of
Science

7. The Role of Scientific and
Technical Data and
Information in the Public
Domain: Proceedings of a
Symposium (2003)
US NAS

8. What is public good R&D?
Public good research is generated through the process of ideas and
concepts that produces pure knowledge, which then contributes to
embodied, applied knowledge, which is then developed to generate
technologies and products based on those technologies.
Public goods are:
• Non-rivalrous/non-excludable – they can be used by anybody
• Non-depletable – their use by one person does not jeopardise their
use by another
• Dominated by intangible or ‘intrinsic’ value
• Often take the form of social technologies; i.e., they cannot easily
be commodified

9. How do we measure public good
R&D?
Beyond the normal scientific measures – publications,
citations, collaborations & income – we don’t.
Characteristics of good public good R&D include:
• Strong public good research programs produce powerful science–policy
networks, where they deliver directly to end users and influence public opinion.
• The social benefits lead to a stronger, more connected and resilient society that
contributes back into the economy through opportunity, innovation and
improved risk culture (better equipped to deal with modernity).
• The ability to manage the global commons in ways that private good R&D cannot
achieve.
• Public good R&D contributes to private good R&D because private interests lack
the capacity to generate the knowledge they use (this traces back to Adam Smith,
1776).

10. In 2015, CSIRO conducted a ‘deep dive’
investigation to explore their strengths and
weaknesses.
The aim was to secure the direction of the
organisation over the life of projected funding
horizons as dictated by government.
Recent retreats from the public funding of
public good science were taken as signals for
divestment, and the national interest was
ignored, counter to CSIRO’s charter.
This is what the ‘deep dive’ exercise achieved