My question to Ockham’s Razor episode Innovation Policy 

Paul Fletcher asks a good question, “Do we get good results from the money we spend in Australia on science, research and innovation?”
I ask, “How would we know?”
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Productivity Commission published 901pp Public Support for Science and Innovation in Mar2007. See p189, Impediments to the functioning of the innovation system

The ARC and NHMRC’s recent policy of promoting access to the results of research they fund is commendable. However, there is scope for them to do more through the progressive, yet expeditious, introduction of a requirement that research papers, data and other information produced as a result of their funding are made publicly and freely available.

If citizens want more information about a proposal for more investment in R&D, where do they find it? For example, when Chief Scientist warns about a ‘post-antibiotic era’ and it’s picked up by Greens Senator Richard di Natale, how do citizens respond? Implied by the warning is an expectation that extra funding will have to be found, both for R & D directed at new classes of antimicrobials, and for a new Australian Centre for Disease Control (CSIRO pdf).

• NHMRC archives aren’t much help in tracing how much benefit is obtained from taxpayers money sunk into medical research. Eg search on ‘antibiotic’ or ‘biofilm’.
• NLA trove search ‘antibiotic’ (freely available) gets 230 theses.
  AzD 2012 32 found, but not all there. Why?

Does the current “system” obstruct citizens from asking questions and from having access to data?
Is there any measure of the distance between public understanding, and the advancing edges, of scientific discovery?
If that knowledge gap is widening, who benefits from the enlarging void?
Who are the actors & agencies in that space, how have they changed over the last few decades, and who is paying them to be there?

• For example, Julius Sumner-Miller was a popular explainer of science fifty years ago. How would a crusty old crank compete against the current performers in Catalyst, or any sexy kick-boxer?
• The space is filled by “journalism” of various kinds, by amateur bloggers, anti-science extremists at the creationist fringes.
  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/16/mit-professor-abcs-the-view-legitimatizing-dangerous-unscientific-autism-claims/
• Some of the good ones are –Tim Harford
  Atul Gawande
  Gary Schwitzer CBS totally misses the point of study on statins

  Of the almost 1,900 stories we’ve reviewed in the past 7+ years, two-thirds fail to adequately quantify the potential benefits of the interventions they report on.

  Ben Goldacre
  Oreskes & Conway Merchants of Doubt and ‘strategic denial’
  Ken Harvey 
  Matt Taibbi Hey, MSM: All Journalism is Advocacy Journalism
  Peter Sandman Three types of denial
  Bill Moyers on how climate science is treated by the media.

How is the education system contributing to greater overall engagement of the public with scientific achievement?
Science literacy in Australia

Is there a place for superannuation funds to be more involved with R&D?
What influence is exerted by external funders to direct technology transfer from Oz tertiary sector to Asian factories?

How should credible science journalism now proceed to increase understanding of issues around climate change & global warming?

Why climate change should be a key health issue this election

Atul Gawande: How Do Good Ideas Spread?

So what were the key differences? First, one combatted a visible and immediate problem (pain); the other combatted an invisible problem (germs) whose effects wouldn’t be manifest until well after the operation. Second, although both made life better for patients, only one made life better for doctors. Anesthesia changed surgery from a brutal, time-pressured assault on a shrieking patient to a quiet, considered procedure. Listerism, by contrast, required the operator to work in a shower of carbolic acid. Even low dilutions burned the surgeons’ hands. You can imagine why Lister’s crusade might have been a tough sell.

And in science news … can we have more science news?

Brian Cox on Why Science Is Essential to Modern Democracy

Entry standards for teachers are too low

Don Aitkin Academia’s harshest lesson: go back to basics

The Commonwealth has insisted on some form of accountability with respect to research funding, and the current form is an elaborate system called Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), run by the Australian Research Council, where all academic staff are inspected in terms of their contribution to the great knowledge factory. The findings can have a disastrous effect on the careers of some staff. Don’t perform in research and you are not helping your colleagues. Saying unpopular things doesn’t help them either, no matter how good you are as a teacher. Too bad if you’re interested in applied research, which doesn’t get published in the ”best” journals.

My 1990 view that research had become too important in higher education is much stronger in 2013. Research is not the reason for the university; teaching students and the dissemination of knowledge are its core functions. Researchers can work anywhere, in private companies, in research laboratories, in hospitals, in the military, and even in universities.

Direct-to-consumer http://www.livescience.com/38347-north-pole-ice-melt-lake.html

David Vaux From fraud to fair play: Australia must support research integrity

Lab test glitch blamed for Hendra virus vaccine setback

Dr Deborah Middleton says there was a problem with one of the Hendra virus vials.

.. Reuters’ climate-change coverage ‘fell by nearly 50% with sceptic as editor’

.. Medical experts have raised fears of a new strain of antibiotic-resistant superbug spread through food and even drinking water.

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Top scientist calls for change to get students interested in science and maths

..NIH mulls rules for validating key results

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‘Catastrophic threat’ looms as superbug beats another antibiotic

Pressure Grows to Create Drugs for ‘Superbugs’

• is “superbug” a Pharma confection?

Antimicrobial stewardship: what’s it all about?

• no superbug here

Crucial to factor in the numbers arising from It Costs $5 Billion To Create A New Drug, And That Is Shaping The Future Of Medicine because the $$$ to make a new success is driven into all the estimates. Hence vital to track innovation outcomes, by NHMRC number.

How we deal with alleged research misconduct: NHMRC

How diseases get defined, and what that means for you

Research needs guarantees for long-term investment

What Australia should do to ensure research integrity

Boost for medical research as Rudd campaigns on health

Weight warning for young as disease risk increases

The director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Curtin University, Professor Mike Daube, said implications of the current trends for future healthcare costs were “terrifying” and needed addressing.

Health: the missing election debate .. tk comment

Search for a trial 16 for melanoma Melbourne

State of innovation: Busting the private-sector myth

.. Why Aren’t There More Cancer Vaccines? Blame America’s lousy patent system.

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.. Why some drugs are publicly subsidised and others are not

..the ABC 4Corners episode that aired last night – new, really expensive cancer drugs.

.. University of Queensland investigates paper by ex-staff member citing ‘no evidence’ of research

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