Starving the Lab — Why R&D Cuts Are Hurting Aussie Timber Testing

Many, many years ago, I trained as a chemist and have always had a liking for science and what it can offer. In the world of research, a regular lament is the lack of resources available to researchers here in Australia.

A quick AI search revealed that in 2022, South Korea spent 5.2% of its GDP on R&D compared to Australia’s 1.9%. The US spent 3.6% and Japan 3.4%. OK, AI research should be treated with a hefty dose of scepticism, but the numbers mirror those that I developed in pre-AI days (2018). In 2022, South Korea’s population was about double Australia’s, 26.3 million people.

Now I know that there are a squillion ways to massage the numbers and all sorts of justifications we can put in place, but I also know that I spent the vast majority of my working career looking for money and justifying what I reckon was meagre expenditure rather than smashing the frontiers of science.

One justification for reducing publicly funded research is that universities can do the work. This was one of the reasons given for the recent announcement that CSIRO staff numbers were being reduced.

I believe this to be a flawed argument.

Firstly, the universities themselves are struggling for funding, and secondly, universities don’t have the long-term researcher memory that publicly funded agencies have, or, in the case of wood protection research, had.

Long-term knowledge is being thrown out, or I could say, kicked out the door.

A lot of the university researchers are Master’s and PhD candidates. Don’t get me wrong, these are great kids, but they are still learning!

As a nation, we pride ourselves on ‘punching above our weight’, but it doesn’t seem to be happening when it comes to R&D spending!

Don’t get me wrong, we do alright in scientific output, but just imagine what we could achieve if resourcing R&D started approaching that of South Korea or even the US…. not in dollar value of course, but as a per cent of GDP.

It is hard to compare how much money is spent on sport in this country against the amount spent on R&D, but Google and AI searches reveal that the combined annual Federal and State Government expenditure on sport infrastructure, community facilities and sporting organisations runs into the billions of dollars.

I can’t help but conclude that, as a nation, we have an issue with priorities.

One of the biggest problems with funding research into timber durability is that you have to be in it for the long haul.

It takes time for timber to deteriorate. For example, in 1997, a trial was established to investigate the effect of preservative penetration in heartwood on the performance of preservative-treated Pinus radiata exposed externally above ground.

Resourcing was obtained to prepare and install a scientifically sound trial, and to cover inspections for up to 5 years. It may have been a little more or less. Try as he might, the researcher could not raise funding for regular assessments across the years so that we could get our heads around the rate of deterioration in the exposed pieces.

There were two trial sites, Northern NSW and Queensland. The original Queensland site was lost to a bushfire. The material from the NSW site was recently assessed and moved to the DPI facility in Nambour, north of Brisbane. Unfortunately, we could not determine the ‘rate of deterioration’ desired by engineers, architects and designers because we couldn’t get funding to carry out regular assessments. Priorities!

Just so that not all is doom and gloom, the good news is that scientists in this country are too pig-headed to give up and will continue to punch above their weight.

Update: Addressing Recent Commentary and Clarifying Research Investment

In this piece published yesterday, I could offer all sorts of excuses but I forgot to acknowledge the investment in timber durability research by Forest and Wood Products Australia (FWPA).

Specifically, FWPA provides dedicated support for timber durability research through the National Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life (NCTDDL), a commitment that has been in place since the Centre’s establishment in 2018.

This support is via a program-based funding stream provided by the industry. This initiative is I believe, the first national, centralised funding model of its kind since CSIRO’s timber durability research activities were significantly reduced in the early 2000s. The NCTDDL was purposefully established to address the need for a stable, long-term national research commitment.

The structure of this funding is strategic: the director of the NCTDDL has the discretion to allocate the program-based funds, which is for a more stable and sustained research environment compared to the traditional, often sporadic nature of project-based support.

I regret the oversight and wish to ensure the full context of current industry contributions to timber durability research is clearly understood by the reader.