The research path ahead
Amid talk of reforming the higher education sector in Australia, the significant role that research plays in the way tertiary institutions work cannot be overlooked.
ANU has many areas of globally recognised research on its campus, from astrophysics to neuroscience and from strategic foreign policy to music.
If these areas are to sustain world-leading research, strategic decisions will be taken as to which topics receive funding and how ANU keeps research-led education at its core.
ANU Reporter asked five of the University's research leaders to describe how they would like to see the sector in a decade's time, what their research priorities are and how they will improve society.
Professor Margaret Harding, ANU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)
The University's visibility and communication to the broader community of the value of this research must be a priority.
ANU has a proud record of research achievement.
Our international reputation has been built over the last 60 years from the foundation disciplines - physical sciences, social sciences, Pacific studies and medicine - to our current profile, with a national and regional focus that includes core disciplines required to address contemporary problems.
The profile of the University is unique in Australia.
For example, the depth and breadth of activity in our understanding and study of the Asia and Pacific region is unparalleled in Australia.
Similarly, the critical mass of activity and international reputation of astronomy, astrophysics and earth sciences is an enduring legacy reflecting a sustained commitment and investment in the physical sciences.
The scale and quality of humanities and social sciences has positioned ANU in the top 20 in the world in many disciplines, has provided ANU with a critical mass of activity and expertise that is distinctive in Australian universities.
As the national university, ANU has a mandate to act in the national interest and to undertake research for the benefit of Australia. Our international reputation is central to this mission.
Our defining characteristics must include a stellar international reputation in defined areas that attracts the very best staff and students from Australia and the world to work and study at ANU.
Our research reputation is also pivotal to connecting ANU to leading international networks and partners that leverage and enhance our research expertise and provide access to shared resources and infrastructure that delivers benefit to the nation and the region.
What should the future research priorities of the University be?
While our distinctive foundation disciplines will always remain central to ANU, our future must chart a direction defined by research in areas where ANU excels and in which our contributions to the national agenda are clearly articulated and valued.
It must also acknowledge the essential role of interdisciplinary approaches and teams of researchers in solving the world's grand challenges.
Many of Australia's challenges are also international challenges, but our geography, culture and history pose interesting research questions.
The importance, need and value of highly interdisciplinary teams that include and integrate social scientists, economists and medical researchers with engineers (for example) already characterises much of the research at ANU.
However, ensuring that the best teams are identified, connected and supported to work in the best research environments for a given research program is the key to success.
What is also clear is that the impact and outcomes of our research will need to be more explicitly and clearly communicated at a time when the value of University research is under close scrutiny.
Government policies are being formulated to increase translational research and engagement between universities and industry.
ANU researchers discover and do remarkable things.
The University's visibility and communication to the broader community of the value of this research must be a priority.
Our national outreach, strong connections to industry, business and government, as well as scholarly achievements, provide a compelling narrative of achievement, including the important role of social sciences and humanities, law and social justice to these agendas, alongside scientific and medical research.
Our future must chart a direction that enables the blue-sky research that has delivered four Nobel Prize winners, as well as curiosity-driven research that allows researchers to innovate and tackle ambitious problems.
In charting this direction, a focus on disciplines in which we excel, coupled with research that is linked to the unique nature of the ANU research environment will be key to our future successes.
Professor Shirley Leitch - Dean, ANU College of Business and Economics
These overarching themes reflect the expertise and interest of researchers within our College.
Universities are tasked with producing research of the highest quality and the greatest value to society.
These twin goals of excellence and impact drive the research strategy currently under development within the ANU College of Business and Economics.
Developing the strategy has been valuable in its own right, demanding deep conversations between our researchers about what we research and how to connect our expertise with the challenges that matter most to stakeholders.
The willingness of stakeholders to spend time, share ideas and debate issues with our researchers has also been impressive.
These conversations have brought three candidate research themes sharply into focus:
- Wealth and Wellbeing
- Strong Organisations
- Disruptive innovation
Collected under the theme of Wealth and Wellbeing is research on relatively high-level issues that influences the circumstances of whole communities, societies or economies.
Major sub-themes include the significant issues of productivity, national competitiveness, securities, market regulation, urbanisation, ageing population, climate change and globalisation.
The Strong Organisations theme addresses the performance and operation of organisations and their surrounding eco-systems.
Major sub-themes include leadership, better workplaces, making use of knowledge, cross-boundary and collaborative skills, managing organisational risk and uncertainty, good governance and organisational transparency.
The third candidate theme - Disruptive Innovation - was mooted by stakeholders concerned with the manner in which innovation, particularly innovation related to digital technology, has accelerated the rate of change and transformation of business and society.
The sub-themes include innovation and entrepreneurship, business model development, information technology, IT strategy and governance, managing structural or sectoral change, big data, data privacy, data security, social media and the Internet of Things.
These overarching themes reflect the expertise and interest of researchers within our College.
They are underpinned by strong foundational research in our key disciplinary areas. They also clearly communicate how our research connects with some of the biggest challenges currently facing Australia.
Professor Simon Foote - Director, The John Curtin School of Medical Research
We are working on malaria, HIV and other viruses.
Fundamental medical research is the driving force behind the recent development of new, highly effective therapies against many diseases affecting humans.
These effective therapies are available because we now understand the molecular and cellular basis of many diseases.
An understanding of disease mechanism is based on a deep and fundamental comprehension of the working of the physiology, cellular biology, genetics and biochemistry of human beings and an understanding of how this interacts with the environment.
Without this, not only will there be no therapies, but there can be no meaningful disease prevention either.
The John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) perceives its role as crucial to the explanation and illumination of fundamental biological processes in neuroscience, immunology, cancer biology and the control and expression of the human genome.
In neuroscience, the grand challenges include an understanding of the wiring of the human brain and how this controls our physiology and higher cognitive function.
We study the biological circuitry that interconnects various regions and cells of the brain with specialised organs in the periphery.
We study the cellular mechanisms that set up these circuits and we are analysing their functional abnormalities in disease.
As this large, international effort progresses, our ability to understand the function of the brain will increase rapidly and is seen in neuroscience circles as the 'Manhattan Project' of the brain. It will pave the way to an understanding of diseases of the brain, both neurological and psychiatric.
Our immunologists are developing an understanding of the human immune system through extrapolation of fundamental findings made in mice to diseases of the immune system in humans.
Changes to key genes in the immune system in mice give rise to 'holes' in the immune system and patients with similar immune defects also possess mutations in either the same or similar genes as seen in mice.
By studying the activity of the genes in mice, an increased insight into the working of the immune system will result in a more rational direction in the development of new therapies that will block these 'holes', or develop means to bypass them.
Similarly, the immune response to infectious disease is being better understood and progress will remove much of the random variability in generating new vaccines or in making new drugs.
We are working on malaria, HIV and other viruses.
The genome contains most of the information to construct an entire human being. It represents an historical account of our species' interaction with each other and with our environment.
This is written through the pen of evolution and is recorded in the tome that is our genome.
A crucial aspect of our genome is how its information is translated into cellular and then organismal physiology.
This understanding of how our genome is read and interpreted is crucial to our understanding of disease as often disease is a mistranslation of the genomic tome.
At JCSMR, we are studying the storage and translation of the information of the genome, both in health and disease.
Similarly our cancer groups are studying the biology of the cell in cancer and making comparisons between the cancerous and normal cells.
Differences are being pursued, as this is where new therapeutic approaches are possible.
Over the next decade, armed with the sequence of the genome and a host of novel technologies and therapeutic molecule parts, more cancer types will be turned from a mortal to a chronic disease.
Professor Paul Pickering - Director, ANU Research School of Humanities and the Arts
But I also believe we must avoid even a whiff of elitism.
"Universitas fundata est in artibus. A university is founded in the Arts."
This quotation is from a speech in 1860 by William Gladstone, who was British Prime Minister four times.
He was reminding his audience at The University of Edinburgh of an idea that there can be no university without the study of the liberal arts.
I believe this continues to be as true today as it has been since the Middle Ages.
As the irascible philosopher Terry Eagleton puts it more prosaically; "A university without the humanities, is like a pub without alcohol."
What is true of a university is also true of the wider society. As Director of the ANU Research School of Humanities and the Arts, I am a passionate advocate - both within and beyond the halls of the academe - of the view that just about everything we do under the rubric of humanities and the arts is essentially important for the life of the mind in a healthy, energetic culture.
But I also believe we must avoid even a whiff of elitism.
It is wrong-headed (and wrong) to argue that what Paul Keating called an "emotional connection with the arts" is intrinsically better than a love of football, horse-riding or a night at the pub with friends.
What we can maintain is that all citizens are entitled to the chance to read and discuss great literature; to study The Enlightenment or ancient Rome; to contemplate the semiotics of Indigenous art; to find pleasure in listening to Shostakovich or watching Swan Lake; or to learn Spanish.
Without these opportunities we have no benchmark to decide if they are worth doing.
At the same time, the challenge is in communicating effectively what our universities can offer the majority of Australians. If many of them don't seem to care or to listen to us, it's because we have failed to speak to them.
Perhaps it's also high time to rethink the way we approach government.
Like the rest of us, politicians don't like to be lectured to but they may be open to a frank and fair discussion.
Moreover, even as we make our pitch about the quintessential contribution of our disciplines to the public good, we can also present a utilitarian case where one arises.
Consider, for example, the field of museum studies, heritage and archaeology. Museums, galleries and heritage sites are where the general public engages directly with the humanities and the arts in large numbers.
It is the fundamental responsibility of universities to join conversations about significance and historical narrative of our cultural objects, not only to help to enhance our understanding of them but also to inform government policy in relation to these institutions.
Another area of increasing impact is digital humanities. Nobody needs convincing that the digital revolution has fundamentally altered the way that knowledge is created and transferred.
Nowhere is this more so than in the humanities and the arts.
In the English language alone, there are now an estimated 360 billion words available on Google Books.
In Australia, we have national treasures such the National Library of Australia's wonderful online search facility, Trove.
At ANU, we support the online Australian Dictionary of Biography, which provides direct access to an extraordinary repository of information in text, image and sound.
Such resources have opened up the possibility for us to access cultural experiences at our kitchen tables.
In our Research School - and in the College of Arts and Social Sciences more generally - we are strongly committed to digital humanities research and teaching as an essential part of our mission into the future.
We have made it a core competency in the Bachelor of Arts and have established a flourishing Centre for Digital Humanities Research.
By so doing, we are already producing graduates and postgraduates who can take their place in the front line of a vibrant knowledge nation.
In other words, an unswerving determination to foster the study of the humanities and the arts matters every bit as much as the quest to cure the common cold.
Indeed, that they are different sides of the same coin.
