‘Future in peril’:ANU chief Brian Schmidt slams research funding as he steps down

The vice chancellor of Canberra’s Australian National University,Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt,has announced he will step down from the prestigious position at the end of the year.

Schmidt,a graduate of Harvard University,said in a video message that he would return to his role as a professor of astronomy,extending his 28-year-long position on the university’s staff.

“I am so proud to have been trusted to lead ANU,” Schmidt,who led the institution through the turbulent pandemic years,said.

“We have some big plans for the year ahead.

“Great universities are not great by accident. They need the constant energy and effort of a huge number of people.”

In a speech to the university on Thursday,he said,“having arrived as an agent of change” now was the time to leave “before I become the status quo”.

Canberra-based Labor MP Andrew Leigh said Schmidt would be missed.

“Brian won the Nobel for showing that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate,” Leigh wrote on Twitter. “In eight years as ANU VC,he showed what an expansive vision of higher education could look like (while voluntarily shrinking his pay packet).”

Schmidt has held an unusually high profile for a vice chancellor,with his remarks regularly making news.

He spent the past few years fighting a war against ATARs – the number school-leavers are given that governs their ability to get into university. Under his leadership,ANU has broadened its admission criteria beyond that single number.

“It is a measure,but it’s not the only measure,”he told the Australian Financial Review earlier this week. “If I could have 99.90 ATARs as my entire population? Nope,I really don’t want that.”

After the signing of the AUKUS deal he took topushing for Australia to develop sovereign nuclear capability to maintain its new fleet of submarines,warning the nation not to drag its feet.

And he lambasted the Australian Research Council,the government’s peak science agency,asnot fit for purpose.

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Indeed,Schmidt used his latest address to the university – given on Tuesday – to further decry shrinking research funding.

“It has never been harder for a researcher to win a competitive grant. And when they do,we face the dilemma of how to cover the gap in funding between the dollars in the grant and the true cost of the project,”he said.

“Australia’s future is in peril unless it ramps up its investment in research. I have and will continue to advocate on this front. I hope Government will listen and help engage business and philanthropy in the cause.”

Liam Mannix’s Examine newsletter explains and analyses science with a rigorous focus on the evidence.Sign up to get it each week.