Corruption Allegations Rock Australia's CSIRO 112
An anonymous reader writes "Australia's premiere government research organization, the CSIRO, has been rocked by allegations of corruption including: dishonesty with 60 top-class scientists bullied or fired, fraud against drug giant Novartis, and illegally using intellectual property, faking documents and unreliable testimony to judicial officers. CSIRO boss Megan Clark has refused to discipline the staff responsible and the federal police don't want to get involved. Victims are unimpressed and former CSIRO scientists are calling for an inquiry."
Australia's research culture... (Score:5, Interesting)
In particular, it's common for low and mid-level people to be hired from overseas, come to Australia, and see their research stagnate due to lack of funding. New academics don't realise that when Australian positions have "grant writing" as part of the job description, they mean: "You must bring in ALL of your own money, dude, oh, and btw, hope you have better luck with that than ALL THE REST OF OUR DEPARTMENT!" These new people end up fiddling around with bits and pieces of their old research projects from former institutions while they're ground to dust lecturing a bazillion subjects. All of this is covered up by our glorious leaders in Administration who commission glossy brochures to explain how well we're doing in research.
Seen it first hand (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not really at liberty to describe the research culture at CSIRO in great detail, but it is, or at least was, as the articles say, very application-driven and short-term, external-earning motivated. This was only in one division, I cannot speak for the whole of the organization, however these stories seem to indicate that the problem is widespread.
I was at CSIRO between the mid-1990 to the mid 2000, and I have seen it progressively become a very tough place to do research. I was very very happy to leave. I'm not a top researcher by any stretch of the imagination, and I was never bullied, although I did experience unpleasant conflict. Ever since I've left (for academia) I've been more free to conduct my research the way I wanted it, I have found that it is indeed easier to find funding (so far). Looking for funding first and doing skunk research second is a sure way to kill imagination and generate stress, dissatisfaction and mistrust, not to mention poor results. Scientists are not necessarily good salespeople (too frank). Basically CSIRO was (and apparently still is in some places) in some ways a toxic place for scientists.
I hope it improves. CSIRO is nowhere near the top 10 rank it seeks to achieve, at least in the areas I'm familiar with, but there are still very good people working there.
Re:Undoubtedly another Howard legacy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Patent troll (Score:5, Interesting)
All pseudo-government organisations in this country have been forced to fund themselves to some degree by economic rationalism (neoliberalism) in successive governments . In the case of the CSIRO this means directly exploiting the patentable inventions they come up with rather than those inventions being for the greater good as it was in years of old. I fully expect CSIRO now spends more time chasing things with higher potential returns rather than greater public utility. I cannot fault the CSIRO for adapting although I do lament the good ol' days. I can think of far more odious examples of exploitation of dubious intellectual 'property' triggered by the same policies.
I didn't see bullying, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
As a project staff person, I really enjoyed my time at CSIRO. I was working on a project that had some initial success but eventually wound up. The uni I'm working for now is no better for job security - still fixed term employment tied to the duration of whatever grant is propping things up at the time - but there seems to be less confusion about budget and more strategy (or even just acknowledgement) of how to deal with my current term ending. At CSIRO, every year, we would receive termination E-mails and be chasing up other work before we discover at the last minute we could hang around a bit longer if we wanted. And I know many of my colleagues were in a similar situation every year (or even more frequently!)
So, as much as I loved working with the people there, and as much as I found the work interesting, and as much as I know that higher-ups tried hard to improve this endless cycle of needless uncertainty - it gets increasingly difficult to remain fully committed to your work at an organisation where despite best intentions the net result is a feeling that you weren't important enough for your term to be sorted out in a more orderly fashion - so you know you'll be facing all that stress and anxiety, job interviews and perhaps having to decline offers again next year... I understand the matrix compounds this by decoupling funds from silos and so on but if the funds are in one place, you're employed in one division, and delivering to another... who is really making term renewal decisions? I certainly never met them! So it's no wonder I had a number of "which boss do I listen to" moments (all resolved, but still).
Re:Australia's research culture... (Score:4, Interesting)