An editorial in The Press discusses the recently-released report from the CRI taskforce, which has said that major reforms to the CRIS are necessary if they are to live up to their potential.
It also makes clear, however, that the final decision will be the government’s, and calls on government to accept the taskforce’s recommendations.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“The report says that the CRIs should be working for the nation’s benefit, not their own. This might sound like a statement of the obvious but it is not always occurring now, as there is too much emphasis on research which produces results that CRIs can capture in their balance sheets.
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“Implementing the report would restore confidence that the Government is committed to research and development, given that it abolished the research tax credit. There has been no formal response to the report but the early comments of the Research, Science and Technology Minister, Wayne Mapp, are encouraging. Although he noted that the taskforce had not called for a funding boost for the CRIs, he intriguingly said, “That’s not to say there isn’t more money”.”