October 13, 2025

SERD Issues Paper 5: IRU response

The Innovative Research Universities (IRU) welcomes the opportunity to offer feedback on the Strategic Examination of Research and Development (SERD) Issues Paper 5. Foundational research: Creating knowledge. The IRU strongly supports the intention of Issues Paper 5, as contained in its title – creating knowledge – and outlined in the opening statement:

“Foundational research powers the R&D ecosystem – generating new knowledge, engaging with new knowledge generated around the world and equipping the skilled workforce that is essential for innovation.”

Foundational research involves creating knowledge, and this depends on each of the enablers contained in the Action Plan: sustainability of operations; secure infrastructure; and training and career pathways. The IRU fully agrees with the ambition of the SERD to uphold the quality of our research and reorient the system to engage with national priorities for economic and social outcomes. The SERD panel have outlined in the other five issues papers ideas for how to reorient the system towards strategic national goals. It is appropriate that the SERD now addresses the contribution and support for foundational research.

The term “foundational research” is synonymous with the internationally accepted definition of “basic research” as outlined in the OECD’s Frascati Manual. It is work undertaken “primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view.” It is not pursued primarily for the purpose of achieving economic, social or cultural outcomes, even if it provides the foundation for such impacts, or for the purpose of commercialisation or to provide valuable IP for industry-ready solutions.

Industry R&D leaders have directly advocated to IRU members that, in addition to R&D collaboration for industry-ready solutions, they need universities to continue fundamental research. For example, industry AI models depend on a continuous feed in of new knowledge for innovation. Alongside this, they desire universities to produce graduates with foundational knowledge skills, with a particular need at present for humanities, social sciences and creative arts graduates. Short-term industry-ready solutions require technical skills and application, but long-term solutions require graduates with creativity, critical thinking and curiosity.

Our main concern is that Issues Paper 5 does not sufficiently focus on the creation of foundational knowledge. Despite its title, “Foundational research: Creating knowledge”, most of the focus is on translation of foundational research. This is indicated by the lack of reference to knowledge creation in the sub-title on the first page: “We need to create greater value from our R&D”.

Improving research translation and the value of foundational research is important, but this has already been outlined in other SERD issues papers. We support a model for national R&D coordination (see the IRU submission here), but the model as currently proposed will not help us to understand whether we have the right balance of fundamental and applied research across our system (and Australian Government programs), or examine whether we have the right capabilities for national priorities. A truly national coordination model should be designed to do this.

Better connecting basic research and applied research, and further commercialisation, requires strengthening the entire research and innovation pipeline. This means increasing (or at least maintaining) investment in foundational research, while incentivising more purposeful-led R&D and building capacity within the R&D ecosystem to support translation. We are concerned that Issues Paper 5 does not sufficiently outline how it will support foundational research and proposes actions that could inadvertently weaken Australia’s fundamental research system. We are also concerned that the supporting evidence presented in the paper is poorly explained and referenced. At times the evidence clearly does not address the topic of supporting fundamental research, knowledge creation or research translation.

In our submission on Issues Papers 1-4, the IRU outlined support for consolidating public investment in translational research, national coordination of R&D and strategic focus areas. We also outlined our support for university research specialisation, industry engagement in research, improving research training and reducing administrative burden. We reiterate some of these points here, but our key feedback is that protecting and supporting curiosity-led research requires additional, sustainable public funding, and this is not sufficiently outlined in Issues Paper 5. These points were covered in the final report of the Australian Universities Accord and we again call on the SERD to respond formally to the Accord recommendations for research.

Recommendations

1. The IRU supports consolidating investments in translational research, better understanding the cost of research, simplifying grant processes and increasing capacity to fund national priorities.
2. The IRU does not support rebalancing research funding within existing budgets. Protecting and supporting curiosity-led research requires additional, sustainable public funding.
3. The IRU supports greater institutional research specialisation, but not at the expense of further concentration. The implications of “reforming university funding, policy and regulatory settings” need to be carefully considered.
4. The IRU supports involving ATEC in the governance of national research and innovation agencies and using compacts to build research specialisation and scale.
5. The IRU supports efforts to increase domestic coursework completions in RD&I focus areas through increasing demand.
6. The IRU recommends scaling up Industry PhD programs for postgraduate research in RD&I focus areas, and adopting recommendations for PhD training outlined in the Accord.
7. The IRU rejects the claim that increases in university publications are evidence of the need to reform incentives for foundational research.
8. The IRU supports funding and performance frameworks that better recognise translational impact and engagement, alongside foundational research leading to academic outputs.
9. The IRU supports national governance and coordination, new investments and guaranteed long- term NCRIS funding, alongside a national plan for funding university infrastructure.

Read the full submission here.