This value predicts future quality of life. In Australia, it’s tanking

July 29, 2026 — 12:01am

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Most Australians believe they live in a scientific powerhouse. They’d be wrong.

Hundreds of scientists are sounding the alarm over our woefully unambitious level of investment in research and development, which has eroded over 15 years to the point that our quality of life is under threat.

Since a peak in 2009, overall investment into R&D has crashed to 1.69 per cent of GDP, a historic low that runs way below the OECD average of 2.7 per cent and could see Australia ranked last in the OECD within five years. As that value has edged downward, the facilities of Australia’s premier science organisation, CSIRO, have also quietly fallen into disrepair.

The agency’s chief executive, Professor Doug Hilton, will tell the National Press Club on Wednesday that 80 per cent of CSIRO’s 800 buildings are at their technical end of life or not fit for purpose.

Maintenance costs are why the axe has had to swing on 350 jobs despite an additional $387.4 million funding injection from the latest budget, according to a draft version of Hilton’s speech.

Amid feeble funding and slashed research jobs, most with a stake in science agree we are at a crossroads between choosing a vigorous reversal of scientific decline or accepting descent into becoming The Dumb Country.

That’s why the Australian Academy of Science, comprising about 650 distinguished researchers, has marshalled its biggest campaign in 70 years.

Science funding tied to quality of life

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