The Mathematics Document Web Page

At the time this page was established, in September 2003, Australian scientists (including mathematical scientists) were under constant pressure to provide information to Commonwealth Government reviews of teaching, training and research in science & technology in Australia. Indeed, in mid September 2003 some 12 reviews were in progress, and the mathematical sciences community made submissions to a number of them. We found that, in order to substantiate our arguments, it was advantageous to cite documents whose authors ranged from international mathematical authorities to Australian journalists. The same material was also pressed into service within Australian universities, as, ironically, we came under pressure to justify mathematics to deans and Vice-Chancellors at a time of substantial budgetary pressure. We decided to collect together some of the web links to these documents, so that they might serve as a resource for others who are similarly involved in the invaluable, but extremely time-consuming, process of informing the world at large of the need to support the mathematical sciences (including statistics).

We are always seeking further links to add to this page. Please email any suggested links, along with a one- or two-sentence summary of the contents of the document, to: peter.hall@anu.edu.au.

36. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2004_0209

[In December 2004 the UK Secretary of State for Education and Skills wrote to the Higher Education Funding Council for England seeking advice on how to protect higher education courses of national strategic importance. The courses are listed in this document, and include "Science, technology, engineering and mathematics."]

35. http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=mediaRelease&id=Statisticians

[Media release by CSIRO, addressing the shortage of statisticians in Australia relative to demand from the biological sciences.]

34. http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchFunding/Programmes/MathematicalSciences/ReviewsAndConsulations/
ActionPlanInternationalReviewOfMathematics.htm

[Response of EPSRC to IRM.]

33. http://www.cms.ac.uk/irm/

[UK Council for the Mathematical Sciences (CMS) web page relating to the International Review of UK Research in Mathematics (IRM), which took place in December 2003. The IRM was jointly organised by the CMS and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and addressed issues such as the strategic importance of mathematics to a nation with a highly advanced and sophisticated economy, the impact of the RAE on research in mathematics in the UK, and difficulties faced by the Statistics profession in the UK.]

32. http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/other/ncms/afr-gareth-roberts-review.pdf

[Interview with Gareth Roberts published in the Australian Financial Review on 21st March 2005. Roberts, who chairs the RQF Expert Advisory Group, is quoted thus: "Sir Gareth said without extra investment in research and improved quality assessment, Australia's reputation would languish and its economic well-being would suffer."]

31. http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/other/ncms/rqf-research-quality-issues-paper.pdf

[Issues paper, entitled "Research Quality Framework: Assessing the Quality and Impact of Research in Australia," produced by the Australian Government in connection with the RQF exercise. Contains much interesting information, for example Appendix C on approaches taken by other countries to assess research quality.]

30. http://www.qaa.ac.uk/crntwork/benchmark/phase2/mathematics.pdf

[A British Quality Assurance Agency report on best practice in the teaching of MSOR (Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research). Section 1, for example, contains a variety of arguments supporting the study of mathematics. Other sections address knowledge and skills levels in the mathematical sciences, and the values of those skills to students.]

29. http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/other/ncms/time.pdf

[Article in the European edition of Time magazine for 19 January 2004, on the impact of the brain drain in Europe, and on proposals in European countries to alleviate the problem.]

28. http://home.att.net/~wickware/maths1.pdf

[Article in Nature, for 9 August 2001, entitled "Mathematicians are in short supply in the United States."]

27. http://www.the-funneled-web.com/Old_N_&_V/N&V_Mar_04.htm#040302-McCloud-letter-to-Nelson

[Letter from Head of Pacific Biometrics, Roche Products Ltd, asking the Australian government to do something to relieve the considerable under-supply of statistics graduates in Australia.]

26. http://www.mathsinquiry.org.uk/ or http://www.dfes.gov.uk/mathsinquiry

[Information relating to, and report of, "The Post-14 Mathematics Inquiry" (UK), chaired by Adrian Smith. The report itself is entitled "Making Mathematics Count."]

25. http://education.independent.co.uk/schools/story.jsp?story=483299

[Article in The Independent (UK), dated 16 February 2004: "Maths is in crisis in [UK] schools and universities..."]

24. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/09/1076175103722.html

[Article in The Age on difficulties being experienced by banks through having insufficient numbers of mathematicians and statisticians on their staffs.]

23. http://collegeapps.about.com/cs/rankings/a/aa120702.htm

[A 1996 letter from the President of Stanford University, noting that he is "extremely skeptical that the quality of a university...can be measured statistically."]

22. http://www.ed.gov/inits/Math/glenn/report.pdf

[Report of the (US) National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, chaired by John Glenn. The report, sometimes called the Glenn Report, was titled "Before it's too Late," and was completed in 2002.]

21. http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~tondeur/future.pdf

[Philippe Tondeur's article, "A view of the future of the mathematical sciences," in the September 2003 issue of the European Mathematical Society Newsletter.]

20. http://www.statsoc.org.au/PublicAwareness/booklet.pdf

[Booklet produced by the SSAI for its Public Awareness campaign.]

19. http://www.statsoc.org.au/PublicAwareness/index.html

[Web address for the Public Awareness campaign of the Statistical Society of Australia Inc, pointing to the need for, and demand for, qualified statisical scientists.]

18. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/cm030626/debtext/30626-21.htm

[This is the record of a debate, in the UK parliament, entitled "Quadratic Equations," but it ultimately addresses the importance of mathematics teaching in a wider context. For the very beginning of the debate, click on "Previous Section" and scroll to the bottom of the page. The full debate runs over more than two web pages.]

17. http://www.siam.org/sciencepolicy/msi.htm

[SIAM web page on increases in NSF support for the mathematical sciences and on the increasing role of mathematics in science and technology.]

16. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9895/start.htm

[The "Odom Report," an account of the role of mathematics in science and technology, its status and health, trends in mathematics research and teaching, etc; all in the US in 1998.]

15. http://www.pnl.gov/scales/docs/nsf_report.pdf or http://www.stat.psu.edu/~bgl/nsf_report.pdf

[The (draft) NSF report, "Statistics: Challenges and Opportunities for the Twenty-First Century," resulting from an NSF workshop in May 2002. The report provides details of the demand for statistics in many areas of science and technology, plus trends in statistics teaching and training, the size of the statistics profession in the US, etc.]

14. http://www.ich.org/pdfICH/e6.pdf

[Section 5.4.1 of these ICH GCP (=International Conference on Harmonisation Good Clinical Practice) Guidelines gives explicitly the requirement that biostatisticians be employed to analyse clinical trials. It is a legal requirement in many countries (including Australia, the USA and Europe) and a recommendation in most others, that all Clinical Research adheres to these guidelines]

13. http://www.austms.org.au/AustMath/austmath.html

[Documents and data from the Australian Mathematical Society.]

12. http://www.fasts.org/Fsite/News/ArticlesReports.htm

[Articles and reports produced by FASTS.]

11. http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/other/ncms/

[Submissions and articles from the NCMS.]

10. http://www.beyonddiscovery.org/content/view.page.asp?I=1957

[Article on wavelets; last paragraph is a response to being asked to "justify the value of mathematics."]

9. http://www.siam.org/siamnews/07-00/sayings.htm

[SIAM review of book edited by Arnold, Atiyah, Lax and Mazur, with quotations from mathematicians.]

8. http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/Papers/Dawning.pdf

[David Mumford's article, "The Dawning of the Age of Stochasticity," including his paragraph, "stochastic methods will transform pure and applied mathematics..."]

7. http://www.the-funneled-web.com/

[News and opinion, especially relating to science policy in Australia, and often with relevance to the mathematical sciences.]

6. http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/EdDesk.nsf/All/156ED8FF8A71D681CA256C400025F9E0

[Bulletin article, "The Not-So-Clever Country," by Diana Bagnall]

5. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/mathstats/downloads/letter1.gif

[Statement about the significance of mathematics and statistics, by Gus Nossal]

4. http://books.nap.edu/books/0309085357/html/8.html#pagetop and http://books.nap.edu/books/0309085357/html/9.html#pagetop

[Recommendations of of BIO2010]

3. http://www.nap.edu/books/0309085357/html/

["BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists (2003)." Highlights the role that the mathematical, physical and information sciences will play in future undergraduate courses for research biologists.]

2. http://www.ams.org/notices/200208/commentary.pdf

[Comments of retired CIA Director General W.E. Odom in support of the mathematical sciences, in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, volume 49 (8), 2002, p. 885.]

1. http://www.ams.org/notices/200103/commentary.ps

[Philippe Tondeur's article on "The NSF Mathematical Sciences Initiative," and the future position of the mathematical sciences in relation to science and technology, in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, volume 48 (3), 2001, p. 293.]

We thank the following contributors for web links: Tim Brown, Alan Carey, Michael Cowling, Rachel Fewster, Peter Hall, Iain Johnstone, Michael Murray, William Reece, Jan Thomas, Philippe Tondeur.