| Name: | Peter HALL (Chair, National Committee for
Mathematics) Centre for Mathematics and its Applications Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200 Email: peter.hall@anu.edu.au Telephone: 02 6125 3474 Fax: 02 6125 5549 |
| Broad thematic area: | The mathematical sciences | Aspirational: | Underpin Australia's advances
in a very
wide range of strategically important,
contemporary research areas;
Contribute mathematical and statistical methods and models to many frontiers in science and technology. |
| Possible priority goals: (outcome-focused) |
Produce more efficient, informative and relevant models of change, and to determine the best types of data for assessing and fitting the models. In this context, `change' refers to environmental and social change, and to development of new technologies and industrial processes, etc. |
Information about strengths and opportunities in the mathematical sciences is given in point 5 below.
Australia is losing some of its strongest mathematical scientists, at an alarming rate, to countries where working conditions are substantially better than here. (For example, there are 30% fewer mathematicians working in Australian universities than 7 years ago.) This highlights the need to develop an appropriate `critical mass' of excellent researchers in the mathematical sciences.
The mathematical sciences make wide ranging and enabling contributions to the Australian research enterprise, and to Australia's economy. This makes them ideal for support through a Commonwealth research effort; the effect of such support would be felt across many sectors, in the physical, natural and social sciences. For example, the mathematical sciences, including statistics, provide methodology for modelling and analysing change in the areas of climate, bioresources, the economy and our way of life. They enhance our competitiveness in a global context, for example by providing key tools for the development of industrial processes and for monitoring quality. See Criterion 3 below for more detail.
Criterion 2. The scope for Australia to build the capacity needed to
achieve that impact, taking into account:
a. existing expertise, experience and technological capacities or
whether such capacities can be reasonably acquired or accessed;
b. the availability, quality and scale of necessary research
infrastructure;
c. research conducted in other nations and the potential benefits
of international collaborations; and
d. the overall magnitude of the investment required to make an impact.
Several years ago, DEST produced data which showed that of all areas of the physical, natural and social sciences in Australia, the mathematical sciences had the greatest international impact. Therefore, the necessary expertise and experience existed in Australia until very recently; the research infrastructure is still largely in place. Now, however, both expertise and infrastructure are decaying and dissipating, as many of our key mathematical scientists leave Australia to take positions abroad, and as those who remain are restricted in their research by increasingly heavy teaching and administrative workloads. These difficulties have a substantially negative impact on Australia's ability to train new mathematicians and statisticians. It is not too late to reverse the trend, but time is running out.
The mathematical sciences thrive on international collaboration. Of all the sciences they arguably derive the greatest single benefit through enhancement of international contacts. Moreover, as an intellectual science mathematics does not demand massive investment in infrastructure in order to produce significant impact.
Criterion 3. The scope for Australia to capture the
benefits of the
research, through the potential of the research to:
a. achieve commercially, socially or environmentally relevant
outcomes over the cycle of the priorities regime; or
b. enhance significantly Australia's overall innovation capacity by
broadening the knowledge base, and fostering acquisition of skills
and understanding of emerging areas of `hot' research.
The scope for commercial outcomes resulting from support of the mathematical sciences is substantial. For example, some of Australia's leading exports are in the field of mining and mineral processing; and in particular, 25% of the world's tin production is processed through just one type of machine, designed and manufactured in Australia. The work of an Australian applied mathematician (a winner of the Australian Mathematical Society Medal) has been pivotal to the development of that equipment, which has brought many millions of dollars to this country.
Successes of this type have been repeated across the nation, as mathematical scientists (including statisticians) work with industry, business and government to enhance Australia's industrial and commercial performance. For example, two Clunies Ross Awards (in 2000 and 2001) went to mathematical scientists, one for the development of software for improving security of e-commerce and net-based information exchange, and the other for gravimetric detection of ore bodies using airborne detectors. The mathematical tools developed to interpret such data for commercial use have generated a benefit that will last for many decades, from a particularly modest initial investment.
The uses of mathematics and statistics to model and analyse data on social and environmental change are likewise of great relevance and significance to our nation. The introduction and development of new scientific technologies, for example in bioinformatics and information & communications, rely on the mathematical sciences.
In place of DEST's funding-based definition of research performance, a measure of the quality of intellectual and scholarly work should be used. Likewise, DEST's practice of measuring performance by simply counting numbers of papers, rather than assessing quality or impact, should cease.