Part 1: The University Research Group

The first article in this series looks at the university research group. Dr Adrian George is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney and winner of the 1999 Excellence in Teaching Award. He is also the Royal Australian Chemical Institute's Nyholm Youth Lecturer for 2000. His research interests include high pressure organometallic chemistry and chemical education methods. We asked Adrian to dispel a few myths about research in universities.

Many people hold on to the "romantic" view, that science is done by the lone researcher. Is this true today?

Well, no it's not at all. I think teamwork is more important than ever before. In general, the teams are quite sizeable where every member has their own part in the project. It really leads to something greater than the individual. Working together, they produce really significant results. It also enables people to work within a slightly bigger picture, which helps people maintain their focus on the project. Teams are not necessarily centred at one university, indeed collaboration with groups in other universities or the CSIRO is becoming more common.

Do you see collaboration as being particularly important in modern science?

Very much so, particularly as the sophistication in instrumentation increases and no one institution can afford to have top-quality instruments of every sort. The sensible thing to do is collaborate so that you have access to good equipment, but not necessarily at your home institution.

What sorts of people are in such research groups?

All sorts! Being a university, there are a lot of students - Honours, final year undergraduates, Ph.D. students, and even high-school students. There are also some scientists who have finished their Ph.D.s and are now gaining experience in different research groups. The bulk of the experimental work is undertaken by the students, guided by the academics. The academics are like a stable thread that guides the efforts of the groups - most other people are only in the group for between one and three years. The research group typically spans a whole range of ages and backgrounds which adds to the synergies that can be found. It's an exciting place to be!

Do most research groups have only one academic?

No, more than ever before, we are looking at a trend towards areas of research where there are two or three academics with similar specialties working together with a larger group. One particular academic may have multiple collaborations on different projects, so the research groups are a lot less insular than they used to be.

Research is an expensive business. How are the groups funded?

There is some funding from the university, although this depends on the institution - we're quite fortunate at the University of Sydney in the amount we receive in this way. Most of the funds for research have to be fought for in open competition through the competitive grant processes. There are a number of different funding bodies such as the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council through which funding can be sought. The academics bring in the bulk of the funding to the research group in this way, by working on research proposals and showing that their proposed work has a good chance of success and is worthwhile work to perform. The applications are reviewed by other academics who give an opinion as to whether the research is likely to have positive outcomes. Funding is distributed on the basis of these recommendations.

The competitive grant process sounds daunting and difficult to negotiate. Is it really that bad?

The current success rate is between 20% and 23%, and it is a task that I find daunting. Partly this is a matter of experience - being able to phrase things the right way. As an academic, a lot of time is devoted to securing funding for the research group from various different sources. I think one of the roles of the academic is to keep hassles such as this away from the research students, allowing them to get on with their research. There is no question that because the funding is so competitive, the projects that are funded are of exceptionally good quality. If there was more money to be shared around, then a lot more good science could be done. Australian scientists in general come up with a lot of good ideas and are good scientists.

Is the competitive grant process good for Australian science?

In some ways, I guess it is like a nasty tasting cough medicine. It takes a lot of time and effort and can be very disappointing; however, the science that comes out of it, is very good. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of good projects miss out in this process.

You also have an interest in education research. Do you see this as an important role of the universities?

I think this is an incredibly exciting time to be involved in higher education, especially as we are increasingly able to employ more flexible learning methods to allow more opportunities for students. There is a lot of development in the IT field at the moment - finding new ways of teaching courses that allow students to manage their own time more and using computers to provide immediate feedback to students on short answer type problems, rather than having to wait for a few days to get the marked assignment back. It's very important for universities to continue to improve their teaching methods to reflect the new technologies available.

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