Oh yeah, Hasbeen, they're ALL doing it didn't you know? That's why the funding is getting cut.

Oh and BTW, NHMRC doesn't pay for principal or associate investigator salaries. That means in order to apply for a grant you already have to have a job. Salaries from grant awards go to pay research scientists and technicians, often on short-term contracts.

To all those who have ventured into bagging the "silver tail" researchers, please do feel free to keel over, in your own time from a malady that could have been cured had there been ongoing funding.

That the simple and sensible request from the thread poster has moved focus from petitioning the government to degrading the integrity of the researchers is no surprise to me as common sense seems to have fled from our shores over the past thirty years.

Gillard and Swan will spend $40 Billion plus on NBN, but want to strip a couple of Billion from the easy target of medical R&D to balance their budget. When talking money last year Gillard told her cabinet colleagues that she would not give the PENSIONERS a further crust to choke on given that their demographic is predominantly right wing voting, the ideological whore actually said "they don't vote for us anyway".

Anyone who finds credence or credibility in this post graduate ideologically driven Lawyers Labor government or in their policies and the application/management of anything they undertake are certainly spin prone imbeciles. The only ones I exclude from this statement are old time Labor hacks whose oncoming dementia coupled with the memory of what the Party used to be no longer finds them in Aussie but in Oz

True SonofGloin and Bugsy:

I only wonder if any of the people complaining about this funding would also -in the event they fell sick or injured- would be so kind as to turn down any treatments or cures that were the result of public-funded research within the past 20 years either.

All for the sake of saving a dollar a year, or ensuring that we can keep paying 'silvertail' chaplains to provide theological counseling instead.

Hasbeen:>> I do get a bit sick of academics who believe we owe then a comfortable living.<<

Hasbeen, I am a hydrologist by "trade", and it is a trade as we get our hands covered in dirt on a regular basis, but over my career I have been involved in many submissions for funding from both state and fed governments and they do not hand funds over easily unless they have a personal interest or it is to placate a political issue.

Supply balanced perspective and not just spin Hasbeen. State and Fed funding to the sciences as a percentage of GDP is just above half of what it was thirty years ago.

>>Here's an example.
I ran into a bloke I was quite friendly with at Uni. After a while he must have thought I'd be sympathetic.<<

Sympathetic? I am wondering if you are coherent, because you must be coherent to express sympathy.

TB

>> When I asked him where he expected to get with his research, he admitted he had realised that it was a blind alley a year ago, but had expected to still get funding.<<

What a load of bull scheiser, are you making this up. I am close to many "funded" projects and there is no such thing as a blind alley as the emphasis shifts as you further your reach. I would estimate that half of the implementable scientific applications coming from research were not the primary focus of the program. But more to the point as if this guy is going to tell an acquaintance from uni he is a dud, you’re dreaming.

>> I wonder how many are doing something similar. After all they are the elite, & should receive special treatment, from the peasent tax payers.Posted by Hasbeen,<<

I do not know one BMedSc, but I know a load of BSc's and I have not seen any of them "profit" extraordinarily from their endeavors. If you want to talk return for reward have a go at the usury industry, the interest we pay both for personal and commonwealth debt is a subject worth your derision. The Fabian ideology to dumb down of the “peasants” who pay the taxes is the crime not the tax money spent on R&D

Research is a highly vital component in society. No one is querying that. No one is disputing any handsome reward a researcher receives after an important discovery. What is being questioned is the funding that goes to the countless researchers who never come up with anything useful.
The researcher who discovers something by looking through his electron microscope is hailed a hero whereas the techo who built that microscope doens'nt get a mention. We don't even get to see the brand name of the equipment which enables the scientists to make a discovery.
Why can I get a porcelain tooth for $30.- in Manila yet in Australia it costs $1200. ?
What I am getting at and you lot know that perfectly well but understandably you're trying to keep your nest egg basket full, is that when something good has been developed then reward the researcher but don't just keep paying them good money for no value whatsoever.
My organisation (employer) now has a budget about six times more than before and we have exec officers on $180,000-260,000 per year yet our achievements are more than halved in comparison to when the execs were on $60,000. So, this shows that more funding does not increase productivity or quality.