E&OE 

GEORGIA STYNES: ANU revealed today that its lost funding from the US. In a letter to staff, Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell wrote, and I quote, we have had the first termination of funding from the United States. And I guess the key words there are the first termination of funding. She didn’t provide any further details in that note, but since then ANU has provided another statement which says the ANU has active research grants funded by the US government that are spread across several colleges at ANU. They can confirm that it received a letter from the US government indicating an intent to terminate funding related to one research project. “We’re committed to working with our affected researchers and developing appropriate remediation plans. We remain committed to doing distinctive research in the service of our community and our country.” Now, this comes after Australian researchers were sent questionnaires from US authorities asking them to justify some of the research grants that they had received. Now joining us is Luke Sheehy. He’s the CEO of Universities Australia and our guest. Good afternoon.  

LUKE SHEEHY: Good afternoon, Georgia. Good to be with you.  

GEORGIA STYNES: Before we get to how many universities may be losing funding, how much of the funding for universities, or I guess is it a common thing for them to be funded by the US government? 

LUKE SHEEHY: The US is Australia’s largest research partner when it comes to funding university research in our country. It accounted for nearly half or more than half a billion dollars of research funding in 2024 alone. So, it is one of Australia’s greatest friends and allies and we absolutely rely on them for multitude of things. But they are the biggest funder externally of research in the Australian system. So, this is really concerning that our greatest research partner in the US is looking like it’s becoming unreliable. 

GEORGIA STYNES: And when it comes to the type of research they’re funding, does that go across lots of different disciplines? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Absolutely right. And to your point around what the A NU has said today to its staff, our universities receive research funding from the US for a range of activities from development programs to agriculture to health, and of course importantly defense and strategic matters. 

GEORGIA STYNES: And which universities are affected, do you know? 

LUKE SHEEHY: So, we’re keeping an eye on this and obviously it’s important that on behalf of Australia’s 39 comprehensive universities, I liaise with both the Australian government agencies and that being Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and others and Prime Minister and Cabinet to keep them informed of what we know. It is a number of universities. It’s certainly not all of them. We know that some of this correspondence is going to individual researchers, not the university itself. So, we’re keeping an eye on it and appropriately we’re having a conversation with the Australian government and its associated agencies. I’ve also raised this with my team and the team in the US embassy here in Canberra. This is an important and alarming development, and we want to keep an eye on it, and we want to make sure that the Australian government provides us a pathway and some clarity on what we should do next. 

GEORGIA STYNES: When it comes to ongoing research, some of these our understanding is that it’s pulling funding from stuff that’s already started, what’s your understanding of what will happen in that instance? Are you expecting, say government as an Australian government to need to step in? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Well, it’s a really worrying trend. I mean the ANU is one of Australia’s most iconic research-intensive universities. And to see funding pulled from the biggest foreign partner that we have in this country is really, really concerning. And it will obviously create deficits in what the research outputs are and the capacity for the ANU to deliver its current research program. Universities right across the country right now, Georgia, are in deep financial problems. And that’s caused by a whole range of poor policy decisions by both sides of politics. And I want to make sure that our universities thrive. We do three per cent of the global research and development in the world, despite having 0.3 per cent of the global population. We are wanting to ensure that research in Australia continues to be global. We can’t do it alone. We can’t do research in isolation. And to see one of our strongest allies become an unreliable funding partner after decades of collaboration is deeply concerning. 

GEORGIA STYNES: When we’ve made some calls to some universities, the University of Canberra has told us it does not receive US funding. So, the universities that are partnering, are these some of the bigger universities? Is that your understanding? 

LUKE SHEEHY: We’re seeing incidences of correspondence to a range of different universities, not just the research-intensive universities, regional universities and some of the technology-based universities. So, it is impacting the sector broadly and certainly we’re keeping an eye on it. I don’t want to speculate how broad it might be, but certainly a $515 million research program in 2024 alone is something we want to make sure that we can preserve. And if it starts to be withdrawn, we’ll have to have some serious conversations with the Australian government about how we prop up that research and how we continue to do research globally, including with other partners, including Europe and other parts of the world. 

GEORGIA STYNES: Luke Sheehy is our guest, he’s the CEO of Universities Australia. So, you want the Federal Government to step up is what you’re saying in this election year. What do you think your chances are? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Well, look, it would be remiss of the CEO of Universities Australia not to make the case for greater investment in our universities, which will ensure Australia’s future. Research and development are going to create new breakthroughs, new discoveries, and new products and ideas that will drive Australia’s prosperity and the world’s prosperity. So, we want to make sure that the funding that we get for research is growing and continues to do so. Robyn Denholm from Tesla is undertaking a really important review of Australia’s research system at the moment and she says we need billions of dollars, in fact, something like $25 billion a year to get Australia up to our competitor country. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do at home, but if our best and most reliable partner in the US is becoming unreliable, we’ve got some serious questions that need to be answered, and we’ll continue to have that conversation with the appropriate agencies at the Commonwealth level. 

GEORGIA STYNES: My understanding that some of this research too, as you said too, it goes across all fields. I mean, should we ourselves be perhaps stepping back if you’re saying they’re unreliable, particularly if we’re talking about research into defense and other things? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Well, Australia needs to ensure it can survive on its own as well. And we have to think about our own sovereign capability. And that’s something that we learnt during the pandemic that Australia was incredibly exposed, and university is going to help with Australia’s sovereign capability and our own security. That includes things like health, telecommunications, energy security, and our own borders. So, we need to think about what universities can contribute to that through R&D and our own skills base. So, it’s an important discussion to have and the Commonwealth government is undertaking that review. As I said, Robyn Denham is doing that work and we’re continuing to engage with it. I want to see Australian universities contribute to our future prosperity and our future security, and we’re going to do that by investing in our own research but also continuing to do research at the global level. We can’t do research in isolation. 

GEORGIA STYNES: Who should we be looking at besides the Australian government? And you’ve made that case, but when it comes to other countries who, you mentioned Europe, any in particular that you think we should be doing more with? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Well, the European Horizon program is one of the biggest sources of funding for research on the planet right now. New Zealand is associated with it, the UK after Brexit is still working with it, so are other like-minded countries. Australia has decided not to, and I think that’s a big mistake and we should review that decision. In an election year, obviously, I’ll be asking both sides of politics to commit to that. We are also situated in the fastest growing region in the world, in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific. We should be doing more research with our partners in the local community that we live in. And I think it’s important, as I said, that research continues to be global and that we invest in our own luck. 

GEORGIA STYNES: Thank you so much for your time and explaining some of that to us. I appreciate it. 

LUKE SHEEHY: Great to be with you. 

ENDS