Beating the tyrant distance - Page 2
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 6: Our Global Face
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Peter Doherty
IN GENERAL, AUSTRALIANS DID NOT BEGIN TO LOOK SERIOUSLY TO NORTH AMERICA as a place to live until well after World War II. In The Great Shame (Doubleday, 1999), Thomas Keneally tells the story of the Irish political transportees who escaped and ended up in the United States. General Meagher, for example, fought for the Union in the civil war, but later drowned (was possibly murdered) while he was governor of Montana. Others left in the late 19th century for the Alaska gold rush. Melbourne-born-and-raised Harry Bridges is an iconic figure in US trade-union history for his leadership of the Longshoremen during the first half of the 20th century.
The increasing movement (from the 1960s) of Australian scientists to the US reflected the massive federal investment in physical sciences during the Cold War, and the rapid continuous expansion of both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The advances supported by the NIH and the NCI will, I believe, come to be seen as one of the best things that humanity did during the 20th century. The distribution of these federal research dollars to both private and state universities via highly competitive, peer-reviewed mechanisms led to the continuing, incredible dynamism of the leading US institutions of higher education. It also resulted in an erosion of top-down, "God-Professor" administrative models, a process that began later and is still in progress here. The open, flexible US research culture has in turn fostered high-technology industrial development in areas as diverse as electronics and drug development. This country has evolved local, smaller-scale variants of the US funding model in the Australia Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). A big problem here, though, is the relative lack of other means of research support from foundations and industry.
We left for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in mid-1975, after spending three and a half years at the JCSMR. While in Canberra, Rolf Zinkernagel and I did the experiments and generated the concepts that led to the award of the 1996 Nobel Prize. Though our findings (published in Nature) were widely recognised at the time as constituting a major breakthrough, no effort was made to keep either of us in the country. This largely reflected institutional rigidity, the limited availability of resources and the then-strong Australian tradition of "looking after your little mates". The word for such "mateship" in the US is nepotism. Thankfully, that culture of "blokey mateship" and "old boy networks" is being eroded, with many more women in very senior positions throughout society.
My research was funded largely by NIH grants during the seven years that I spent on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania at The Wistar, America's oldest private biomedical research institution. I became part of the US immunology circuit and got to know a number of top Australian scientists working in a range of disciplines. Most of these people have stayed in the US, and at least one is a prominent candidate for a Nobel Prize. We met a different set of compatriots through the local Australian/American association. At that stage, many of the older members were war brides who had moved to the US with their World War II servicemen husbands. There was the usual spread of expatriate academics and business people working for companies with branches in Australia. Towards the end of this period, we also began to encounter Australian entrepreneurs who were seeking a larger market for innovative technologies that they had developed back home. These were people whom Australia could not afford to lose, then or now. Increasingly, Australian companies (like CSL and Visy) have substantial US operations. A new generation is also looking more to the massive potential markets in Asia.
I left Philadelphia for a professorship at the JCSMR in 1982. The US dollar was then worth less than the Australian dollar. We were lucky to get US80c for the Aussie when we left Canberra again in 1988. Under the Hawke/Keating government, Australia had at last begun to deal with the issue of where the country actually sat in the world economy. The results have been both painful and inevitable, and have led to the gradual development of much more realistic and competitive social models. This country has changed enormously over the past 20 years.
The second move to Canberra proved to be a disaster. I ignored Lesson Number Two for returning expatriates: don't try to change anything unless you have the direct power to drive the process through to its conclusion. My thinking at that time was that I could, by reasoned argument and persuasion, help to adapt some aspects of the more competitive, accountable, open and dynamic US funding process to promote excellence in the JCSMR and the ANU. This has since happened to the considerable benefit of both institutions. However, the three of us who served on the 1985 vice-chancellor's review committee that made such proposals, soon found ourselves marginalised within the institution. We all left the ANU. Two headed for the US.
It was not hard to depart again for an academic system that was both intellectually accessible and transparent. The way the ANU worked in those distant days was, to say the least, more than a little murky. The recent experience of Rory Hume at the University of NSW emphasises that, even for people who have major leadership roles, applying strategies that would be acceptable in a top US institution can still lead to disaster here. Lesson Number Three is for expatriates who return at a high level. Find a few wise heads that have lived with the system for a long time and consult regularly before taking action. Perhaps some training in playing war games would also be useful.
I HAD BEEN WORKING AT ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL in Memphis, Tennessee, for some eight years when the Nobel Award was announced in October 1996. Being a bit slow, I had not yet started to use email, and probably offended a few people who sent congratulatory messages via that medium. Now I travel with a BlackBerry, a wireless device that provides instant email access wherever I choose to exercise the prerogative.
The capacity for rapid, electronic interchange of ideas, results and manuscripts allows me, with a great deal of help from both junior and senior colleagues and the accumulation of a lot of frequent-flyer kilometres, to run research programs in both Memphis and Melbourne. After regular visits back home in 1997 (when I was Australian of the Year), we spent three months annually at the University of Melbourne, then extended that to nine months in 2002. I returned this time with the sense that Australia was changing rapidly and that there was an opportunity to provide some commentary that might influence the process in ways that I believe to be positive. As might be expected in any quasi-political effort by someone with too many commitments and no real power, the results have been mixed but it is gratifying to at least be able to make the attempt. Also, with the written word in particular, none of us can sense where our thoughts might go, or what effect they might have.
It is increasingly the case that effective, interactive research programs are being developed across national and geographic boundaries. This is inherent in the recent Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges, which are seeking collaborative, global efforts to address the ravages of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS in the developing world. Science is, by its nature as a search for universal truths, always ahead of general cultural attitudes and mechanisms when it comes to developing international efforts and interactions. Perhaps the processes whereby scientists are able to operate in this way can provide some guidance for the development of broader world communities.
We are all aware that a major consequence of the communications revolution has been the movement of many routine jobs offshore, resulting in diminished opportunities for those with limited skills and education. At the same time, the growth of the global marketplace has led to a great increase in the emigration of well-trained professionals. Most young, educated Australians are quite accustomed to jumping onto jets and heading off to spend time in other parts of the world. Go to a ski resort in the US Rockies and you are likely to be checked in by a desk clerk who is working through the long Australian university recess. A recent Australian newspaper article raised concerns about the loss of accountants to much better paid jobs in the UK. The last time I discussed the emigration of accountants was with a South African, en route from Harare to Perth at the time of apartheid.
Some outstanding individuals will always choose to remain in Australia, largely because of family connections and social perceptions. Others may live for a time in, say, the US and find the experience enjoyable. They discover that the natives are friendly and that it is just as safe in a suburb of Boston or Chicago as it is in Melbourne or Adelaide. As their children and incomes grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to attract such people back.
If Australia is to retain a high quality of life, we must persuade those with talent and entrepreneurial ability that this is a good place to be. One way of offsetting the loss of young people is to tap diasporas from other societies. We are also recipients in this international "churn" of well-qualified and innovative professionals. The nation now has a much more diverse face as, in particular, many highly intelligent and hardworking young people who first arrived as students have made their homes here. The challenge is to retain the social safety nets and protections characteristic of a compassionate society, while at the same time avoiding the type of collectivist dynamic that stifles creativity.
It is also the case that we need to develop mechanisms for accessing the experience and insights of Australians who, though they may retain a strong sense of affection for their homeland, are unable to return here to live. The "ExpatriateConnect.com" website represents an initial attempt to develop informal, personal networks that might benefit Australian economic development. It will be interesting to see how this model evolves.
WE HAVE LARGELY BEEN FREED FROM "THE TYRANNY OF DISTANCE". Time difference is of no great concern for web-based communication and even has some advantages for our southern-hemisphere location. Appropriately qualified and registered medical professionals can, for instance, read electronic brain scans through their Australian working day, and then send these "overnight" results back to clinics in Los Angeles or Houston. Those involved in translating documents for international bureaucracies, scientific or literary editing, computer analysis for rational drug design, and so forth, can function effectively anywhere in the world where there is good broadband access. What can we do to refine our tax and immigration structures to attract such people and the international dollars they earn? The appeal of the beach-oriented environment and lifestyle may be considerable, but that alone may not be sufficient. The "right fundamentals" in a knowledge-based world are no longer those that work best for an insular, isolated, primary resource-oriented nation.
The other reason that the "tyranny of distance" is less of a problem is that "the distance" that is increasingly relevant to many Australian business people and professionals is to Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Beijing or Tokyo, rather than to London or New York. The Australian federal sphere, in particular, needs to ask why it is that so many possibilities for development that originate from the northern hemisphere end up finding a local home in Singapore. What can we do as a nation to improve our chances in the bidding wars for these opportunities? Do we fully understand that there is a competition?
The one thing we must do is to keep our education system strong and open at every level and for all income groups. With a population of 20 million people we cannot afford to waste a single talented individual. International inequities in quality, research funding and salaries are still causing us to lose too many leading intellectuals from our universities. In a world that demands flexibility of mind and rapid changes in focus, it is a disastrous error to force all our higher education systems to be narrow and goal-oriented. Mathematicians, philosophers, linguists, historians and chemists need to be equally valued in a dynamic university sector. Though technical expertise is always important, the primary aim must be to develop the type of sophisticated, critical, evidence-oriented thought processes that lead to effective outcomes in a broad spectrum of rapidly evolving situations. This is exactly the type of training that our competitors can experience in the top US institutions.
Particularly in the education and research sectors, there is a very real need to develop a culture of long-term, bipartisan, political consensus. Perhaps it would be useful to initiate a process of continuing review that monitors where the smartest and most effective Australians are located, and asks repeatedly: "How do they operate, and what can be done to involve this pool of talent for the good of the country?" The highly successful American model has emphasised discovery and openness in a cultural milieu where a measure of failure is regarded as both normal and a necessary consequence of doing something that is really new. Any big advance is likely to be associated with some risk.
Most thinking Australians realise that there is no way that we can avoid embracing a future of change and innovation. Our institutions that promote inquiry, like the universities, the ARC, the NHMRC and the CSIRO, are doing their best to equip the country to deal with this. The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) has shown us that, given the commitment, resources and drive, our relatively small population can compete at the highest level. The AIS model has, however, relatively limited application, as it focuses on very predictable goals. As a culture, we must continually explore mechanisms for promoting inquiry, invention, dynamism, opportunity and economic growth. Why not take whatever steps we can in both the private and the public sectors to facilitate those who look to be winners in any area of human activity? Not all can succeed, but those who do will drive the future of this country. ♦