The ARC and NHMRC research funding is a very complicated...

The ARC and NHMRC research funding is a very complicated process. I spend over 3 months working on a proposal and then waiting for over 9 months to know the outcome. Over the past few years the success rate has been around the 8-12% mark. Sometimes lower if you consider life sciences. ARC and NHMRC have different priorities for research funding: ARC gives money for basic research, NHMRC is primarily for translational research. Nowadays there is so much emphasis on translational research that funding for fundamental understanding is completely overlooked. I could go on and on about this funding process.......

The $1.7 Billion is misleading as it incorporates funding for infrastructure, equipment grants, and clinical trials. Less than a 1000 grants are funded each year through these schemes to researchers. I can pull oout the accurate numbers as they are available in the NHMRC and ARC annual reports. These are predominantly for salary (quite poor, 4 years of undergrad, 2 years masters, 4 years PhD and 6 years of Postdoc, I currently earn a little more than $90k) and consumables. Since the Abbott government funding has been constantly on a slide, CSIRO has slashed several hundreds of jobs especially in basic science.

Most Biotech companies are wary about investing in basic research as potential for translation is usually very low and requires heavy investment in both infrastructure and skill. They like to tie up with promising University research projects that have potential for translation. CSL is similar.