My perceptions of research capacity in Aussie Unis is WRONG

All the Australian Reserach Council (ARC) grant results have just been announced... and I'm seeing a bunch of congratulations (well deserved - given the low low acceptance rate of grant applications) being sent around at QUT in my faculty (Science and Technology).

However, when I looked at the statistics published by the ARC about grants given per institution, I had to rethink my rather uninformed opinions about which unversities are major players in research.

The first thing I noticed was that in Discovery Grants (for "pure" research) - QUT got 19, whereas Uni of Queensland got 96... more than 5 times as many. Now I'd always thought of UQ as a more research-oriented Uni, and perhaps somewhat bigger - but five times is a lot. I guess my wariness of too much pride in my alma mater had led me to talk up the relative merits of QUT, which I was so opposed to as a student.

Then I examined the other big winners: Uni of Melbourne - 107, Uni of Sydney - 102, at the top of the table, as expected. But another preconception that shattered was that of Monash Uni as a second-rate research institution. They come in with the 3rd highest total of 93 discovery grants, a whisker ahead of ANU on 92.

Now of course the number of Discovery grants is not the be-all and end-all of research funding, and the size of the grants when added up will probably produce a different leader board... but it is indicative of research capacity.

Homeward Bound - early

I've published a mix made from tracks played in my early set at Seany B's birthday: Homeward Bound - early.

Hilarious Hipocracy

Just saw the spokesman for the ASX, who is planning a takeover from the Singapore Stock Exchange, saying "I think the new company will be very competitive."

Yeah, given that each company has a monopoly in their markets - really competitive!

Be Extremely Vigilant!

God I'm sick of the media/politician travel warning bullshit. With the recent US advisory that there is a greater terrorist threat in Europe - the media's been running an uncritical rebroadcast of the "use extreme vigilance" line.

They give hints that terrorists are likely to strike at prominent tourist landmarks - so what kind of vigilance does one need when queuing to go up the Eiffel Tower? How vigilant can you be when you're in the lift going up? Binoculars to check for approaching vehicles crammed with Phosphate? Personal C4 sniffer? And then I deploy my batline to abseil away before the bomb goes off??? Let's face it... when your number's up, your number's up, and vigilance doesn't come into it. So follow that other chestnut of advice - "don't go to locations where foreigners congregate". Well that's OK for me, as I prefer to avoid the other tourists like the plague, and get some experience of what the locals do - but for 90% of the Aussies on tour in Europe - the _whole point_ of their trip is to go where all the tourists congregate.

I want some realistic advice, like: your risk of being killed or injured in a terrorist attack in Europe is, say, 0.34% of your risk of being killed or injured when stepping out into traffic because you looked the wrong way. Surely the risk of car accident vs other threat should be the Big Mac index of the terrorism threat.

The EU Road Safety web site tells us that in 1988 the fatality rate in the UK per 100 million from road accidents was in the order of 5000. (Old figures I know, but just indicative). Whereas the fatality rate in the UK from terrorism in the last 5 years is 56 (in a population of around 80 Million). So completely fudging the figures, just to get an idea of order of magnitude, let's say that's 50 per 100 million over 5 years, or 10 per 100 Million in any one year. So the ratio is 10/5000 = 0.002, or 0.2%.

So be moderately vigilant when crossing the road, and terrorism will look after itself.