The Council for the Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences (CHASS) event in Canberra 2-3 September was a full-on programme of reflections on the centrality of "the HASS disciplines" to solutions for today's big problems. If this is a given, then the HASS sector should be lobbying for a more equitable slice of the research funding pie, so that the science and technology sector is not defining and solving problems in isolation. It was clear that CHASS has become a vigorous lobby group in the space of only 4 years, taking charge of the terms of the debate rather than whingeing. Holding the lunch at the National Press Gallery so that we could be exposed to Senator Kim Carr's address, and vice versa, was a master stroke in that regard. "My aim in innovation is not to flood the country with shiny gadgets, but to change the culture. Of course we will need new technologies to answer the challenges and grasp the opportunities that lie before us. But we will also need new institutions, new forms of community - new ways of understanding ourselves and our world. In all of this, the humanities, arts and social sciences are critical." (Speech by Senator the Hon. Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research at the National Press Club, 3 September 2008).
Attendees formed a somewhat homogeneous crowd: urbane, congenial, charming, ageing. This is not to denigrate but merely to observe that the academic / research stakeholder community as represented by CHASS, DASSH (Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), the ARC and others, was conspicuously lacking in the spirit - and spiritedness - of youth. Where is the voice of the emerging researcher in all of this debate about funding and innovation?
