Science is having a hard time. Politicians are demanding instant results and relevance to industry. Non-scientists are finding science harder to understand. Scientists want to get on with their research and are frustrated that the rest of society cannot see the self-evident worth of what they are doing and fund them for doing it no questions asked. But they face competition for the public and private dollar from a myriad of less deserving pursuits.
Yet the economic well-being of society and Australia’s international competitiveness are becoming more and more dependent on science and technology. And for Canberra, science and technology presents the best hope for a solid economic base to provide jobs for our youth and a high standard of living. Canberra in the past fortnight has seen a shining example of both the problem and what can be done about it. Canberra has held _ overlapping _ the Australian Science Festival Forum and Autumnfest. It makes one wonder whether Canberra is “”festivalled out”. We have Floriade, Autumnfest, the Canberra Festival, a theatre festival, arts festivals of various kinds and the science festival. The ACT Government gives various amounts of money and support to each of them, and indeed controls some of them. Autumnfest and Floriade, while perhaps attractive to many Australians outside Canberra, are derivative, artificial festivals.
They are heavily underwritten by the ACT Government. Sure, they bring many people to the capital and help fill up the hotels for a week or two, but they lack substance. They say: come and look at the pretty flowers and leaves, have a ride on the ferry or go up in a balloon. They do not contribute a great deal to providing a sustainable economic base for Canberra. They can be taken or left. The science festival, on the other hand is capable of giving Canberra a much sounder reputation different from the alienating view that many outside Canberra hold of the city _ that it is a beautiful, artificial place that houses the Federal Parliament and bureaucracy. Incidentally, it might be better for the science festival to remove the word “”festival” from its name.
This is its third year. It has attracted enormous interest, including interest from south-east Asia and has presented science in an attractive, intelligible way. It presents Canberra as a centre of science excellence with things to offer not available elsewhere. Some of the reasons for its success have been the excellence and depth of science in Canberra and the independence of its board. If the ACT Government wants to encourage a more sustainable economy than flowers, leaves and tourism it would do well to foster science through such vehicles as the Science Forum Festival which bring science to the people. That does not mean the government and bureaucracy should take it over; the forum has done well over the past three years precisely because it has been run independently. Of equal importance is for the science community to get behind the business of projecting science through things like the science forum without looking down their noses at it as being populist or demeaning. Their is little doubt of the enthusiasm of youth for science. For example 12,000 people, mainly young people, went through the ACTEW Amazing World of Science in its first two days. The challenge is to sustain and retain that enthusiasm.