The 15 members of the National Research Alliance have called for certainty from the Abbott Government on future funding for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
National Research Alliance members include leading representative organisations of Australia's 35,000 researchers, such as the Australian Society for Medical Research, the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes and the Group of Eight Australia, a coalition of leading Australian universities.
The federally-funded NCRIS and its predecessor program were established ten years ago following a review of research infrastructure prepared by the Taskforce on Mapping Australian Science and Innovation on research.
Since 2004, the Australian Government has invested over $2 billion in research infrastructure, which has attracted more than $1 billion in co-investment from state and territory governments, universities, research facilities and industry.
Current funding for the NCRIS is set to expire in June. However, the Abbott Government has committed $150 million for 2015-16, virtually as a 'holding position', but funded through its reforms to higher education that are currently blocked in the Senate.
According to Education Minister Christopher Pyne, “This was an integral part of the higher education reform package announced in the 2014 Budget. The funds for NCRIS only exist because of savings elsewhere in the higher education package.
“As I have made clear on many occasions over many months, if the higher education reforms don’t pass, funds do not exist for NCRIS. The jobs of 1,700 people will be at risk. Australian research will suffer."
The Government is also undertaking a strategic review of research infrastructure, recommended in last year's National Commission of Audit and chaired by Philip Marcus Clark.
Researchers have called on the Government to split NCRIS funding from the controversial higher education reforms, something Mr Pyne has ruled out.
"If the reform bill goes down, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme and the future fellows will end and it will be on Labor and the Greens and the crossbenchers' heads if that happens," he told ABC Radio.
Astronomer and Nobel Laureate Professor Brian Schmidt described the situation as "embarrassing" for Australia.
"It really is the foundations of the research we do across the country, across all disciplines, and so it will have an enormous effect and it's certainly something that we cannot let happen," he said.
The National Research Alliance says the uncertainty is already having an impact.
"Many NCRIS staff have been put on provisional notice of termination, and the consequent exodus of highly specialised skills has begun and will only accelerate as the end of the year draws closer.
"Furthermore, many of the facilities cannot be viably maintained if taken offline for significant periods. This means that if operational funding for 2015-16 is not confirmed in the next two months, the Government will be effectively decommissioning high-cost public infrastructure that in many cases has years if not decades of productive working life remaining," it said.
It called on the Government to "fulfil its responsibility to fund the NCRIS program in 2015-16" and use the current review to fund a long-term funding solution for research infrastructure in Australia.