High Wired update: Research funding redirected ARC gets its funding cut; little sympathy for TAFEs; and Brian Schmidt's Christmas holiday advice. Cuts: What better way to promote more university and business collaboration than provide money for ARC linkage grants? Apparently there is, but Christopher Pyne and Ian MacFarlane have yet to tell anyone. Yesterday the MYEFO cut $103 million in ARC funding, including a $42 million cut to linkage money, with the funds instead going into medical research. It is hard to turn down the medicos who promise to make us live longer and cure diseases, but surely leveraging more industry money onto research has to be a priority too? The signs don't look encouraging for the ARC, and with less money around for discovery grants, the academic time wasted on applications is going to get worse. HW suspects every university research office will soon follow Deakin in having a Crowd Funding Organiser. Selective omission: In a piece of breathtaking cynicism, Mr Pyne's press release announcing the redirection of funding into medical research makes no mention of where the money has been cut from. And they wonder why the public has no faith in politicians. Wimping out: Deakin's head of government affairs Andrew Dempster has taken issue with what he sees as Universities Australia's less than full-blooded support for the demand driven system. In its submission to the Kemp-Norton review, UA says, "The introduction of the demand driven system and the removal of almost all caps on undergraduate places appears, on balance, to have been a positive reform for both students and the nation." While acknowledging that UA has to keep all its members happy, as Dempster tweeted yesterday, "Can anyone imagine the Australian Medical Association saying that 'on balance' Medicare rebates should remain uncapped?" The thing is doctors are a tight knit group, jealous of their gatekeeper role in medicine, but universities are a very divergent bunch. For those universities having no problems attracting students and are instead focused on boosting research performance to climb the greasy world-ranking pole, the demand-driven system is only a drag on government funding that could otherwise go into their research coffers. But HW thinks Dempster may be too harsh on UA, and perhaps using "balance" is an attempt to appear considered rather than cheerleading, which is no bad thing since numbers man Andrew Norton is nothing if not "considered." Not my problem: There was scant sympathy for the TAFE sector in the Innovative Research Universities submission to the demand driven system review, which like the rest of the sector argues for the demand driven system extended to sub-degree places, encroaching further on TAFE territory. The IRU said TAFEs who have gone beyond their VET remit and moved into higher education to compete with universities shouldn't expect protection. The IRU also doesn't care that the uncapping of bachelor degree places has already led to universities poaching those TAFE students doing diplomas after missing out on a university place. According to the IRU that market is simply a distraction for TAFEs from their role in providing advanced VET qualifications. If all this leaves TAFE in a bind then the IRU deftly says that isn't its problem. The viability of VET qualifications "is a question or VET policy to address," the IRU said. Gee, thanks. Long-term planning: Out west the University of Western Australia's student guild has given a life membership to Bob Hawke, where he was guild president in 1952. The guild is planning to launch a new "Guild Alumni" to bring together former active members, and who better to promote help promote it than the silver bodgie? HW suspects this may be a canny move to promote philanthropy for the guild now that compulsory union fees are long gone, replaced by the university controlled student amenities fee. And the amenities fee may also have a shelf life if education minister Christopher Pyne ever gets his way, though for the moment the PM has said he has other priorities. Constructive holiday distractions: Finally, Nobel Laureate and star gazer par excellence Brian Schmidt has suggested that if you get bored over the holidays you could spend some time helping look for black holes. The CSIRO is promoting the international Radio Galaxy Zoo science citizen project in which anyone can use galaxy images to look for black holes. "It takes about a minute to learn what to do," CSIRO's Dr Julie Banfield says in a press release. Then to actually work with the images takes only a few seconds each - perhaps a couple of minutes for the really tough ones.