Beating the tyrant distance

We left for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in mid-1975, after spending three and a half years at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR). While in Canberra, Rolf Zinkernagel and I did the experiments and generated the concepts that led to the award of the 1996 Nobel Prize. Though our findings (published in Nature) were widely recognised at the time as constituting a major breakthrough, no effort was made to keep either of us in the country.

My research was funded largely by NIH grants during the seven years that I spent on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania at The Wistar, America’s oldest private biomedical research institution. I became part of the US immunology circuit and got to know a number of top Australian scientists working in a range of disciplines. Most of these people have stayed in the US, and at least one is a prominent candidate for a Nobel Prize. We met a different set of compatriots through the local Australian/American association. At that stage, many of the older members were war brides who had moved to the US with their World War II servicemen husbands. There was the usual spread of expatriate academics and business people working for companies with branches in Australia. Towards the end of this period, we also began to encounter Australian entrepreneurs who were seeking a larger market for innovative technologies that they had developed back home. These were people whom Australia could not afford to lose, then or now.

I left Philadelphia for a professorship at the JCSMR in 1982. This second move to Canberra proved to be a disaster. I ignored Lesson Number Two for returning expatriates: Don’t try to change anything unless you have the direct power to drive the process through to its conclusion. My thinking at that time was that I could, by reasoned argument and persuasion, help to adapt some aspects of the more competitive, accountable, open and dynamic US funding process to promote excellence in the JCSMR and the ANU. This has since happened to the considerable benefit of both institutions. However, the three of us who served on the 1985 vice-chancellor’s review committee that made such proposals, soon found ourselves marginalised within the institution. We all left the ANU. Two headed for the US.

It was not hard to depart again for an academic system that was both intellectually accessible and transparent. The way the ANU worked in those distant days was, to say the least, more than a little murky. The recent experience of Rory Hume at the University of NSW emphasises that, even for people who have major leadership roles, applying strategies that would be acceptable in a top US institution can still lead to disaster here.

Lesson Number Three is for expatriates who return at a high level. Find a few wise heads that have lived with the system for a long time and consult regularly before taking action. Perhaps some training in playing war games would also be useful.
 
I had been working at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, for some eight years when the Nobel Award was announced in October 1996. Being a bit slow, I had not yet started to use email, and probably offended a few people who sent congratulatory messages via that medium. Now I travel with a BlackBerry, a wireless device that provides instant email access wherever I choose to exercise the prerogative.

The capacity for rapid, electronic interchange of ideas, results and manuscripts allows me, with a great deal of help from both junior and senior colleagues and the accumulation of a lot of frequent-flyer kilometres, to run research programs in both Memphis and Melbourne. After regular visits back home in 1997 (when I was Australian of the Year), we spent three months annually at the University of Melbourne, then extended that to nine months in 2002. I returned this time with the sense that Australia was changing rapidly and that there was an opportunity to provide some commentary that might influence the process in ways that I believe to be positive.

It is increasingly the case that effective, interactive research programs are being developed across national and geographic boundaries. This is inherent in the recent Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges, which are seeking collaborative, global efforts to address the ravages of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS in the developing world.

We are all aware that a major consequence of the communications revolution has been the movement of many routine jobs offshore, resulting in diminished opportunities for those with limited skills and education. At the same time, the growth of the global marketplace has led to a great increase in the emigration of well-trained professionals.

Some outstanding individuals will always choose to remain in Australia, largely because of family connections and social perceptions. Others may live for a time in, say, the US and find the experience enjoyable. As their children and incomes grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to attract such people back.

If Australia is to retain a high quality of life, we must persuade those with talent and entrepreneurial ability that this is a good place to be. One way of offsetting the loss of young people is to tap diasporas from other societies. We are also recipients in this international "churn" of well-qualified and innovative professionals. The nation now has a much more diverse face as, in particular, many highly intelligent and hardworking young people who first arrived as students have made their homes here.

It is also the case that we need to develop mechanisms for accessing the experience and insights of Australians who, though they may retain a strong sense of affection for their homeland, are unable to return here to live. The www.ExpatriateConnect.com  website represents an initial attempt to develop informal, personal networks that might benefit Australian economic development.

We have largely been freed from "the tyranny of distance". Time difference is of no great concern for web-based communication and even has some advantages for our southern-hemisphere location. Appropriately qualified and registered medical professionals can, for instance, read electronic brain scans through their Australian working day, and then send these "overnight" results back to clinics in Los Angeles or Houston. Those involved in translating documents for international bureaucracies, scientific or literary editing, computer analysis for rational drug design, and so forth, can function effectively anywhere in the world where there is good broadband access. What can we do to refine our tax and immigration structures to attract such people and the international dollars they earn?

The other reason that the "tyranny of distance" is less of a problem is that "the distance" that is increasingly relevant to many Australian business people and professionals is to Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Beijing or Tokyo, rather than to London or New York.

The one thing we must do is to keep our education system strong and open at every level and for all income groups. With a population of 20 million people we cannot afford to waste a single talented individual. International inequities in quality, research funding and salaries are still causing us to lose too many leading intellectuals from our universities. In a world that demands flexibility of mind and rapid changes in focus, it is a disastrous error to force all our higher education systems to be narrow and goal-oriented.

Particularly in the education and research sectors, there is a very real need to develop a culture of long-term, bipartisan, political consensus. Most thinking Australians realise that there is no way that we can avoid embracing a future of change and innovation. Our institutions that promote inquiry, like the universities, the ARC, the NHMRC and the CSIRO, are doing their best to equip the country to deal with this. The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) has shown us that, given the commitment, resources and drive, our relatively small population can compete at the highest level. As a culture, we must continually explore mechanisms for promoting inquiry, invention, dynamism, opportunity and economic growth. Why not take whatever steps we can in both the private and the public sectors to facilitate those who look to be winners in any area of human activity? Not all can succeed, but those who do will drive the future of this country.