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However, in the same decade there also arose a strangling thicket of regulation, managerial oppression, legal and commercial impediments, selfishness and peer discouragement. Even with the minister's active support, it is doubtful if a charter alone will be sufficient to back-burn the forest of weeds that blocks the path of knowledge to society.

As the Government inquires into the universities, the co-operative research centres and eventually all the other arms of the knowledge machine in its quest to make them better, the adequacy of their knowledge transmission systems needs to come under glaring scrutiny. Skills are low, resources pathetic and barriers to knowledge transfer high.

Warwick Anderson, chief executive of the National Health and Medical Research Council, highlighted the need for change in a recent speech looking at the challenge of keeping the healthcare workforce up to date with the rapidly advancing frontiers of medical research. If we want a world-class health sector, he suggested, we need not only excellent science but also excellent delivery and dissemination of the best science.

Better dissemination of research findings will have another important effect: it will reverse the decline in university science enrolments.

The failure of science to spruik its successes is, at least in part, responsible for the commonly held view in high schools that the field is dull, unrewarding and lacking in glamour.

The challenge for Carr and for the nation's research leadership is to throw light on the missing dark matter of Australian science. And guess what? Doing it won't take rocket science.