One in five staff in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)'s environmental research unit are set to lose their jobs, as the agency pushes ahead with a plan to cut up to 350 roles next year.
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The embattled agency confirmed to The Canberra Times that between 130 and 150 full time equivalent roles would be cut from the unit, which conducts research on topics including climate change, pollution and resource management.
"We are exiting research where we lack scale to achieve significant impact, or areas where others in the sector are better placed to deliver," a CSIRO spokesperson said.
"The environment research unit is reshaping its research portfolio to focus on better integrating our science across disciplines to more effectively address critical national challenges and deliver maximum science impact within available funding."
Staff members have been told the decision to gut the unit is part of a shift in focus towards supporting the technology, mining, agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
"My concern is the short-sightedness of this decision," one employee said in an email to ACT Independent Senator David Pocock, seen by this masthead.
"Apparently we are now focusing on money generation ... To cut the little we do to invest specifically to environmental programs is shocking."
Greens science spokesperson Peter Whish-Wilson said he was "deeply concerned" that the CSIRO's planned cuts would "disproportionately impact public good science."
"Scientists at the CSIRO have been under pressure for years to find revenues to justify their work, including researchers working on public good science such as climate, environment, and oceans research," Senator Whish-Wilson said
"The work these scientists do is critical to each and every Australian, indeed much of their work is globally collaborative and significant ... Now is the time to increase our capacity in environmental research - not withdraw from it."
Senator Pocock said he did not understand "how anyone in 2025 can argue that the environment is not a national science priority."
"I'm deeply concerned by the significant job cuts foreshadowed for the CSIRO's environmental decision," he said.
"We need the Science Minister to be loudly advocating for more investment in science, given we are at record low levels of investment as a percentage of GDP and per capita."
This masthead revealed on Thursday that the Albanese government is preparing to hand more than $100 million in extra cash for the CSIRO in its mid-year budget update next month.
It is unclear if this will prompt a change in course from the CSIRO, which declined to comment on funding matters ahead of any announcement.
An analysis of budget data by the Parliamentary Library in September shows that the CSIRO's Commonwealth funding fell 7 per cent in real terms during the first two financial years of the Albanese government.
Asked how much additional funding the agency needed to be sustainable, the CSIRO spokesperson said the agency, which receives about $1 billion a year in base funding from the government and also raises its own revenue, needed to invest "between $80 million and $135 million per annum over the next 10 years into essential infrastructure and technology."
The CSIRO spokesperson said the agency was "actively engaging with staff and stakeholders to determine the best approach while maintaining national leadership in freshwater, marine, climate and adaptation science, and social sciences."
"Specific areas affected will be confirmed once the process concludes next year, at which time the environment research unit will remain one of the organisation's largest units."
Science Minister Tim Ayres, who last month issued a statement of expectations asking the CSIRO to shift its priorities, on Thursday told the ABC: "Every program comes to an end at some point."
A spokesperson for Mr Ayres said in a statement that the CSIRO had made "strategic choices to evolve its research ... independently of government."
"No program of research is being 'singled out', least of all by the government," the spokesperson said.
The environmental research unit would shift to focus on "better integrating its science across disciplines [to] more more effectively address critical national challenges and deliver maximum science impact within available funding."
