Australia's Major National Research Facilities - Australian Academy ...

Government Agency Facilities
In addition to a plethora of local and state government agencies, and education and vocational training institutions, with facilities of
relevance to the geosciences, the following Australian Government agencies also have facilities of relevance to the geosciences.
• Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia (AFFA)
• Australian Antarctic Division (AAD)
• Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Agency (ANSTO)
• Chief Scientist Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
• Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO)
• Environment Australia (EA)
• Geoscience Australia
• National Oceans Office (NOO)
• Native Title Tribunal (NTT)
• Office of Spatial Data Management (OSDM)
Personnel and Other Information
Contacts for the facilities listed above are available via the relevant website.
In the 2001 census, 5067 individuals declared themselves to be geoscientists. While the numbers of people involved in
geoscience research and tertiary education were not identified in the census, Department of Education, Science and Training
(DEST) figures indicate that 1288 equivalent full time students (EFTSU) commenced higher education geoscience education
in 2002. Fewer than 200 are expected to graduate with an honours degree, widely regarded as the basic professional
qualification. Over the past 12 years, approximately 20 000 Australians have been educated at first year university level in
geoscience, with the total number since 1960 estimated to be approximately 40 000. This equates to about 1 in 500
Australians (or 0.2%) having some tertiary education in geoscience. The supply of high-quality graduates with an appropriate
mix of skills (e.g. maths, physics, chemistry, biology) is becoming a major long-term issue for science, engineering and
technology disciplines in general and for the geosciences in particular.
Within the geoscience discipline, weaknesses include geophysics, hydrogeology, and palaeontology. Fundamental datasets
are also of particular concern.
Geography
Geography is a field-based discipline that spans both the natural and social sciences. The discipline is characterised by a breadth of
subject matter in which the traditional division has been between human and physical Geography. In recent years a third category of
'environmental Geography' has sometimes been recognised, encompassing many courses that deal explicitly with human-environment
relations and sustainable development. Geographic Information Science (GIS) and remote sensing is another distinct teaching area,
occurring almost wholly within higher education but increasingly important in secondary schools. There is an emerging global interest
in Geography which other disciplines such as geology, biology, physics and computer science are now starting to exploit through
subjects such as environmental earth science, landscape ecology, climatology and meteorology and GIS.
6