Oz Science Agency Director Wants To Run It "Like A Startup", Surprised By Explosive Backlash

It was supposed to be a public relations exercise. Instead, the new boss of Australia's national science agency threw a bucket of petrol over a bonfire. Larry Marshall – the former venture capitalist turned chief executive of the CSIRO – had ignited the blaze a week earlier with a rambling email to staff that set out his vision for the century-old organisation.

As plans go, it was a bold one: he would run the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation – with its 5000 employees and tradition of research in the national interest – like a start-up company. What did this mean? Scientists should be less afraid of failure, and dare to try new things. And they needed to focus on work that could be sold.

While the change would be felt across the organisation, the backlash from climate scientists – whose area was singled out to be cut – was swift and public. Stung and a little surprised, Marshall took to the airwaves to make his case. "I feel like the early climate scientists in the '70s fighting against the oil lobby," he told ABC radio. "I think there's a lot of emotion in this debate, In fact, it almost sounds more like religion than science to me."

Marshall is no climate denier. Part of his justification for cutting climate measurement was that the problem was "proven", and more resources should be dedicated to finding solutions to global warming. But to his critics, comparing science to an act of faith – an analogy used by sceptics to mock those concerned about climate change – was symptomatic of the naïve and ill-advised way Marshall was trying to recast one of Australia's most highly respected public institutions. Two months on, a war is being waged over the future of the CSIRO, and whether the 53-year-old can succeed in reshaping it in his Silicon Valley-trained image.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/whats-going-on-inside-the-csiro-and-is-larry-marshall-to-blame-20160406-gnzsfu.html