Qut Institute For Future Environments

IFE Grand Challenge Lecture, recorded 25 May 2018 at QUT. Through the 20th century, research laboratories at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge embodied two leading models of research, based on competing philosophies of how research is conducted and research teams are assembled and supported.The Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, under the guidance of J.J. Thomson and his acolytes, focused on recruitment and environment, producing a stunning succession of discoveries that underpin modern physics and chemistry. Several decades later, Howard Florey’s team at Oxford took a problem-based approach, carefully assembling the team best equipped to solve the antibiotic challenge, resulting in the discovery that has arguably saved more lives than any other. Towards the end of the 20th century and on the other side of the world, policymakers and research administrators came together to develop a blended system that harnessed the best of each of these models. For more than a decade and supported by successive Austr