The CSIRO’s workforce is paying the price after management squandered a huge short-term government funding boost, former and current senior staff say.

The agency this week announced savage cuts, with up to 350 research jobs – about 10 per cent of the science workforce – on the chopping block . Management slated the cuts to decades of government underinvestment that left the agency “fundamentally unsustainable”.

The CSIRO’s Parkes Radio Telescope. Credit: Destination NSW

Most of those cuts will come from CSIRO’s environment, health and biosecurity research teams, this masthead can reveal.

The CSIRO received $459 million over four years from the Morrison government in 2020 to compensate for expected pandemic revenue downturns. Those downturns never eventuated, leaving the agency

See Full Page