‘It could be the death of the museum’: why research cuts at a South Australian institution have scientists up in arms

• “It could be the death of the museum,” says renowned mammalogist Tim Flannery, a former director of the museum.
• “To say research isn’t important to what a museum does – it’s sending shock waves across the world,” she says.

What’s the plan?

• According to the museum’s website, this skeleton crew will focus on “converting new discoveries and research into the visitor experience”.
• Others have tackled global questions such as the evolution of birds from dinosaurs, how eyes evolved in Cambrian fossils, and Antarctic biodiversity.

What’s so special about a museum?

• Their remits are different, says University of Adelaide botanist Andy Lowe, who was the museum’s acting director in 2013 and 2014.
• Unlike universities, he says, the museum was “established by government, to carry out science for the development of the state”.

• “They’re crucial for what goes on above; you need experts not second-hand translators,” says University of Adelaide geologist Alan Collins.
• He wonders what will happen the next time a youngster comes into the museum asking to identify a rock.
• The museum’s Phillip Jones now uses this collection in his research, delivering more than 30 exhibitions, books and academic papers.

Continuity and community

• Without attentive curation and the life blood of research, the collections are doomed to “wither and die”, says Flannery.
• That raises the issue of continuity.
• In Flannery’s words, the job of a museum curator:
  is like being a high priest in a temple.

• Over Jones’ four decades at the museum, his relationships with Indigenous elders have also been critical to returning sacred objects to their traditional owners.
• Besides the priestly “chain of care”, there’s something else at risk in the museum netherworld: a uniquely productive ecosystem feeding on the collections.
• Here you’ll find PhD students mingling with retired academics; curators mingling with scientists; museum folk with university folk.
• In the year ending 2023 for instance, joint museum and university grants amounted to A$3.7 million.

DNA and biodiversity

• The museum has also declared it will no longer support a DNA sequencing lab it funds jointly with the University of Adelaide.
• “No other institute in South Australia does this type of biodiversity research,” says Andrew Austin, chair of Taxonomy Australia and emeritus professor at the University of Adelaide.
• “It’s the job of the museum.” The cuts come while the SA government plans new laws to protect biodiversity.

Elizabeth Finkel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.