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Before I got cut off by a bad connection this morning (ding ding!) I covered this front page story in The Age/SMH on ABC News Breakfast, and I wanted to say a bit more about it. https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/germany-names-hydrogen-the-hero-of-its-post-coal-future-20200923-p55y7y.html">https://www.theage.com.au/world/eur...
On the face of it, it& #39;s a pretty standard "two governments embark on a joint feasibility study" bla bla whatever. But it also points to *a lot* of the problems with what is happening to higher ed in this country.
There is the very obvious point that without the scientific research that happens in universities, we don& #39;t even know how to produce the "green" hydrogen that Germany wants. Ok but we know that already.
What it also points to is just *how much* we need humanities experts to make these things work. We *need* experts in German history, language and politics to understand how this agreement might play out on the German side.
We *need* experts in the history, politics and law of the European Union in order to understand and navigate any kind of agreement--the Australian govt constantly acts like the EU is irrelevant and treats it like an afterthought and that *will not work*.
We need experts in energy policy. Not scientific experts (though we need those too), but people who can navigate and explain EU policy in particular--that is what will shape the global renewable energy market in the future (given the US& #39; absence and EU leadership aspirations).
We also need economists, regional experts, etc etc who will help ensure that this kind of investment stays in our communities--particularly regional communities--and is sustainable. That it doesn& #39;t just get shipped off to Europe and nothing comes back.
This expertise doesn& #39;t come from just doing a few hours of desk research in a parliamentary office. All of it takes years of study, and the support of academics and researchers in universities.
