Articles - QESP
By Peter Goss, School Education Program Director, Grattan Institute
- Monday, April 29th, 2019
School funding debates in Australia are complex and messy, but there is hope. Both Labor and the Coalition are committed to needs-based funding, and there were real steps forward in 2017 with the passage of Gonski 2.0. Among many improvements, this committed to increasing Commonwealth funding to government schools from an average of 17% of their needs in 2017, to 20% by 2023.
By Verona Burgess
- Monday, April 29th, 2019
What do former mandarins think about the Australian Public Service Review so far? Quite a lot, and not all of it is flattering.
So, when a group of 21 mostly former department and agency heads produce a succinct, three-page response to the review panel’s interim report, it is worth paying close attention.
By Ted Smillie
- Monday, April 29th, 2019
All of the Sydney Universities now offer Blockchain as part of their courses and most of the attendees at the QESP Blockchain Workshop on 14th March were University students. A number of Sydney Blockchain Meetup groups are now welcoming new members. The groups range in size from a handful of member to thousands of members […]
By Geological Society of America
- Monday, April 29th, 2019
Creating new policies that deal with important issues like climate change requires input from geoscientists. Policy makers, media outlets, and the general public are interested in hearing from experts, and scientists are put under increasing amounts of pressure to effectively engage in policy decisions.
By The Conversation
- Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019
With all the hype around the future of work, you could be forgiven for thinking the biggest issue in the future of employment is the impending takeover of your job by a robot or an algorithm.Talk about the workplace of the future has become fixated on technological displacement almost to the point of hysteria. There is little doubt that technological development will change the way we work, as it has in the past.But for most Australians the reality will be much less dramatic. The biggest changes in the working lives of Australians over the past 20 years have arguably not been technological – few of us are sending our avatars to meetings or writing code.
By Harley Dennett
- Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019
Waiting weeks or months for research to be compiled, days for a decision to be made and then chasing a signature to proceed: this is situation normal for most bureaucrats, but one government organisation says this is too slow – humans are too slow – for the challenges ahead.
This week Air Force is pitching a new innovation plan and asking industry to help it create a combined human-machine workforce of augmented intelligence: the creativity and flexibility of humans, and the tempo and accuracy of machines.
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Defence, innovation
By University of Luxembourg
- Monday, April 1st, 2019
Researchers at the University of Luxembourg are part of an international team that has proposed the first blockchain system to guarantee proper performance even when more than 51% of the system’s computing power is controlled by an attacker.The system, RepuCoin, introduces the concept of “reputation” to blockchain, effectively making it thousands of times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin. It was developed at the University’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, and has the potential to be applied in a number of global sectors including fintech, energy, food supply chains, health care and future 5G telecommunications networks.
Tags: Blockchain, IT Security, Security
By David Donaldson and Stephen Easton
- Monday, April 1st, 2019
The Australian Public Service Review has published four new “priorities” for change ahead of its main findings later this year. Common pay and moving to a professional stream model are some of their ideas.The report, released Tuesday morning, includes a broad range of interesting suggestions for reform under four priority headings.Those priorities are: a stronger “culture, governance and leadership model”, more operational flexibility, continued investment in talent and capability, and stronger internal and external partnerships.
Tags: APS, Australian Public Service, Government
By George Washington University
- Sunday, February 24th, 2019
A team of researchers including Neil Johnson, a professor of physics at the George Washington University, has discovered that decentralized systems work better when the individual parts are less capable.Dr. Johnson was interested in understanding how systems with many moving parts can reach a desired target or goal without centralized control. This explores a common theory that decentralized systems, those without a central brain, would be more resilient against damage or errors.
By Stephen Easton
- Sunday, February 24th, 2019
A new partnership between the federal government’s peak cyber security team and a professional association promises to improve cross-sector collaboration, and might also lead to more consideration of independent expertise in the development of public policy.The most visible outcome of the deal between the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Australian Information Security Association is a plan to merge their respective annual conferences into one big get-together in October.AISA chair Damien Manuel says the new Australian Cyber Conference will be the largest on the sector’s events calendar, a “cornerstone piece for the region” that helps position Australia as a centre for cyber security research, industry innovation and professional collaboration.
