The Conversation Loses Govt Funding
13 May 2015 at 4:37 pm
The Federal Budget has ended the Government's four year funding support for the Not for Profit online publication The Conversation – removing 25 per cent of its annual income.
“We failed to persuade Education Minister Christopher Pyne that we need a further two years funding to secure our future,” Editor at The Conversation and former Age Editor Andrew Jaspan said.
The Conversation missed out on funding support of $1million per year or about 25 per cent of its income. The online publication recently extended its reach to Africa.
“Our aim is to be fully self sufficient by 2017 through the contributions from our global network. We must now take stock,” Jaspan said.
The Conversation is also funded through a collaboration between CSIRO, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, UTS, UWA, ACU, ANU, ASB, Baker IDI, Canberra, CDU, Curtin, Deakin, ECU, Flinders, Griffith, the Harry Perkins Institute, JCU, La Trobe, Massey, Murdoch, Newcastle, UQ, QUT, SAHMRI, Swinburne, Sydney, UNDA, UNE, UniSA, UNSW, USC, USQ, UTAS, UWS, VU and Wollongong.
“As a Not for Profit project we offer the wider community access to high-quality information devoid of commercial gain or ideological spin.
“We unlock and translate the knowledge and research that sits within our universities, research institutes and CSIRO. We believe healthy democracies need access to high quality, non-partisan, evidence-based information. That has struck a chord with our 2.5 million readers a month.
“And happily, we retain the bulk of our funding through the support of 33 of Australia’s 39 universities as well as CSIRO.”
Jaspan said that given we have lost the Australian Government’s funding support The Conversation is asking the public to make tax deductible donation to allow it to continue.
