Call for $1 billion research funding boost

A former chief executive officer of the Australian Research Council (ARC) is calling for a doubling of the council's funding.

The chancellor of Sydney's University of Technology, Professor Vicki Sara, says Australia is losing researchers overseas because they can get more funding and support there.

Professor Sara says the ARC can only afford to fund about 20 per cent of projects that come before it.

She has told ABC's Radio National that the ARC's budget needs to be increased to $1 billion a year.

"Now that may sound like a lot of money but it isn't in reality," she said.

"We're probably trying to pull from cross subsidisation from other university sources enough money to support that type of research we're competing with other country's whose budgets are well over billions."