Australia’s Strategic Examination of Research and Development (Serd) panel released a sweeping set of recommendations to reverse a decade of declines in basic research funding. The report calls for restoring grant allocations to the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council to historic real‑terms levels, boosting indirect research cost support, and raising PhD stipends—initially for 1,000 candidates—to strengthen the research workforce. Panel leaders urged the government to treat the package as integrated: partial adoption risks perpetuating stagnation, the review warned. Sector groups including the Australian Academy of Science and university consortia broadly welcomed the focus on foundational research, while noting that political will and budgetary choices will determine implementation. If adopted, the reforms would reshape doctoral training, research costing, and infrastructure support—key levers for universities seeking to scale capacity in AI, quantum, and biomedical research while preserving discipline‑agnostic basic science.