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A defence official has been appointed chief executive of Australia's major research body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

Malcolm McIntosh, head of defence procurement for the Ministry of Defence, will take up his Aus $210,000-a-year (Pounds 105,000) post next January. A former head of the federal Department of Industry, Science and Technology, he has a PhD in physics from the Australian National University.

Dr McIntosh has been in Britain for the past five years and said he felt "totally isolated" from recent problems at the CSIRO.

The organisation has undergone a series of management upheavals and staff have expressed widespread concern about the growing emphasis on the commercialisation of its research activities at the expense of basic research.

Australia's minister for science, Peter Cook, praised Dr McIntosh's appointment and described him as "a major talent".