Prof David Wood

Name (Individual/Organisation)

Prof David Wood

Responses

Q1. How could the purpose in the ARC Act be revised to reflect the current and future role of the ARC?

For example, should the ARC Act be amended to specify in legislation:
(a) the scope of research funding supported by the ARC
(b) the balance of Discovery and Linkage research programs
(c) the role of the ARC in actively shaping the research landscape in Australia
(d) any other functions?

If so, what scope, functions and role?

If not, please suggest alternative ways to clarify and define these functions.

I would like to make three points about the ARC and research in mathematics.

The key infrastructure needed for research in mathematics is an institute for hosting residential research workshops. Every major country in the world, except Australia, has such an institute funded by government. Australia has such an institute, MATRIX, but no ARC funding schemes are designed to support an institute for hosting residential research workshops. The ARC needs a funding scheme that could provide permanent funding for an institute like MATRIX.

ARC funding seems to be heavily focused on commercialisation and national benefit. Much research in pure mathematics does lead to commercialisation, but with a large delay. For example, number theory research from the 1920s now enables all online communication to be secure. Without this research, forget about online commerce. However, there was a 70-year delay between the mathematics and the commercialisation opportunity. ARC research funding needs to recognise this possibility, and take a long-term view about commercialisation. It is ridiculous to expect researchers in basic sciences to explain the immediate national benefits of their research. We simply don't know what commercial benefits will arise from our research. Moreover, requiring researchers to explain national benefit and commercialisation actually has a negative influence, by pushing researchers towards topics that are quickly commercialisable, whereas researchers should be free to explore the hardest and most important questions measured on scientific grounds.

ARC Discovery Projects are the main way pure mathematics is funded in Australia. Any model for funding pure mathematics based on 3-4 year projects is fundamentally flawed. Pure mathematicians rarely work on planned projects. They just do mathematics, following the leads of discovery. It is ridiculous to be required to plan 3 years of pure maths research before it is done. If we knew what we were going to do, then we would have already done it! Here is an alternative. Give small 20-30K per year grants to many mathematicians based on the quality of the applicant's track record (with no or little project description). This money would fund visitors and travel, which is what pure mathematics needs. Then create a post-doctoral fellowship for people who have just finished their PhD, which would replace the post-doctoral positions currently provided by Discovery Projects. The advantages are huge. Many more people would be funded, and most importantly, the application process would be infinitely simpler, freeing time for researchers to actually do research.

Submission received

26 November 2022

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