Anonymous #30

Name (Individual/Organisation)

Anonymous #30

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.

ARC Act should be amended to specify the balance between Discovery and Linkage research programs. Australian industry needs research from universities and they need the research outcomes in a timely manner. The current ARC Linkage application is very complicated and takes a very long time to have the final funding outcomes, and industry does not like to wait that long. Also, the success rate is low as the funding allocated to ARC Linkage is low. Also, the ARC linkage is reviewed by academics who may or may not have industry experience, and often their comments are not correct from industry's point of view. Further, the college of expert may not have the area of expertise for the application. Therefore, some of my industry partners are losing confidence in ARC linkage, and commenting that ARC does not support Australian industry well. This also has a significant impact on teaching and learning, as academic staff needs to conduct industry research projects to accumulate experience and combine theory with practice for providing effective teaching to the next generation of engineers.

Q2. Do you consider the current ARC governance model is adequate for the ARC to perform its functions?

If not, how could governance of the ARC be improved? For example, should the ARC Act be amended to incorporate a new governance model that establishes a Board on the model outlined in the consultation paper, or another model.

Please expand on your reasoning and/or provide alternative suggestions to enhance the governance, if you consider this to be important.

The current ARC model is inadequate and does not perform well.

First, in Engineering, the current college of experts in different schemes or panels are dominated by chemical (or material) and civil academics. Consequently, these areas have a much higher success rate in ARC discovery and fellowships than other engineering areas such as electrical and control (less than 3% success rate). The process of selection and evaluation is manipulated by them and significantly flawed. Therefore, the college of experts in different schemes and panels should have a balance between different engineering areas. Every Engineering area is equally important, and the panel cannot be biased to a certain area.

Secondly, some critical issues have been lasted for decades without any changes. Except the issue in the first point, here is another example. There are some areas in certain universities having frequent success in ARC Discovery and Fellowship, but they have never attempted any Linkage or research commercialization. Funding manipulation by college of expert is one aspect, but ARC never investigates this to find out why a certain group is keeping getting public research support but never makes any real impacts. Probably such manipulation and behavior should be stopped and questioned. However, over the last two decades ARC never conducted surveys and reviews and never consulted a broad range of researchers about issues in the ARC process and system. Consequently, for some areas of research, ARC funding is abundant, and DECRA fellowship becomes common and will not give much advantage to obtain a faculty position. In contrast, in some areas, DECRA fellowship is very rare, and its success will guarantee a faculty position. This is very wrong, but this has been happening as long as I can remember.

Q3. How could the Act be improved to ensure academic and research expertise is obtained and maintained to support the ARC?

How could this be done without the Act becoming overly prescriptive?

I will emphasize the same point as before. Every Engineering area is equally important, and the panel cannot be biased to a certain area(s). For example, in Engineering, the current college of experts in different schemes or panels are dominated by chemical (or material) and civil academics. Consequently, these areas have a much higher success rate in ARC discovery and fellowships than other engineering areas such as electrical and control (less than 3% success rate). The process of selection and evaluation is manipulated by them and significantly flawed. Therefore, the college of experts in different schemes and panels should have a balance between different engineering areas.

Q4. Should the ARC Act be amended to consolidate the pre-eminence or importance of peer review?

Please provide any specific suggestions you may have for amendment of the Act, and/or for non-legislative measures.

Peer-review is important for discovery project applications. The frustration is consistency. For example, in one year, my DP application was given the top 10% of the unsuccessful applications. The next year, for the exactly same application (but improved based on comments), it was given the bottom 25% of the unsuccessful applications. Obviously, there is no credibility of such evaluation. This happens to Linkage projects, and the industry partner lost confidence in the process and told me they do not want to participate in such non-constructive and unfair process any more.

Moreover, in one year, my DP received excellent support from the detailed assessors, but it failed eventually. This means the college of experts did not support the application, but there is no detailed feedback from the college of experts. First, there is no transparency, and secondly I cannot improve my application as I do not get the feedback from the persons who disagree with the application. There are many issues in the review and peer review process, which is hurting the research. I strongly recommend ARC should send a team to visit different universities and seek feedback from researchers from different research areas. ARC has carried many issues (unfair, non-accountable, manipulative, ...) over the last two decades. This cannot continue for another two decades. Reform is really needed.

Q5. Please provide suggestions on how the ARC, researchers and universities can better preserve and strengthen the social licence for public funding of research?

Accountability, fairness, transparency, unbias. I have provided many examples in the previous questions. Relevant people and industry all express their concerns on ARC. I reiterate my comments here. ARC has carried many issues (unfair, non-accountable, manipulative, ...) over the last two decades. This cannot continue for another two decades. Reform is really needed. I strongly recommend ARC should send a team to visit different universities and seek feedback from researchers from different research areas.

Q6. What elements of ARC processes or practices create administrative burdens and/or duplication of effort for researchers, research offices and research partners?

The required documents of ARC DP and LP applications are lengthy and taking a very long time to prepare. As the success rate in certain areas is so low (due to the college of expert issues mentioned previously), a 2-3 months preparation mostly ends with nothing. The recent ARC industry fellowship is a great attempt to shorten the unnecessary lengthy applications, but still keeps the essential materials for evaluation. Researchers can save 1-2 months time for better research and teaching. Research partners are also very happy with a simplified and concise process.

Q7. What improvements could be made:

(a) to ARC processes to promote excellence, improve agility, and better facilitate globally collaborative research and partnerships while maintaining rigour, excellence and peer review at an international standard?

(b) to the ARC Act to give effect to these process improvements, or do you suggest other means?

Please include examples of success or best practice from other countries or communities if you have direct experience of these.

I have suggested many ways of improvement in previous questions. I give one more example here.

For example in Engineering, each engineering area is equal. The overall Engineering projects approved are decent, but nearly 65%-70% goes to Chemical (or material) and Civil Engineering, which is due to excessive number of college of experts in these areas in the panels. This is stealing opportunities from other engineering areas to feed those areas, which manipulative and unfair. Some other countries have a more fair approach that does not discriminate area of disciplines. Based on the national priority areas or total number of submissions in each FOR code (4 digit) area, their equivalent research body (similar to ARC) will decide a firm support in each 4-digit FOR code area and organize the college of expert panel for each 4-digit FOR code area to ensure each important engineering area will be fairly supported by ARC. If a certain FOR code area is small, it will be combined with other small FOR code areas. This will significantly improve the unfair allocation in the current ARC practice.

Q8. With respect to ERA and EI:

(a) Do you believe there is a need for a highly rigorous, retrospective excellence and impact assessment exercise, particularly in the absence of a link to funding?

(b) What other evaluation measures or approaches (e.g. data driven approaches) could be deployed to inform research standards and future academic capability that are relevant to all disciplines, without increasing the administrative burden?

(c) Should the ARC Act be amended to reference a research quality, engagement and impact assessment function, however conducted?

(d) If so, should that reference include the function of developing new methods in research assessment and keeping up with best practice and global insights?

I do not have comments on the ERA and EI process.

Q9. With respect to the ARC’s capability to evaluate research excellence and impact:

(a) How can the ARC best use its expertise and capability in evaluating the outcomes and benefits of research to demonstrate the ongoing value and excellence of Australian research in different disciplines and/or in response to perceived problems?

(b) What elements would be important so that such a capability could inform potential collaborators and end-users, share best practice, and identify national gaps and opportunities?

(c) Would a data-driven methodology assist in fulfilling this purpose?

DP and DP fellowship should eventually create real impact and industry value to support the economy and development of the nation. ARC should question the researchers with many DPs and DP Fellowships but without any industry impacts and take actions on such non-effective track records.

Q10. Having regard to the Review’s Terms of Reference, the ARC Act itself, the function, structure and operation of the ARC, and the current and potential role of the ARC in fostering excellent Australian research of global significance, do you have any other comments or suggestions?

I strongly recommend ARC should send a team to visit different universities and seek feedback from researchers from different research areas. ARC should publish the problems raised in the feedback process and take actions for improvement.

Submission received

09 December 2022

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