Anonymous #11

Name (Individual/Organisation)

Anonymous #11

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.

It would be helpful if the purpose were refined to make clearer that the ARC ought to fund both pure and applied research.

While that is nominally acknowledged in the current legislation, the grant system as it currently operates undermines it. Even for Discovery Projects, the evaluation criteria effectively rule out pure research. This not only disadvantages researchers whose work does not have directly measurable impact, it is also counterproductive: given the immense pressure to secure grants (at Monash University, for instance, external funding is one of our performance evaluation metrics), researchers are incentivized to exaggerate how applied their projects will be. This in turn makes it harder to identify which projects are genuinely aimed at applied research, and so likely to achieve their stated benefit. If there were a grant program for pure research, free from the requirement to identify immediate and measurable impact, it would allow researchers to be more honest about their projects, and enable the ARC to more easily identify projects with likely impacts in priority 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 length of the applications is a major factor in how burdensome the grant application process is. Having an EOI round, with just a short summary statement of the project, would be a significant improvement. (The Marsden grant program in New Zealand offers a good model of this.)

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?

One of the greatest challenges of working at an Australian university – especially when compared to working in the United States – is the amount of pressure we face to secure ARC funding, and correspondingly the lack of respect within the university sector for research that is undertaken outside of grant programs. We are expected to be constantly applying for ARC grants, even if our research could straightforwardly be undertaken without external funding; and to reshape future research so that it fits the parameters of the grant criteria (especially impact).
This is counterproductive, because it pulls resources away from blue-sky research.
Anecdotally, it is also a key reason cited by top researchers outside Australia for why they would not want to work here.
It is not clear what changes would have to be made to the ARC to alter the incentive structures pushing university administrations in this direction. But whatever changes are contemplated in light of this review, I would urge you to consider their effects on these kinds of incentive structures.

Submission received

29 November 2022

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