Anonymous #41

Name (Individual/Organisation)

Anonymous #41

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.

The Act could be amended to be clearer about the ARC's main purpose of funding pure research. Given that the Commonwealth once directly funded university research block grants, the relationship between ARC funding and base-line research funding in universities needs to be rethought. At present, universities are not adequately funded for research at all, and the whole model needs a major re-think.

I am not against grant funding being used as one of the measures of university block-grant funding, but if it is the only major measure (beside research training), then this makes university infra-structure development contingent on trends in ARC funding, and particularly on the short-term nature of this ARC funding.

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.

I do not think the governance model is a major problem, except in the way the Act allows for ministerial interference. The major areas of improvement are areas of process.

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?

There needs to be a simplification of the Act's various prescriptions. Is it the Act, or a legalistic interpretation of the Act that has led to the situation where it now takes up to ten months between submission and outcomes, and creates applications that can be up to 100 pages in length.

The ARC should do some bench-marking against major international funding bodies which have far shorter and far less bureaucratic application processes.

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 should remain an important part of the process, whoever at the moment the peer review process is opaque to most participants, reviewers included. The scoring system is too 'broad-brush', numbers of reviewers tend to vary markedly, and the relationship between assessors' appraisals and final outcomes is unclear.

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

The major task of preserving and strengthening the social licence for public funding of research should be the responsibility of government. The ARC does a good job of presenting research, and researchers are now well-practised at demonstrating the value of their projects in plain language.

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

See above: the incredibly onerous application forms. Even when re-applying with a similar application in successive years, researchers have to spend months on the wording not just of the main project description, but in detailed acts of self-presentation in multiple ways through the ROPES, and then through detailed and somewhat repetitive versions of the descriptions of funding items.

The ROPES in particular were made worse in recent years by the use of the on-line publication lists, which are very unfriendly to humanities researchers, and produce stylistically confusing versions of what should be simple publication data.

The proposal that others have made, that researchers would be better off submitting short expressions of interest (2 page cv plus 2 page project description) and then only be required to submit full submissions if they pass that stage. Even then, the full submissions should be dramatically simplified.

The ARC requirements and time-frames are particularly baffling for international partner researchers and industry partners, and are a major barrier to research collaboration.

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.

See my previous comments about application processes promoting a grant-writing industry rather than genuine ideas and collaboration. Simplify. I'm not sure if the Act can do this, and it would require a major rethink.

One area that needs drastic reform is DECRA grant application. At present the bar is set incredibly high, and it is difficult for genuine early career researchers to get DECRAs. Greater weighting should be given to the project itself for DECRAs, and preference given to those who do not already have continuing positions, as at present many DECRAs go to those who already have such positions (and may even be at levels C or D!).

An additional element that disturbs the DECRA process is poaching of successful applicants. University A will put a lot of work into supporting an application of someone they want to become a continuing staff member, only to have that person poached by another university once the outcomes are announced.

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?

The ERA is a waste of time and money. The ERA is particularly opaque in its processes, and its outcomes are unsatisfactory. Good senior researchers spend an enormous amount of energy on the ERA processes for no real outcome.

ARC grants are already an indicator of one time of research excellence, and there is now a range of international ranking bodies that can be used to gauge the comparative standing of research fields. Any method will have its faults, as the international rankings do, but that is because measuring 'quality' is impossible. The ERA in some ways simply replicates what rankings do more broadly.

Rather than expanding the remit of the ARC, and thus building more potential for bureaucratic processes that waste the time of researchers, the ARC should focus on its core mission of research funding.

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?

The first two are not outcomes that can be 'data-ified'. The myth that data (and accompanying technology) will solve all our problems is seriously undermining the culture and purposes of academia. The best ways to achieve those results are qualitative: working through people who can exercise judgement to identify problems and gaps, and then working through good communicators who can narrate what research does to the public.

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?

In relation to 'research of global significance', one potential role would be for the ARC to partner with similar research bodies in other countries to identify areas of complementarity and gaps.

Submission received

14 December 2022

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