Faculty of Education, Southern Cross University

Name (Individual/Organisation)

Faculty of Education, Southern Cross University

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.

a. The scope of research funding supported by the ARC;
Yes, currently, the scope of ARC funding is defined by the CEO and approved by the minister and does not capture the ways in which the ARC acts to shape the research landscape in Australia. This is a bureaucratic rather than strategic approach to advancing Australia’s research potency. This type of decision making should be placed in the hands of a representative body that has direct engagement and insight into Australia’s research needs. There also needs to be more equity in distribution of grants to regional universities. Further, gender equity in terms of the under representation of women CIs needs to be seriously addressed, as does the scope across disciplines.

b. The balance of Discovery and Linkage research programs;
There should be opportunities to simplify the Act yet retain the commitment to this important balance to ensure Australia continues to invest in Discovery or fundamental research to underpin the remainder of the research ecosystem. The dominant source of Cat 1 funding for educational researchers is the Discovery program. For example, in educational research, from 2009-2017, nearly one-third of all projects had no partners, which, given the emphasis on industry focused research, is a concern for educational research in Australia.

c. The role of the ARC in actively shaping the research landscape in Australia; and/or
Government across Australia argue the importance of their ‘education systems’ as the foundation of a better Australia for all. There is a constant call for improved teaching and schooling as well as calls for them to respond to an increasing series of societal, ecological and cultural issues. If improvement is the agenda, a premium needs to be placed on funding education research at least on a par to that of other fields. For example, less than 2% of ARC grants fund educational research. Further, there has been a downward or flatlining trend since 2015 in success in Cat 1 grants across all educations FORs, for example, from 2009-2014 63.1 education (39) FoR projects were funded by the ARC. This decreased to 32.6 funded education (39) projects between 2015 and 2017. From 2018 through to 2023, 105 projects/fellowships were funded (average of 17.5 per year) where Education (39 or 13) was the primary FOR evidencing that ARC investment in educational research continues to remain low.

A key recommendation is that the ARC is split into two councils – essentially a humanities/social sciences council and science council. The current ARC system (as it concerns the humanities/social sciences) is failing education and its research in Australia. The Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) is a powerful funding agency in educational research, with a focus on partnerships and collaborations in supporting cutting-edge educational research. In educational research, SSHRC is considered the gold-standard of educational research investment, which has had prominent impacts on Canada’s education system and ultimately children and young people’s lives. Notable changes can also be observed in Canada’s world rankings in education, which can be linked directly to its investment in educational research (via SSHRC). In the case of Australia, the education system continually declines in international rankings, which is undoubtedly linked to the Government’s lack of investment in ARC educational research funding.

Furthermore, in the current ARC funding system there is a significant metropolitan/regional divide where regional universities are historically less successful in obtaining Cat 1 funding through the ARC, performing poorly in comparison to other Australian university groupings. Across all ARC schemes from 2009-2017, the Group of Eight (Go8) universities received 61% of all educational research (39 / 13) project/fellowship funding, while the Regional Universities Network (RUN) attracted 2% of all funding for education and related projects.

d. Any other functions? If so, what scope, functions and role? If not, please suggest alternative ways to clarify and define these functions.
Although women represent a high proportion of the teacher education (educational researcher) population workforce (two-thirds), they are not being awarded the same proportion of funding as their male counterparts. From 2009-2017, women led 54.1% and men 49.9% (education FOR research projects) which is not balanced because men only represent one-third of the education workforce in universities. In the context of the wider gender demographic of the educational research workforce, the system appears to be weighted towards men. In addition, 22.96% of male lead chief investigators or project leaders were from Go8 universities.

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 governance model is not adequate for the ARC to perform its functions; a different model is needed. A greater push is needed for ensuring ethical morals and equity. Values around the whole ARC application process through to the end need to be more transparent and clearer to academics, industry and the public. Re-establishing the ARC board (with modifications) to oversee the functions, scope and purpose of the ARC would be an effective way to strengthen governance and improve efficiency and ethics.

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?

It is critical that there are clearer definitions of the role of Executive Directors and the College of Experts including definitions of academic excellence and appropriate expertise would be helpful in improving the Act to ensure that peer review is high quality and that the College of Experts in particular has credibility within the research community (and fields of research), as well as greater transparency and accountability.

It is not uncommon for an ARC grant/fellowship application in educational research (FOR 39 / 13) to receive outstanding reviews (across 3-5 assessment reports) with no criticisms or improvements outlined, yet for the application to not be funded (ranking in the top 10% or 10-25%). This potentially signals a serious discrepancy between the reviewer rankings and the panel member rankings. Such practices are deeply problematic and do not duly uphold and respect the substantial expertise of the reviewers who are typically the field experts of the proposed grant/fellowship. In short, the reviewer assessment reports should ultimately determine whether the proposed project/fellowship is funded. Given the breadth of educational research and social sciences/humanities, panel member expertise is far too removed from many proposed funding applications and should not hold such significant weight in determining funding outcomes. For example, an 80% weighting of the reviewer assessment reports would be appropriate in educational research (and social sciences/humanities broadly), with a 20% weighting allocated to panel members to ensure appropriate moderation.

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.

Yes, not only is there strong support in the sector with respect to the significance of peer review in the grant approval process, confidence in approvals being at the discretion of the minister has been eroded in recent years, particularly in Education. Of particular importance is transparency in the grant approval process. Given the significant research expertise within the ARC, the discretionary power of the minister to ignore or intervene in the grant approval process is of deep concern.

As discussed in Question 3, it is not uncommon for an ARC grant/fellowship application in educational research (FOR 39 / 13) to receive outstanding reviews (across 3-5 assessment reports) with no critical comments or improvements outlined, yet for the application to not be funded (ranking in the top 10% or 10-25%). This potentially signals a serious discrepancy between the reviewer rankings and the panel member rankings. Such practices are deeply problematic and do not duly uphold and respect the substantial expertise of the reviewers who are typically the field experts of the proposed grant/fellowship. In short, the reviewer assessment reports should ultimately determine whether the proposed project/fellowship is funded. Given the breadth of educational research and social sciences/humanities, panel member expertise is far too removed from many proposed funding applications and should not hold such significant weight in determining funding outcomes. For example, an 80% weighting of the reviewer assessment reports would be appropriate in educational research (and social sciences/humanities broadly), with a 20% weighting allocated to panel members to ensure appropriate moderation.

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 National Interest Test has potential benefit in terms of enhancing public support for research funding through the ARC; however, the NIT is not necessarily well understood by the community. A clearer definition of the NIT would help with communication. Thoughtful use of National benefit in the criteria for the NIT may be an effective way forward to achieve this. Particularly given the Discovery focus on research that may not have a clear, immediate application to National Interest.

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

Uncertainty regarding timelines, particularly announcements of grant funding, is a considerable challenge, as are the prescriptive financial requirements, variations and approvals.

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.

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?
The ARC is far too competitive and has not nearly enough collaborative and partnership focus. It would be very helpful to have clarity about the focus and process of the ARC on how cross-university-industry partnerships might be better facilitated and coordinated by the ARC to increase research collaboration between research teams doing the same type of research projects rather than increasing competition between Australian universities.

As recommended in Question 1, a key recommendation is that the ARC is split into two councils – essentially a humanities/social sciences council and science council. The current ARC system (as it concerns the humanities/social sciences) is failing education and its research in Australia. The Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) is a powerful funding agency in educational research, with a focus on partnerships and collaborations in supporting cutting-edge educational research. In educational research, SSHRC is considered the gold-standard of educational research investment, which has had prominent impacts on Canada’s education system and ultimately children and young people’s lives. Notable changes can also be observed in Canada’s world rankings in education, which can be linked directly to its investment in educational research (via SSHRC). In the case of Australia, the education system continually declines in international rankings, which is undoubtedly linked to the Government’s lack of investment in ARC educational research funding.

b. To the ARC Act to give effect to these process improvements, or do you suggest other means?
An EOI stage for Discovery and Linkage applications (among other new grant programs focussed on partnerships and collaborations) would streamline processes along with reducing administrative burden on individual researchers and on University research offices.

Please include examples of success or best practice from other countries or communities if you have direct experience of these.
The Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [SSHRC] includes a focus on research partnerships and development grants (connection program) – see https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/home-accueil-eng.aspx. At present, Canada is not only a world leading country in education but also in educational research and its corresponding investment.

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?

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?
Yes, but ERA in its current form has outlived its usefulness. It has also been extremely labour-intensive. Educational research has historically been rated poorly in ERA. For example, educational research received an average rating across all universities of 2.2 in 2010 and 2.4 in 2012 – these ratings are considered below world standard. This is likely due to the focus on peer review in the assessment of educational outputs, in addition to pre-conceived values placed on any given university (noting that regional universities are often ranked poorly in ERA, yet have world-standard field-weighted citation indexes). It is well acknowledged that a citation-based system in educational research would yield higher (and ultimately more equitable) rankings in educational research. Additionally, a prospective approach and what that might look like might be worth exploring.

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?
Research metric-based approaches may be more useful, efficient and equitable. However, this would be very dependent on the metrics selected to be included. For example, many current metrics favour particular research disciplines at the expense of HASS.

c. Should the ARC Act be amended to reference a research quality, engagement and impact assessment function, however conducted?
As long as the Act does not specify a particular approach to assessing research quality, engagement and impact. For example, it is not uncommon for scientific research to list ‘education’ as a benefit (or impact) of such scientific research, yet such benefit (in the way of educational research and impact) is not readily included as part of the grant and in that sense any benefit or impact is largely superficial. Climate change education is an important example here, noting that only one ARC grant has been funded in climate change education (FOR 39). There is an opportunity in both the sciences and social sciences/humanities to collaborate in transdisciplinary ways which align and assess research quality, engagement and impact.

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?
Yes, see response above.

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?

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?
This capability can be significantly enhanced by redefining and expanding expertise. While academic/research expertise is a given in processes, capability needs to be expanded to include leading education practitioners (consumer groups) and ‘others’ who have specific expertise and experience in situational problem areas. This strengthens the evaluation from an application fit to real-world problem circumstances and within various education settings and situations, creating a balance between the technical and application merit of research. This type of approach has the potential to significantly enhance the value and excellence of Australian research especially when this expertise is expanded to various societal demographics, particularly those who are underrepresented in such areas.

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?
When one redefines and expands ‘expertise’ in an ARC sense, as outlined previously, new ideas are afforded and generate the potential for a refocusing of priorities, process, merit and research value, and this has significant benefit for various stakeholders. Creating positions within the ARC establishment to enable this expertise diversity would be a key consideration, as would generating and sustaining research networking communities to enable the engineering of approaches to sharing best practices and identifying national gaps and opportunities.

c. Would a data-driven methodology assist in fulfilling this purpose?
Having data systems which enable the identification and evaluation of capability provisions and profiles can be effective tools in such processes, however it is important to ensure the methodology supports the desired outcomes and not create circumstances that hinder these new capabilities.

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?

This review is timely. Australia, as a member of a highly technology intensive globalised society is facing a myriad of challenges, but is equally positioned for opportunities. Research is key to creating, identifying and tapping such opportunities and accordingly, a refocusing of the ARC into education research is now an urgent matter. The education system is the cornerstone of Australia’s prosperity and the future of young people and for too long ‘education’ has not been prioritised for research funding. This is a significant contrast to the rhetoric of Government policy positions, and it needs to be rectified as a matter of urgency.

Submission received

14 December 2022

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