The federal government’s intervention in blocking research projects that would explore modern-day China, school students’ motivations to climate action and studies into English literature “beggars belief”, according to the head of one university which had two of the six grants vetoed by Acting Education Minister Stuart Robert on Christmas Eve.

Barney Glover, the vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University, said it was facile to suggest that any of the vetoed grants were not in the national interest.