Canberra dumps much-maligned RQF

THE new Rudd Government announced today it would scrap the much-maligned Research Quality Framework.

THE new Rudd Government announced today it would scrap the much maligned Research Quality Framework.

Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr said the government had cancelled RQF because it was fundamentally flawed.

"The RQF is poorly designed, administratively expensive and relies on an impact measure that is unverifiable and ill-defined," he said.

Senator Carr said the Rudd Government was committed to a new streamlined, internationally-recognised, research-quality assurance process using metrics or other agreed quality measures appropriate to each research discipline.

"This approach will take advantage of the existing work that has been done on metrics development but also make sure that robust quality measures are developed for the humanities, creative arts, and the social sciences," he said.

Universities will still receive the $15.6 million previously promised for the 2008 RQF project, he said.

The news was welcomed by universities across the country.

University of Adelaide Vice-Chancellor Professor James McWha says the RQF has been "a huge waste of taxpayers' money and universities' money and time".

Monash University vice-chancellor Richard Larkins said  the RQF was cumbersome and weighed down by an inadequate methodology.

University of Technology, Sydney vice-chancellor Ross Milbourne said the abolition of the RQF would reduce the universities' workloads, but added that he had serious concerns about Labor's replacement.

Professor Milbourne said the new scheme should use a form of peer-panel assessment, not just metrics, for creative arts and humanities research. It should also recognise the social and economic impact of research, not just where it was published, he said.

Shadow Innovation, Industry, Science and Research minister Eric Abetz said Senator Carr had previously expressed support for a more "subjective" form of measuring research.

"Senator Carr has a lot of work to do to demonstrate that this subjective measurement of research Labor will implement is more effective than the RQF he is scrapping."