New Australian Research Council boss cracks down on grants

Red tape for research grants will be cut as the Australian Research Council backs ‘riskier’ projects.

New Australian Research Council chair Peter Shergold. NSW Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Red tape for research grants will be cut as the Australian Research Council backs “riskier’’ projects with stronger links between universities and industry.

The ARC revealed its “bold thinking’’ for a streamlined yet more rigorous National Competitive Grants Program in a discussion paper released at the Universities Australia conference in Canberra on Tuesday.

In pledging to cut “irrelevant red tape’’, it also flagged tighter conditions for grants totalling $1bn a year – especially those involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander spheres of research.

It proposes cutting the existing 15 categories of grants to six.

They will be renamed as initiate (for early-career researchers), ­realise Indigenous capability (reserved for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers), breakthrough (for new knowledge), collaborate (for researchers working with outside partners), prioritise (flagship grants for priority research fields) and lead and mentor (for established researchers to mentor PhD students).

“Conditions of grants need to be tightened,’’ an ARC document states. “All grants proposing to undertake research with Indigenous peoples, organisations or communities will in the future need to demonstrate the cultural capability and responsibility of ­research leaders to sustain ongoing engagement.

“Projects will need to show that they work with communities, rather than conducting research on communities.’’

The ARC says researchers often struggle to meet “onerous’’ requirements for grant applications. “Presently, universities are required to commit substantial resources to apply for, manage and monitor compliance of projects,’’ the document states.

“Public accountability is and will remain vital. It is important that researchers and their universities understand their obligation to provide assurance that funds are being spent in accord with the terms of the grant. However, this can be achieved without unnecessarily burdening researchers with irrelevant red tape.’’

ARC chairman Peter Shergold said some of the changes would be controversial. “We don’t believe that just tinkering at the margin is going to be adequate,’’ he said.

“The existing scheme over time has become too complex, too complicated, too administratively burdensome, both for the research applicants and for universities.

“There is within the existing scheme a level of red tape that is not required in order to ensure public accountability for grants.’’

Professor Shergold said the ­existing ARC demarcation of Discovery grants and Linkage grants “is often perceived as driving an unnecessary and problematic link between basic and applied ­research, rather than simply encouraging the very best, most inventive, most creative research’’.

He said the ARC had accepted feedback that it was “risk averse’’ in awarding taxpayer funding for research. “We’re being told … we are more likely to support existing paradigms of research, rather than encouraging new ways of investigating and interpreting evidence that may of course be riskier, but bring greater intellectual rewards over time,’’ he said.

He said the ARC would “defend and deepen vigorously’’ the method of peer review to identify the highest quality research for funding. “We need to do more to promote emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers, whatever the field they choose to work in,’’ he said.

“We need to support research which is particularly relevant to Indigenous people, whether or not it’s conducted by Indigenous or non-Indigenous researchers.

“We also need to ensure that Indigenous researchers are given a much greater opportunity to lead such research projects, and that Aboriginal communities are engaged deeply in the design and the undertaking of research.’’

He said the ARC needed to give early-career researchers a “leg up’’. But he also flagged more support for researchers who “have the courage to undertake research that continues to push the boundaries in our knowledge or to test widely accepted theories or interpretations’’. The ARC review was ordered by federal Education Minister Jason Clare, with a final report to be handed to government after the federal election.