Research chief rejects criticism of grants

THE head of the Australian Research Council has accused Andrew Robb of picking on projects without understanding the detail.

Andrew Robb

THE head of the Australian Research Council has hit back at opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb's criticism of grant decisions, accusing him of picking on projects without understanding the detail.

Universities Australia backed ARC boss Aidan Byrne, arguing that Mr Robb's attack on some projects was akin to buying wine based only on a label.

But Mr Robb's call for research funding to be better focused was supported by Doug Hilton, director of major medical research institute the Melbourne-based Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

"It isn't unreasonable for the government to set research priorities in areas that they think are strategically important," Professor Hilton said.

Professor Hall also called for a shake-up in the way funding was awarded, saying it was "just dumb" that medical research institutes weren't eligible to compete with universities for ARC grants, but were limited to grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

He noted that medical research by mathematicians and chemists could end up missing out on funding because neither the ARC nor the NHMRC believed it was in their remit.

The commonwealth government has set four very broad research priorities that the ARC aims to meet, but such priorities are not specific criteria for its research grants.

Of the $254 million in ARC discovery grants announced for next year, $22m worth of grants, or about 9 per cent, failed to fall into either of the broad criteria.

Mr Robb said ARC money was being wasted on questionable projects.

However, Professor Byrne said grants were highly competitive and winners went through robust review processes.

Only about 20 per cent of applicants win a grant.

"It is unfortunate that some critics randomly pick short titles of projects and infer that they aren't useful research," Professor Byrne said.

"I advise critics to take the time to understand the research projects and not make assumptions from project titles."

One $210,000 project from last year's grant round criticised by Mr Robb was titled "Investigation of the early history of the moon", a biochemistry project on planet formation.