The Australian Research Council is broken say Group of Eight unis

Funding body the Australian Research Council is broken and needs a full overhaul, say the Group of Eight universities.

Funding body the Australian Research Council is broken and needs a full overhaul, say the Group of Eight universities.

Australia’s elite research universities have called for a full overhaul of major government research funding agency the Australian Research Council.

In its submission to a Senate committee examining a bill that would prevent ministers vetoing research grants recommended by the ARC, the Group of Eight universities backed the legislation but said reform needed to go much further.

“The legislation under consideration, while important, is tinkering at the edges of an outdated funding system which is long overdue for review and is tackling only one symptom of deeper underlying issues,” the Go8 universities say in their submission.

Go8 chief executive Vicki Thomson said a root-and- branch review of the ARC was needed.

“In our view the current model is broken,” Ms Thomson said.

The Go8 universities receive about 70 per cent of the nearly $800m in research funding that the ARC allocates each year.

In its submission on the bill the Go8 said the decade-long decline in the real value of ARC funding needed to be addressed.

It also called for the formal adoption of the Haldane principle, an international best practice “to ensure the allocation of public funding for individual research proposals are best taken following evaluation by an independent council of experts and not directly by a government department or minister”.

The bill, titled Australian Research Council Amendment (Ensuring Research Independence) Bill, introduced into the Senate by Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi last year, would remove the power of the minister responsible for the ARC to veto the agencies grant recommendations.

Three recent Coalition education ministers – Stuart Robert, Dan Tehan and Simon Birmingham – have all used their power to veto ARC grants, arousing the ire of universities and the research community.

In its submission Universities Australia, which represents 39 universities, also backed the bill’s proposal to remove the minister’s power to veto ARC recommendations on research grants.

“If the Senate decides that ministerial decision-making on individual research applications should continue, then a predictable, transparent and informed process (should) be in place for those decisions,” UA said.

Other universities, as well as learned academies and science bodies, also have called for the end of the ministerial power to veto grants recommended by the ARC.

In submissions to the injury the Academy of Social Sciences said: “This change would also bring Australia into alignment with the practice of research funding bodies in the UK, Europe and North America.”

The Australian Academy of Science said if the minister does veto a grant, an explanation should be given to parliament within 15 sitting days.

It criticised the recent decision by Acting Education Minister Mr Robert to veto ARC grants on the basis of “national interest” and “value for money”.

“Using the ministerial veto as a de facto national interest test is inappropriate: it lacks transparency and clarity. Notably, it may not be appealed,” the academy said.

The Australian Academy of the Humanities said it was “deeply concerned” that the education minister had the power to reject the ARC’s recommended funding proposals,

It said the national interest test on funding, introduced by Mr Tehan, “put a political frame around the creation of new knowledge” that was at odds with the rigour applying to other parts of the funding process.

“The system currently has no checks and balances to ensure that the veto power cannot be used arbitrarily on personal preference or political grounds,” the academy said in its submission.