Research grants to ‘break the cycle of Australia Day antagonism’: Dan Tehan

Dan Tehan will attempt to ‘break the cycle of Australia Day antagonism’ with millions in nation-focussed research grants.

Education Minister Dan Tehan said he had become increasingly concerned that taxpayers were funding research projects into ‘exotic international topics’ at the ­expense of ‘studies into our country and our people’. Picture: AAP

Education Minister Dan Tehan will attempt to “break the cycle of Australia Day antagonism” with millions of dollars earmarked for ­research projects focusing on the ­nation’s society, history and ­culture.

Declaring “we need fewer people telling us what to think” as ­“Invasion Day” protests were held in some cities, the minister said $12m would fund more than 40 individual projects amid concerns of a dearth of research into uniquely Australian issues.

An audit of the Australian Research Council’s discovery grants, the nation’s primary competitive grants scheme, showed that just 3 per cent of grants were for projects dealing with Australian ­society, history or culture.

Mr Tehan, who in 2018 introduced a national interest test into the ARC grants process, said he had become increasingly concerned that taxpayers were funding research projects into “exotic international topics” at the ­expense of “studies into our country and our people”.

He has called for a better understanding of “who we are, where we have come from and the events that have shaped us”.

Writing exclusively in The Australian, he says rather than people “telling us what to think … we need more knowledge and information to help us understand our past for ourselves.

“Knowledge of our history will help us break the cycle of Australia Day antagonism. Reconciliation will not come from ignorance.”

The issue of research grants has become highly politicised in the wake of a decision by Mr Tehan’s predecessor Simon Birmingham to veto $4.1m of ARC-approved university research grants covering topics that included a history of men’s dress, gender norms in China and “post-orientalist arts in the Strait of ­Gibraltar”.

The intervention sparked outrage, with Labor claiming there was no justification for Senator Birmingham’s “blatant political interference” and the Australian Academy of Humanities expressing “shock and anger”, claiming that it undermined trust and confidence in the system.

Mr Tehan later reinstated several of the grants and announced that a national interest test would apply to future applications.

According to the minister, the government was providing record funding for academic research over the next four years.

He said that Australian research was generally of high quality but it needed to be moulded for the benefit of the Australian community.

“This special research initiative will encourage academics to pursue research into Australian society, history, culture, literature, art, music, politics and geography,” Mr Tehan said.

“It will cover all aspects, from our ancient Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander beginnings to modern-day Australia. We don’t fund research to serve the interests of individual academics; we fund research to generate new knowledge that serves our country. We all will benefit from more research, more diversity of views, more debate and more new knowledge about Australia.”