Alistair McCulloch

Name (Individual/Organisation)

Alistair McCulloch

Responses

Q10. Having regard to the Review’s Terms of Reference, the ARC Act itself, the function, structure and operation of the ARC, and the current and potential role of the ARC in fostering excellent Australian research of global significance, do you have any other comments or suggestions?

One of the major gaps in the Australian research funding ecosystem is the lack of a program of small grants of the sort that would support researchers in disciplines and on topics requiring time but little in the way of large-scale equipment as is common in the Arts, Humanities and some of the Social Sciences.

Such a program would be likely to assist Early Career Researchers in particular, and also researchers looking to undertake investigatory research or small-scale projects, and might be expected to lead in some cases to larger-scale projects of the sort funded though Discovery Grants.

Small research grants would also produce research outputs which are valuable in their own right. Experience shows they usually represent very good value for money.

Examples of this sort of program exist internationally and include those run by the British Academy, the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the US National Institutes of Health’s R03 small grant scheme.

Such a scheme would be of great assistance to a significant proportion of Australia’s researchers, would improve the lot of Early Career Researchers and Early Career Academics considerably, and help consolidate and enhance Australia’s reputation, capacity and capability in an area crucial to the maintenance of a vibrant and robust civil society and democracy.

I strongly recommend that the Review considers and adopts as one of it recommendations the development of a program of small grants.

Submission received

05 December 2022

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