Anonymous #40

Name (Individual/Organisation)

Anonymous #40

Responses

Q1. How could the purpose in the ARC Act be revised to reflect the current and future role of the ARC?

For example, should the ARC Act be amended to specify in legislation:
(a) the scope of research funding supported by the ARC
(b) the balance of Discovery and Linkage research programs
(c) the role of the ARC in actively shaping the research landscape in Australia
(d) any other functions?

If so, what scope, functions and role?

If not, please suggest alternative ways to clarify and define these functions.

Too few fellowships are offered

Q5. Please provide suggestions on how the ARC, researchers and universities can better preserve and strengthen the social licence for public funding of research?

All publicly funded research — whether funded through the ARC or otherwise — should be open access so it can benefit all Australians.

All researchers should be required to transparently disclose potential conflicts of interest more readily, especially those arising from research funding (e.g. accepting funding from the gambling industry).

Q6. What elements of ARC processes or practices create administrative burdens and/or duplication of effort for researchers, research offices and research partners?

The application process for ARC grants is absurdly labour intensive. Something really must be done about it. Comparable international schemes (e.g. Marsden in NZ) are much less labour intensive.

It is not at all clear that the current process picks the most meritorious applicants. This is not a criticism of the process — it is an observation that doing this is very difficult and subjective to assess. A shorter, less labourious process may do just as well if not better.

The current process is a massive drain on public funds. Perhaps the single biggest improvement to the productivity of the academic research sector would be to abolish the ARC entirely and give all related research and administrative funds to the universities to disburse on research using their own procedures.

Whatever the outcome of this ARC Review, a separate public review of the application and assessment process for ARC funds should be held as a priority.

Reducing the workload required of applicants, research offices, ARC officials, reviewers and carriage assessors should be made a priority.

Submission received

14 December 2022

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