James Cook University

Name (Individual/Organisation)

James Cook University

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.

1. Scope and Purpose

The ARC Act needs to retain a broad definition of the ARC’s purpose and role so that scope to adapt to changing priorities and circumstances can be retained.

However, to ensure that the ARC funding is available for non-health and medical related disciplines and research, the scope of research funding supported by the ARC should be specified in a broad statement in the Act.

Additionally, a component of funding that is allocated to basic Discovery research should be preserved as part of ARC funding, however the exact balance need not be specified. This provides the opportunity for funding to be responsive to changing priorities and circumstances.

Whilst the ARC can and does take a role in shaping the research landscape in Australia, this should not be specifically defined as one of its core functions. If included in the Act we suggest a very broad wording of the ARC’s role.

Q2. Do you consider the current ARC governance model is adequate for the ARC to perform its functions?

If not, how could governance of the ARC be improved? For example, should the ARC Act be amended to incorporate a new governance model that establishes a Board on the model outlined in the consultation paper, or another model.

Please expand on your reasoning and/or provide alternative suggestions to enhance the governance, if you consider this to be important.

Governance and Management

The ARC needs to be able to operate as an independent, robust institution with good governance and management.

The ARC Act should be amended to ensure the CEO position is afforded the same security of position that the CEO of the NHMRC to support CEO independence.

Security of CEO tenure, along with the Haldane Principle, would indicate that an advisory committee could provide the necessary support for broad strategic direction for the organisation.

Q3. How could the Act be improved to ensure academic and research expertise is obtained and maintained to support the ARC?

How could this be done without the Act becoming overly prescriptive?

Academic Expertise and Peer Review

The Act needs to remain broad to allow the ARC to respond dynamically and function effectively within the confines of the Act.

A broad statement, similar to the Haldane Principle, to indicate that the ARC should seek advice and expertise from discipline experts could be included in the Act.

Q4. Should the ARC Act be amended to consolidate the pre-eminence or importance of peer review?

Please provide any specific suggestions you may have for amendment of the Act, and/or for non-legislative measures.

Ministerial Approval

The Senate Estimates hearing in 2021 noted that removing Ministerial discretion would raise serious questions about whether the Minister could fulfil their obligations under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, and gave reasons for when a Minister may have access to information that the ARC may not (for example national security). The addition of provisions and requirements that set out the process for the Minister when requiring additional review of individual projects should be included in the Act, with public disclosure to the fullest extent possible.

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

Public demonstration of Research

The majority of grant proposals are assessed by discipline experts and not the general public. There is benefit to including information on why the research project is required and what benefits will deliver as long as this requirement does not place additional burden on researchers.

A better demonstration of the use of public funds is promoting and celebrating the outcomes of ARC funded research, particularly the long-funded Centres of Excellence. This would require administrative work on behalf of the ARC, but a showcase to the public of projects that were funded 5, 10, 15 and 20 years ago and the benefits they have delivered to society could increase the support for publicly funded research in Australia.

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

Administrative Burden

The ARC should conduct a full review of its administrative and funding processes with a focus on what, how and why they collect data and information from researchers and research offices. For example:

• A more streamlined application form for funding rounds would improve the burden on researchers/partners and research offices. There has already been a revision of the ARC Industry Fellowships Program (IFP) Grants requirements that reduces the information provided by researchers to this scheme. The ARC should review all their programs with a view to reduce the information burden provided by researchers to the ARC, in regard to what is really necessary for an assessor to review and rank proposals in a fair and timely manner.

• As noted in Q5 response, demonstration of the use of public funding could be enacted through better reporting mechanisms to the ARC. The burden on researchers with Final Report information is considerable and researchers are also unsure about how this information is used in any way to showcase their research outcomes or why the data is being collected.

Q8. With respect to ERA and EI:

(a) Do you believe there is a need for a highly rigorous, retrospective excellence and impact assessment exercise, particularly in the absence of a link to funding?

(b) What other evaluation measures or approaches (e.g. data driven approaches) could be deployed to inform research standards and future academic capability that are relevant to all disciplines, without increasing the administrative burden?

(c) Should the ARC Act be amended to reference a research quality, engagement and impact assessment function, however conducted?

(d) If so, should that reference include the function of developing new methods in research assessment and keeping up with best practice and global insights?

ERA and EI

Whilst assessment of institutions is important to ensure delivery of quality, participation in these assessment exercises is extremely time consuming for both academic and professional staff.
We suggest that the time (previously) spent by staff on these retrospective assessments could be used to better explore new opportunities with industry and community partners and assisting researchers to promote their research impacts. Additionally, we suggest that the delivery of quality research will (continue to) be determined by the market, via peer-reviewed funding bodies and industry and community funded partnerships.

Data-driven approaches largely benefit STEM fields and disadvantage those in HASS disciplines. Whilst data providers are working to include more HASS content in their databases, the authorship and citation patterns of HASS disciplines are also different and need to be considered. Additionally, even researchers within distinct sections of a discipline may report the results of their research in very different ways.
To determine if a data-driven approach is both feasible and equitable, we first need to understand what information we are seeking to obtain from the data and how we will use the proxy information provided by the data to conduct an assessment.

The ARC funds a very small proportion of the total research conducted by institutions, therefore, to specify that the ARC should conduct an assessment of research quality, engagement and impact across all research conducted and funded by all sources could be seen as inappropriate and not valuing the original intent of the funding. The ARC should focus on assessing the quality, engagement, and impact that results from its own funded research and use this information to increase the quality of funded research within Australia and lobby for other funding bodies to do the same. Any retrospective assessments should adopt timescales that match the expected impact of particular bodies of work.

If the ARC is required to undertake research assessments of institutions, then it should be required to be undertaking those assessments with an understanding of global best practice and insights, and how these are continually changing.

Q9. With respect to the ARC’s capability to evaluate research excellence and impact:

(a) How can the ARC best use its expertise and capability in evaluating the outcomes and benefits of research to demonstrate the ongoing value and excellence of Australian research in different disciplines and/or in response to perceived problems?

(b) What elements would be important so that such a capability could inform potential collaborators and end-users, share best practice, and identify national gaps and opportunities?

(c) Would a data-driven methodology assist in fulfilling this purpose?

The ARC could use its data analytics capability and access to data providers to provide commentary on the excellence of Australian research overall in disciplines or in specific research areas.
Specific analyses that the ARC could undertake with data previously collected as well as data from citation providers could include;

• Identifying outputs that have been co-authored by multiple Australian institutions
o Do these outputs have higher bibliometrics (i.e. RCI) compared to non co-authored publications?
o What institutions are collaborating (commonly)?
o Are there collaborations that could be established?

This could highlight and demonstrate the benefits of collaboration between Australian institutions.
A similar analysis could also be performed for outputs that are co-authored with non-academic entities; such as hospitals, medical research institutes, government and industry. This could demonstrate the collaborations that are occurring beyond academia and potentially leading to real-world impacts.
• Identifying outputs that reference funding from an ARC grant
o How many outputs?
o What was the quality, compared to World and Australian benchmarks?
This would identify the excellence specifically from ARC funded research.

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?

We would like to urge the ARC to deliver a planned, consistent, funding approach. This will give institutions the necessary time to consider which proposals to apply for and create the necessary collaborative relationships with industry, community, or institutional partners to increase the success of the proposal.

Submission received

14 December 2022

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