Australian National Fabrication Facility

Name (Individual/Organisation)

Australian National Fabrication Facility

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.

ARC’s role in fostering fundamental and applied research in universities, enhancing national research collaboration, providing career paths for researchers, and ensuring that Australia has the necessary expertise to adapt to a changing world environment. Capture of the benefits of promising fundamental research should be included in ARC’s remit, as should ensuring Australia’s continuing reputation as an innovative nation. Specifically, in answer to the questions posed:
a) A clear indication of ARC’s role in supporting Australia’s R&D activities
b) Giving a specified balance between Discovery and Linkage research programs in the revised Act is probably too fine grained as there is the provision in the current Act to subdivide support areas and this provision seems to have worked in the past.
c) This should be an important function of ARC but it is a modest player in terms of financial support of national R&D and should engage in the reshaping of Australia’s research landscape through collaborative means perhaps through the Prime-Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council or under the guidance of Australia’s Chief Scientist. The leveraging of international funding schemes could also be incorporated.
d) It needs to be appreciated that ARC provides essential support for research in the humanities and social sciences which are essential for an informed and cohesive national community which values scholarship. This aspect needs to be covered in the section of the updated Act defining the role of the ARC. In addition, the support for non-traditional career paths (Translational/entrepreneurial etc) would provide clear indications of how Australia should expand its ideas around how to support and use research.
ANFF believes that the ARC is a crucial component of the research funding landscape and as such has a leadership role in ensuring that Australia has a healthy research sector. This includes strong support of both the fundamental and applied areas of research. This balance should support a consistent and stable funding strategy to ensure that fundamental discoveries are generated (Discovery scheme) that can lead to IP generation that can be further developed towards benefits to Australia (a development scheme, Linkage scheme).
In addition, the funding dedicated to the applied end of the research spectrum should reflect the prevailing national priorities.

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.

Under the present Act, the ARC is a Statutory Agency. The role of the CEO is defined in the Act. There is a designated committee appointed by the Minister to assist the CEO and this committee may be dissolved at any time. The present committee is primarily comprised of senior academics drawn from the Australian university system.
ANFF does not have a strong view on the governance model for the ARC (Ministerial supported by an Advisory Committee or Corporate Structure with a Board) but acknowledges that the support of public sector research in Australia covers a wide range of disciplines that have very different R&D profiles and support needs. ANFF is a NFP company limited by guarantee and has an independent board. This structure has worked very well in strategically aligning the NRI investments in the area of fabrication to support the principles of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and for the collective benefit of Australia.
Moreover, the current preponderance of senior academics on the designated committee and their potential impermanence may cast the committee more in the role of a compliance body rather than a group that explores the ARC’s role in the totality of R&D activity in Australia. It is ANFF’s feeling that such an advisory committee or board should be smaller and contain representation from other sectors of the Australian research diaspora.
Should an independent board be established to assist in the work of the ARC, we would suggest that input from the National Research Infrastructure (NRI) community is critical. As a major partner for research undertaken across the ARC spectrum, consultation with NRI would provide immense value in consideration of appointments to the board by the Minister, and indeed in terms of experience of the board itself. This would be key when considering infrastructure grants but would provide value across the different areas of the ARC’s remit.
Diverse skillsets and experiences should be incorporated on a board of this type to ensure the optimal operation of the governance function.

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?

There would not seem to be a need for this at the level of the Act itself if the mission of ARC is clearly enunciated. The CEO presumably has the ability to select the necessary support staff with appropriate backgrounds within the operational budget provided. At possible issue is whether the ARC headquarters group should include those with specific disciplinary knowledge as happens in international agencies like NSF.
The expertise to provide excellent peer review exists, both here in Australia and overseas if needed. The search for, and recruitment of, this expertise needs to be resourced adequately to ensure quality is maintained. It would seem reasonable to require all applicants for an ARC grant to express willingness to be involved in a positive way in the peer review process and to offer some small inducement to offshore contributors. Again, research infrastructure expertise is a crucial element of the expertise needed to contribute to quality peer review.
How could this be done without the Act becoming overly prescriptive?
Diversity should be a part of the balancing of the expertise for review.

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.

ANFF is supportive of the peer review system. The over-riding importance of peer review as the agent for the award of ARC grants could be unequivocally established by indicating in the introduction to the Act that ARC is designed to support a peer-reviewed grant scheme. There are ways in which it could be enacted to decrease unconscious bias (blind reviews etc) but we believe that the ARC is aware of the shortcomings of this system and are working to address them. However, peer review is the best system to fully evaluate the merits of research and the recommendations it produces should be respected. When properly instructed, peer reviewed recommendations should not hold any issue for any entity with oversight responsibilities. In addition, the various stages of the current peer review system provide quality peer review and address some of the shortcoming of other enactments of the peer review process.
Any interventions that override the peer review system should be rare and be completely transparent.

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

In his Statement of Expectations from the ARC for 2022 the Minister has indicated that the National Interest Test will continue to apply. It is ANFF’s view that this is sound policy as adherence to the Test helps maintain public recognition of the importance of public sector research in driving an innovative Australian society. The recent NCRIS Roadmap has shown that the many of the Challenges being faced by Australia are being effectively addressed by public sector research. ANFF supports work from fundamental to applied research. We acknowledge that many sections of the public will benefit from the projects that we support across the research landscape.
Recognition of this by the public is an important step in strengthening the social licence for public funding of research. It is reinforced by making news of successes and benefits from such research available to the public as in ANFF’s annual Casebook publications that highlights its clients most significant research outcomes. Ensuring that we tell the stories of how research will be used should not be at the cost of allowing for curiosity driven, fundamental research where the applications cannot, and should not, be known.
Making notable Australian research outcomes better known amongst secondary school students would also be beneficial. It is notable that in previous town-hall meetings to establish National Research Priorities, members of the public did not question the desirability of Australia’s having a strong commitment to public sector research supported by taxpayer funds.
If the National Interest Test is to be retained, it should also be able to incorporate fundamental research at its core. Fundamental research should be able to follow the path of discovery without having to develop a product before the first experiment is done. In addition, no funding decision should be taken on the basis of the NIT alone. The entire application is a long and involved process with the NIT being only one component of it and it should not be taken in isolation.

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

ANFF has no comment to make on this topic but has heard of concerns about these matters from its research users. They deserve further investigation.

Q7. What improvements could be made:

(a) to ARC processes to promote excellence, improve agility, and better facilitate globally collaborative research and partnerships while maintaining rigour, excellence and peer review at an international standard?

(b) to the ARC Act to give effect to these process improvements, or do you suggest other means?

Please include examples of success or best practice from other countries or communities if you have direct experience of these.

In Australia we have invested a substantial amount into NCRIS and ensured that Australia is well placed to compete on an equal footing internationally. It is crucial that all researchers are aware of what is available to them in terms of equipment, expertise and data across the full range of the NCRIS projects. To this end, ANFF would suggest that part of the grant application process to the ARC would ask the question, “Will you access NCRIS to support this research?”
Other questions that could also be included are;
• Which NCRIS projects do you plan to access?
• Have you included NCRIS access fees in your budget for this project?
• How will access to NCRIS accelerate this project and reduce the overall costs?
Currently the ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant funds are used to fund tools to support critical areas within the research landscape. Already many of these tools are placed within NCRIS facilities once procured. This is a situation that provides for the best use of the funds to purchase new equipment and the ongoing benefit of that investment. LIEF grant applications should require the inclusion of a plan for ongoing maintenance which involves being supported by an NCRIS project over the equipment lifetime ANFF would encourage consultation with NCRIS projects before LIEF applications are made, continued oversight from NCRIS projects around the procurement of new LIEF tools and, where appropriate, the ongoing management of those tools through the open-access philosophy of NCRIS.
Including NRI experts in the evaluation of LIEF applications will also provide benefits to minimise duplication and maximise overall value. LIEF applications need to show that the facilities do not already exist or are not already available within the NRI context.
Regarding the promotion of excellence, ANFF notes the extensive use of the citations metric as an easy way to rank the quality of research by way of its published outcomes. Whilst the EI process seeks to evaluate beneficial, collaborative outcomes of research, it is based on a submission by institutions of limited outcomes data. The ARC should perhaps conduct a closed loop process that evaluates the beneficial outcomes of each ARC-funded project as a necessary prerequisite to further funding in the same disciplinary area. The College of Experts, suitably augmented where appropriate, could take on this task and provide feedback to applicants and institutions. Such an approach is a feature of overseas public sector funding agencies. However, the time lag between initial research and the outcomes from that work needs to be factored into any evaluation approach.

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?

There is clear desirability from the viewpoint of promoting quality in research and dissemination of its outputs in having mechanisms like ERA and EI. But outcomes should clearly be tied to benefits to university research by way of components of the research block grant. ARC is the correct Statutory Agency to make these evaluations. Caution is expressed over the exclusive use of a data-driven metric that fails to include the evaluation of the beneficial outcomes of individual research projects that have been supported in previous grant rounds as international experience suggests that the most effective researchers are those who have achieved good outcomes in the past. To develop national research competence, effective training and early career support for promising academics is required.
The hosting and/or support of NRI should be seen as a quality measure for institutions. The acknowledgment of use of various parts of the NRI system should be incorporated into any case study approach in order to fully acknowledge the many structures that support the development of research excellence and the support of increased impact.

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?

If the ARC were to use its experts to evaluate the outcomes of all completed projects and schemes and publish a summary of these by institution and possibly by overall FoR on an annual basis it would be helpful to potential collaborators and end-users alike. ANFF has developed a Research Compendium that directs external parties having an interest in specific nanotechnology products to researchers holding ARC grants. This is considered valuable but the missing link is whether funded projects have been judged to be satisfactorily completed. Industry partners and collaborators should have a greater role in assessing the value of research outcomes.

Impact of all Commonwealth funded programs is a key metric. Providing criteria and metrics and best practise to other schemes might be of value.

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?

As a national research funding entity for public sector research, the ARC in its present form provides a valuable national resource. While the success rate of applications is low and researchers expend considerable resources in securing grants, it currently promotes a high level of national research attainment. What is lacking is strong national collaboration - between support agencies (NCRIS, NHMRC, DISR, Commonwealth and State Agencies, and Industry) so that the beneficial outcomes of ARC-funded research is adequately captured. Is this an additional role for ARC?

Submission received

14 December 2022

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