ConservationBytes.com

People outside Australia might not have heard about the (unfortunately, not unprecedented) intervention of the acting Minister for Education and Youth to deny funding to six Australian Research Council (ARC: Australia’s main scientific funding body) Discovery Grants that had been assessed and recommended for funding by the College of Experts. As an acting College of Expert member, I joined a long list of my fellow members in protest of this political interference, with whom I co-wrote/co-signed this letter published last week (the ARC Laureate fellows wrote an analogous open letter a few weeks before). I have copied the letter here for your viewing displeasure.

(letter originally posted here)

19 January 2022

To: The Hon Stuart Robert MP
Acting Minister for Education and Youth
stuart.robert.mp@aph.gov.au

CC: Professor Sue Thomas
CEO, Australian Research Council
ceo@arc.gov.au

As members of the Australian Research Council‘s (ARC) College of Experts, we write to express our concern over the Acting Minister for Education and Youth’s decision in late 2021 to reject six Discovery Project grants that were recommended for funding by the ARC.

As explained on its website, the ARC engages a College of Experts to play an essential role in identifying research excellence, in order to support the advancement of knowledge and contribute to national innovation. Its members are experts of international standing drawn from the Australian research community: from higher education, industry, and public sector research organisations. Many College of Experts members have extensive industry and community experience in addition to their specialist research expertise.

The quality of grant proposals submitted to the ARC is extremely high. The ARC runs a rigorous, multi-stage selection process. Each grant eventually recommended to the Minister for funding is first assessed by multiple international experts and multiple College members, and then individually discussed and voted on by College members at the Selection Advisory Committee panel meetings. The 19% of submitted proposals recommended for 2022 were therefore considered to be of the highest calibre measured against international standards for research across disciplines. Each was recommended on the strength not only of quality, innovation and feasibility, but also the wider benefit and value of the proposed research.