Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 3:26:51 to 3:35:31
The Australian Research Council details its grant assessment processes, the role of peer review, and the transition to a new board-led governance model.
Topics: Education, Grants administration
Speakers: Speaker 24, Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Unknown Speaker, Anthony Murfett, Speaker 2
>> I that I'm also welcoming Professor Shold who's clearly not at the table.
>> Yes. So, unfortunately, his car broke down on the way to >> So, he's now somewhere in the bush in a rental car and hasn't made it. So, he sends his deepest apology.
>> Okay. [laughter] All right. Well, we hope he's okay. um getting help. Uh in which case, Professor Ross, um do you have an opening statement? No. >> Great. Okay, then. Um Senor Sullivan, you have until 10:00.
>> Uh thank you very much and um appreciate the late hour and and you hanging around. So, sorry for the um been a little delayed in getting to you. So, I've only I do only have a a small number of questions, so I think we should finish on time. In any case, um I want to ask about grant GA5909. >> Do you want some time to look that up or or can I continue? >> Sorry,
>> Senator. Can you uh repeat the number,
>> Uh F. So, GA5909.
>> Uh Senator, we might have to look it up um because we won't have all the grants.
executive officer of the ARC. We'll see if we can find the details of it, but if you have a description of
>> Sure. >> the the title, >> the title is coffee life worlds in a >> So, I'll I'll read the description of it, which might give you some time as well to to look it up. So under this grant uh there's 1.17 million awarded to the University of Sydney for this project called coffee life worlds in a changing climate says that the project aims to and I quote uncover how multiecies approaches offer new ways of intervening in the relations between agriculture, sustainability, climate justice and resilience at a time of intensifying ecological degradation. and vulnerability. Why should taxpayers pay 1.17 million for this when government is already spending uh or government spending I should say is destroying our economy by driving up inflation.
>> This would be normally a question for professor >> she go get him on the phone. Does his car phone still work in his car? >> Responsibility to oversee um our um rigorous um peerreview assessment process because the board makes ultimately decisions on on funding outcomes. Um so he would definitely ensure you that that the ARC has in place a very rigorous peerreview assessment process taking consideration expert reviewers from the academic world as well as our college expert members who are a subcommittee of the board. Um so grants are assessed based on their uh research excellence um national benefit um feasibility etc. So there's very clear assessment criteria that are um assessed against um and that leads to a funding recommendation.
>> So are you saying though that you're not in a position now to uh give me justification for that expenditure and why why this particular project received money? uh you know uncover how multiecies approaches offer new ways of intervening in the relations between agriculture, sustainability, climate justice and the like. Is it
>> so we would not be able to have insight of the 6,000 grants we're holding individually. Um so that's why we're running a rigorous expert assessment review. So a number of experts have assessed this u um project in very much detail and have assessed it as excellent
about grant GA 589824 this is 1.33 million to the University of Technology Sydney for a study of homicidal corporations. Why are we spending money on homicidal
>> Seems like
>> deputy chief executive officer of the
the the ARC is established with the board and one of the big premises of the board is to ensure we run a a rigorous doing. And we're going to do that in two we're that we're doing as well is that what the board often does is make sure
when when just understand your processes when a decision is made to grant toward the grant to the applicant uh do do you not record a statement of uh any sort of statement as to why the decision was made uh to award that grant like as in um ARC's decision to and reasons.
>> So the ARC does not make the decision the board makes the decision. >> So the process is that there's a minutes
must
>> Yeah. Every application is sent to a number of expert reviewers which are experts in the field. They're called detailed assessors. They return an assessment report and a scoring. And then we have the college of experts. Two of those members are also taking care of each of the proposals, assess them as well and rank them as well resulting in a ranked list of proposals. If there's 2,000 applications, you have a ranked list. Um the top ranked ones normally um are considered highly competitive and are not further discussed and there's a middle band which are much more proposals than we can fund because of um financial you know the size of the pot is much smaller than what we what we could fund. Um and then there's a selection advisory panel um which is comprised of college of expert members in their disciplinary field. So there are five disciplinary panels who look at those proposals um who are competitive but too many to be funded and to select the the best of those >> that's the current process going forwards we are developing new assessment