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The Forum > Article Comments > Abolish the ARC > Comments

Abolish the ARC : Comments

By Paul Collits, published 19/9/2013

The ARC has created a culture of competing for research funding which subverts the purpose of universities and distorts their funding models.

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Prompete, I have no idea why you are bringing climate change into it - the article was about the merits or otherwise of competitive funding of research vs just giving the universities more money and seeing what they do with it.

But seeing as you care, 597 of the 3425 ARC Discovery Project applications last year claimed to address in some way the National Research Priority Area "An Environmentally Sustainable Australia," of which 120 (or 20.1%) were actually funded. Conversely, 1370 applications fell under "Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries" of which 315 (22.99%) were funded. See URL below. Alternatively you can read the abstracts of all 732 successful grants for last year and see them for yourself instead of making such clearly uninformed claims.

http://www.arc.gov.au/ncgp/dp/DP13_selrpt.htm#11
http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/DP13/DP13_Listing_by_all_State_Organisation.pdf

Back on topic, if there is a single thing that could be done to make Australian universities leaner and more competitive in both research and teaching it would be to abolish the concept of tenure (otherwise known as cushy academic job for life) altogether. I'm all for it, but Dr Collits sitting in a plum Associate Professorial position ($119k+ p.a.) might well not agree.
Posted by CJean, Thursday, 19 September 2013 4:56:07 PM
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CJean. Point taken. Frustration remains with 'non-ARC' finding submissions however. Off topic regarding this article.
Posted by Prompete, Saturday, 21 September 2013 6:47:49 AM
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Hmmm. Well according the Taleb (Black Swan, Penguin) most of our useful 'research' outcomes have been the result of serendipity.

If we knew what the research would uncover, then we wouldn't need to do it!

If we do know what we expect, then it's termed 'development'.

Government boards, committees etc. are a repository for rent seekers who are usually only authorised to say "no".

We need to get rid of the maze of parasitic committees to massively cut our costs and free Australians up to be creative doers, rather than tremulous worriers.
Posted by The Mikester, Sunday, 22 September 2013 3:44:24 PM
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