The Forum > Article Comments > Abolish the ARC > Comments
Abolish the ARC : Comments
By Paul Collits, published 19/9/2013The 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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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.