ARC on application controversy: “we were not consulting universities on every mortal thing”

In Senate Estimates last week Kim Carr (Labor, Victoria) and Mehreen Faruqui (Greens, NSW) had questions about the Australian Research Council’s brief ban on citing pre-press research in grant applications

Which agency CEO Sue Thomas addressed .

For anybody just back from research office meetings on Mars, the agency’s ban was in updated rules but word did not reach 17 Future Fellow and 15 Discovery Early Career Researcher applicants who were excluded for referring to pre-prints – long used in physics and related disciplines.

Senator Faruqi asked a bunch of questions about the fairness and consistency of the assessment process, what with only one assessor pointing out breaches. Professor Thomas responded that appeals continue and “we need to let the process run its course.” So the senator asked about how the exclusion was adopted  in the first place. And Professor Thomas replied that the ARC introduced the ban to make rules consistent and thought it “was a small issue.”

“We did not consult on it, we were not consulting universities on every mortal thing in 2020, which was probably the most extraordinary year of our lives,” she said.

Which, strange to relate, did not deter Senator Faruqi from responding that the ban excluded 32 researchers and asking more questions.

Senator Carr addressed the same issues, and questioned at length how ARC processes could handle the council’s own error. And he suggested what the ARC might have to do – ask Education Minister Alan Tudge to fix its problem.

There are 28 appeals and as part of the process they are assessed to identify if they are in “fundable range.”

If any are, as Professor Thomas told Senator Fehruqi, “it would be a question of making a recommendation to the minister, who is still the decision maker on whether grants are funded.”