There should be restrictions on access to Australian Research Council grants, the Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities argues in its submission to the ARC’s forthcoming review of Linkage and Discovery programmes

DASSH calls for a ban on researchers holding multiple grants at once, “nor to receive them serially for 10-15 years as is currently the case.”

“This practice has created a full-time researcher cohort that consumes most of the public funding that is denied to the majority of academic teaching researchers, contributing to the loss of holistic teaching-research nexus in universities,” the DASSH submission states.

And it calls for a “better balance between the record of established research and creative new ideas, methods and approaches.”

“Currently there is too much emphasis on track record and not enough on fresh thinking and potential. Revisit the peer review process, which can often feel compromised in terms of conflicts of interest or not related to the proposed research.”

“Equity factors” should also be central to assessment of applications, “in order to support more equitable outcomes in universities and therefore society more generally as academies are the makers and shapers of culture/s.”

Among a sweeping set of suggestions, DASSH also calls for,

* three new Indigenous-led research programmes in the Linkage, Future and Laureate fellowship schemes.

* more support for transdisciplinary research, variously by a new grants scheme and transdisciplinary members in the advisory College of Experts

* a small grants programme. “ Currently, the most successful HASS researchers win far more money than they need, while the majority of researchers, particularly those outside the G08, struggle to gather the basic fieldwork materials or research assistance.”