The Innovative Research Universities of Australia (IRUA), the Australian Technology Network (ATN) and the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) Voice their Views Regarding the Proposed Research Quality Framework (RQF). (May 5, 2005)

    Previously the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee has taken exception to the format of the Issues Paper that was published by the Department of Education, Science and Training as advised by its Expert Advisory Group (EAG). It wrote to the EAG's Chairman, Oxford University's Sir Gareth Roberts, "During their discussions the committee expressed their concern about the way the issues paper appears to have been written so as to elicit 'tick a box' responses. One feature of the discussions - which highlights the perceived deficiencies in the approach employed in the paper - was the way some committee members agreed on an issue but disagreed on how they would indicate their position in the spectrum of responses provided. The committee was concerned that the 'tick a box' format would not produce meaningful results for some of the questions.

    "As a consequence, we believe that any analysis of submissions in the issue paper should focus primarily on written comments, rather than ticks in boxes."

Now the IRUA (Flinders, Griffith, La Trobe, Macquarie, Murdoch universities and the University of Newcastle) have in answer to:

Issue 1: How should an RQF be applied to universities and publicly funded research agencies?

    (b) Within the university sector, an RQF should be applied differentially to specific types of institutions.

Strongly agreed. and adds "Many lessons can be learned from overseas research assessment experiences, including the avoidance of a one-size-fits-all approach," because, "[u]niversities are increasingly pursuing distinctive missions [and] the RQF should reward research of all kinds."

And The Australian goes on to report that "The IRUA is lukewarm in its response to the question of the role that users and those commissioning research should play in assessment of the research."

Whereas the group of six universities that make up the IRUA see themselves as being at a disadvantage should there be a single set of criteria for applying the RQF the five schools that make up the ATN (Curtin University of Technology, the University of South Australia, RMIT University, the University of Technology, Sydney, and Queensland University of Technology) according to The Australian submit in reply to issue 1 that the RQF should be applied uniformly to all universities. "To apply it differentially would be to create, de facto, a multi-tiered higher education system."

FASTS also comes down on the side of uniformity

Issue 1: How should an RQF be applied to universities and publicly funded research agencies?

(a) An RQF should be applied in the same way to both universities and publicly funded research agencies.  Strongly agree
 

(b) Within the university sector, an RQF should be applied differentially to specific types of institutions.  Strongly disagree

The federation then adds:

If the RQF is to be transparent, acceptable, effective and encourage positive behaviours it should apply the same range of assessment criteria to all publicly funded research activities in universities and relevant PFRAs that meet the criteria for R&D as set out in a revised ABS Australian Standard Research Classification.
FASTS does not support quarantining institutions, fields of study or disciplines from the RQF.
FASTS strong support for a comprehensive approach is conditional on;

1. the intent being to evaluate the quality and impact of research performed by research groups (refer issue 6), not institutions or individual researchers,

2. the RQF having sufficient flexibility to take account of different research practices, outputs, methodologies and impacts both between and within disciplinary and cross-disciplinary R&D; and

3. any resource allocation that flows from an RQF is sensitive to both the mission of the R&D organisation, and local, regional, national and international needs and opportunities. If these conditions are met then FASTS does not believe there are any compelling reasons why universities and relevant PFRAs should not participate in the RQF as a requirement of receiving public funding for R&D.

There is a case, however, for institutions not to submit some research activities for expert assessment if the research activity or group is still in its infancy or a research group is in the process of being wound up. In the case of an emerging or minor research area it may be appropriate to specify relevant funding thresholds beneath which peer assessment is not required (eg $50,000) and/or time frames (eg 3 years). Different minima may be required for different broad fields of research.