News & Views item - May 2006

 

 

ANU Vice-Chancellor Declares RQF Flawed Beyond Resuscitation. (May 5, 2006)

   

ANU Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb

    At a recent postgraduate research conference in Glenelg, South Australia, the Australian National University's Vice-Chancellor, Ian Chubb told delegates the federal Government's proposed research quality framework (RQF) is so flawed it cannot be relied on to prudently redistribute resources away from universities with poor research performance.

 

Nevertheless, The Australian reports that Professor Chubb warned that Australia must move quickly to address research quality or risk becoming a backwater.

 

In an interview with The Australian he said, "We can't simply keep rearranging the deckchairs when the iceberg looms ahead; funding should flow to where the quality is found." He questioned whether universities should be funded at the same rate for each place and discipline whether or not they conducted research in the discipline, saying, "The levelling out that follows, the lack of serious questioning of educational and research standards, the extra cost burden imposed by research success, all compromise Australia's capacity to prepare for the uncertainties of the future."

 

And he told delegates at the conference, "We have to change course," but made it clear than he seriously questioned whether the RQF as it stood could effect such a change and certainly not without additional funding.

 

As reported by The Australian "Professor Chubb said the RQF, properly designed, could redirect money and student places to the most active research universities. This would undo that part of the Dawkins reforms that led to funds being clawed away from the pre-Dawkins universities to fund research in the new universities. 'So there is a lot at stake: for universities, for future HDR [higher degree by research] students, for the Government and, ultimately, for Australia.'"

 

Unfortunately left unanswered are the steps that need to be followed to transform the Australian tertiary educational/research sector into a high performance "organism".

 

Just for arguments sake, below are six point with which to open:

  1. Decide what are the appropriate number of research universities the nation should support as public institutions and where they should be located. For Australia perhaps it's 15 perhaps 20, but it's not 38 nor is it 8.

  2. There is a basic block grant support needed which should be progressively downsized as the overhead percentage for research grants is increased so as to meet the real costs defrayed by institutions supporting and administrating research grantees - If the government insists on short changing the system the way it's been doing, no matter how matters are manipulate, our research universities will remain under achieving. The block grant allows the university to have discretionary powers in assisting staff with, for example, funding for new promising research but whose proposers as yet have little in the way of a track record.

  3. Provide an outstanding peer review system which usefully seeks reviewers beyond the nation's borders.

  4. Awarding research funding on the basis of peer review and allowing for useful overhead percentages is essential. Stop being obsessed with top-down research prioritisation.

  5. Encourage collaboration's within and between institutions without press ganging.

  6. When it comes to major capital equipment, funding for its provision should be determined principally on a case by case basis on what are the best arguments made based on the quality of the research proposed and the ability of those proposing it to carry it out - and not on the basis of what the Federal Cabinet has decided are research priorities.

There's more but it's a beginning position.

 

Handing funding to the Group of Eight per se just because it is the Go8 is asking for trouble.  Spreading insufficient resources to keep the natives from getting too restless is an alternative stupidity.