ARC Discovery Grant Success Reduces to 20.4%. (October 16, 2008)

A success rate for grant applications of the sort funded by the Australian Research Council's (ARC) Discovery Grants* scheme of 20% is considered to be at the low end of the internationally recognised optimum range.

Average funding for Discovery Project grants has fallen. This year, 845 projects out of 4152 received an average $341,344 each, compared with 878 of 4121 last year, averaging $342,593. And total funding fell from $300 million last year to $288.4 million.

Professor Margaret Sheil, ARC CEO said the council's submission to the Cutler innovation review had made a case for more funding, [but]:
"It's up to the government to decide how many of those recommendations that came through the [Cutler] national innovation review they want to adopt."

The Australian's Jill Rowbotham reports:

The discipline grouping of physics, chemistry and geoscience attracted the highest funding, at $62.25 million, or 21.6 per cent. Mathematics, information and communication sciences attracted the least, at $40 million, or 13.9per cent, a shade behind humanities and creative arts with $40.9million or 14.2 per cent.

The grants overwhelmingly fell into the national research priority areas, with 89.9 per cent fitting the criteria.

Meanwhile John Gill of The Times Higher Educational Supplement writes: "Australian vice-chancellors have pointed the finger at inadequate public funding to explain the decline of almost all of [Australia's] top universities in the Times Higher Education-QS World Rankings published last week."

His report quotes John Taplin, pro vice-chancellor (international) at the University of Adelaide, which fell from 62nd to 106th, saying that, despite the declining fortunes of Australian universities, their performance in the rankings was impressive when the constraints they faced were considered.

Professor Talpin said: "Collectively, 24 per cent of the public universities within the Australian higher education sector are included in the 2008 top 200 list. This is an impressive result, and especially so as we have seen a significant decline in per capita funding of universities ... during the past decade, and because (universities') research activities have not been fully funded by the Government, either... It is clear that there is a relationship between a university's world ranking and how well funded it is. For Australian universities to continue to be major contributors to the advancement of knowledge globally, it is vital that the funding issues are addressed effectively in the near future."

Th Australian National University's Ian Chubb, whose university sits at the top of the Australian heap in both the Times and the SJT rankings, made the point: "We have to recognise that not all Australian universities are ever going to be funded enough to have us all in the global top 50, so there has to be selective funding, linked in some way to performance."

And Mr Gill was told by Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis whose institution fell from 27th to 38th place: "It is very difficult for Australian universities to compete in these rankings with well-resourced UK, US and Japanese universities ... This is why it is vital that the current review of higher education in Australia seriously addresses this issue."

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*Discovery Projects aims to:

• support excellent fundamental research by individuals and teams
• enhance the scale and focus of research in the National Research Priorities
• assist researchers to undertake their research in conditions most conducive to achieving best results
• expand Australia's knowledge base and research capability
• foster the international competitiveness of Australian research
• encourage research training in high-quality research environments