Frank Larkins: Australian Higher Education Research Policies and Performance, 1987-2010. (February 17, 2011)

Frank Larkins was appointed Professor of Chemistry at The University of Melbourne in 1990 having previously held the chair of chemistry at the The University of Tasmania from 1983-90. During his career he published some 200 papers in the fields of theoretical chemical physics, catalysis, coal chemistry and materials and fuel science. In addition he served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Melbourne from October 1990. In January 2006 he was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) which was rebadged as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Global Relations) in June 2008.

Professor Larkins retired on the 31^st of December 2008 and now, just over two years later, his book assessing Australian Higher Education Research Policies and Performance, 1987- 2010 is shortly to be released by Melbourne University Publishing (328 pages).

In an interview with The Australian's Jill Rowbotham Professor Larkins expressed the view that the next six months will be crucial for universities looking for leads about funding consequences that may flow from ERA [Excellence in Research for Australia]: "No doubt ERA has been a valuable exercise for universities to have a look at their research performance. The real debate is over what fundamental implications this will have for higher education. We are only part of the way down the road; it's useful in characterising performance, but we have to go further and so in the next six months it will be interesting to see what leads the government gives to how this information will be used."

Although written prior to the release of the ~300 page ERA report Professor Larkins writes in its regard: "...whether and how the relative merit evaluations for the eight fields of research would translate to funding allocations . . . There is a failure of process in this direction," which appears to be a gentleman's way of saying the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research have given no indication as to how this $35.8 million collection of statistics is going to be used to improve Australia's higher education sector.

Indeed is it inappropriate to ask rhetorically, "Have they got a clue?"

Professor Larkins makes the observation: "In two years we are going to do it again [the ERA]. The question is: How good is the national investment in this? People are going to [want] tangible outcomes."

And according to Ms Rowbotham: "But Larkins says the ERA results, in the broadest sense, don't reveal anything that wasn't known already, especially about the Group of Eight universities, which remain dominant. 'The Group of Eight are probably stronger than they were in 1992,' he says. 'If you want to talk about winners and losers in research, which is a good surrogate for other measures, the Go8 has gained the most in terms of total research income, and that's very interesting.'"

Finally Professor Larkins' analysis of data available to him prior to the release of the ERA statistics showed the ATN ( Australian Technology Network) universities by 2008 had 8.4% of research income compared to the Group of Eight's 69.8%.

But wouldn't it be more meaningful to point out that it is the individuals doing the research who are obtaining the research funds and happen to be the faculty of this or that institution this or that university department.