Research Impact -- Senator Carr Takes a Second Look. (November 7, 2011)

The federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, is an individual not much for turning but The Australian reports today that he might be prepared to reconsider his position on evaluating research impact and using it as part of grading the value of Australia's federally funded university research.

As opposition spokesman for research, the Senator made his views clear regarding the scoring of  research impact saying it is "unverifiable, ill-defined, [and] badly designed" when referring to the Coalitions Research Quality Framework's inclusion of impact. He now appears to have been forced into accepting a reassessment to determine if "a rigorous, transparent, system-wide Australian research impact assessment mechanism" can be devised.

On interview with The Australian's Jill Rowbotham Senator Carr said: "The study may show us that the idea is simply not feasible in practice. Nobody is opposed to the principle of systematically identifying and assessing utility in research. The issue is not a theoretical one, but the large number of practical impediments. I remain unconvinced that any of the proposals so far advanced would be reliable, low-compliance, accurate and relevant to all minimum criteria for such a regime."

The Senator then added: "To attract the government's interest, any such model will . . . need to be light years in front of the flaky and rortable attempt that was the Coalition's Research Quality Framework impact measure; [however,] in response to the discussions across the sector, I have instructed my department to take another look to judge if it is feasible to improve upon the models so far advanced."

This past week Bill Amos, professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Cambridge contributed to Times Higher Education  "Pathways to 'Plod': The impact agenda rewards unoriginal thinkers and threatens to snuff out the bright 'Sparks' who could change the world." He is referring to the UK's attempts to include research impact in its coming Research Excellence Framework's (REF) mechanism of assessment.  In his closing paragraph he writes:

'Pathways to impact' will actually achieve the opposite of the primary aim: it will radically reduce the chance that vital funding will reach the sort of people who are most likely to discover the next penicillin, figure out a cure for Aids or develop the energy source that ends our reliance on oil. But then it takes one to know one, and the people responsible for the impact agenda are not the cutting-edge scientists themselves."