Fibrillation and the ARC. (June 13, 2013)

The past two days have brought forth from The Australian's Andrew Trounson feature articles noting that "A new measure of research impact is unlikely to be up and running by the time of the next research quality audit in 2015, stoking fears it could be put on the backburner[12/06/13]", and "The Australian Research Council [ARC] wants to make its research assessment exercise {ERA} more transparent [13/06/13]".

Just how the ARC justifies the spending of thousands of hours of researchers time and millions of dollars in funding in retrospective navel gazing (ERA) and prognostication (Research Impact defined as: "the demonstrable contribution that research makes the economy, society, culture, national security, public policy or service, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond contributions to academia.") is moot at best and at worst: "our political masters told us to do it."

What is clear is that the ARC has not the will or the collective wit to develop a significant improvement of its system of peer review to improve its support for Australian academic research and falls back on simple-minded proxy methodology.

The result ‒ a manifestation of fibrillation exemplified by the state first observed through his microscope by botanist Robert Brown in 1827.

If the research is top class the impact will follow through strategic and applied research and on to innovation and development. But to attempt to force it into a single dimension is short-sighted and counterproductive.