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campusreview.com.au
Birmo says no
Former education minister
questioned over rejection
of ARC funding.
By Dallas Bastian
T
he university sector has taken
umbrage with the decision by
former education minister Simon
Birmingham to block 11 applications for
Australian Research Council funding.
ARC confirmed in Senate Estimates
that the project applications, all from the
humanities and social sciences field, passed
through the council’s peer-review process
but were vetoed by the education minister.
Funding for the projects totalled $4.2 million.
They were rejected in late 2017 and 2018.
UNSW, from which three proposals were
rejected, including ‘Rioting and the Literary
Archive’ by Professor Helen Groth and
Scientia Professor Julian Murphet, said the
move damages the spirit of the competitive
grant process.
The university’s vice-chancellor, Professor
Ian Jacobs, said the future of humanities
should not be decided on a political basis.
“While it is within the minister’s purview
to use his veto powers to decline ARC’s
recommendations, the unjustified and
unexplained decision to solely deny funding
for research that contributes to scholarship
6
in arts and humanities is deeply troubling,”
Jacobs said.
When questioned by Fairfax media about
his use of veto powers, Birmingham pointed to
the fact he approved more than 99.7 per cent
of recommended grants during his tenure.
“What’s remarkable is that Labor are
defending these projects and saying they
would let anything be funded, no matter
how out of step it is,” he told the publisher.
“I make no apologies for ensuring that
taxpayer research dollars weren’t spent on
projects that Australians would rightly view
as being entirely the wrong priorities.”
Birmingham also took to Twitter to
defend his decisions. “All of that funding
was still used on supporting research
projects. And there was nothing secret
about it; it’s just that nobody thought to ask
before now,” he wrote.
But UNSW’s deputy vice-chancellor for
research, Professor Nicholas Fisk, called for
changes to the minister’s ability to reject
ARC recommendations without explanation
or the opportunity for recourse.
“It is distressing for researchers – and the
academic community at large – to learn
that research proposals selected on the
basis of excellence were shunned for no
apparent reason,” Fisk said. “I am perplexed
by the senator’s decision, and this will
blindside humanities researchers preparing
grants in the current round.”
Universities Australia chief executive
Catriona Jackson said funding of research
must be free of political intervention.
“You don’t expect the federal sports
minister to choose Australia’s Olympic
team,” Jackson said. “In the same way, we
rely on subject experts to judge the best
research in their field, not politicians.”
Labor senator Kim Carr questioned the
basis for which Birmingham rejected the
proposals. “Is it because he did not like the
topics, the academics?” Carr asked on Twitter.
Birmingham had this to say in response:
“I‘m pretty sure most Australian taxpayers
preferred their funding to be used for
research other than spending $223,000 on
projects like ‘Post orientalist arts of the Strait
of Gibraltar’. Do you disagree, [Carr]? Would
Labor simply say yes to anything?”
IRU chair Professor Colin Stirling said
the minister may not have liked the titles of
some of the proposals, but ought to judge a
book by more than its cover.
“The government must come clean and
state exactly why each project was rejected,
and it must reaffirm its confidence in the
peer review and assessment processes of
the ARC,” Stirling said.
He added the group will seek Education
Minister Dan Tehan’s assurance that
he “will not allow political ideology to
undermine the humanities or the ARC
grants process”. ■