The new federal education minister has kicked off what could be a major reset of university research funding in Australia, with a review and stern letter to the Australian Research Council.
A Senate committee is discussing a bill designed to shore up the independence of the Australian Research Council, after recent high-profile cases of ministers vetoing research grants.
Decisions on research funding are too complex for a pub test. Assessing grant applications requires a high level of expertise and diligence, which the minister simply disregarded.
After 11 years of Excellence in Research for Australia, the time and costs for universities and the value it creates for other sectors (none of which made submissions to a recent review) are unknown.
Despite the Federal Government’s teacher education reforms and the push for evidence-based teaching, less than 2% of ARC research funding is directed to educational research.
The OzGRav Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery will enable Australian researchers to be at the forefront of gravitational wave astronomy.
The decision to refuse the ARC and academic researchers a right of reply appears to be a straightforward breach of the News Corp Australia code of conduct.
How does Australia fare in science and research funding? Where have recent cuts been made? This infographic shows the state of science funding in Australia.
Government departments often commission research to help them understand and respond to policy issues. But they impose contract conditions that threaten to undermine the integrity of the work.