Image: CollegeDegrees360 [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr
Results were accessible to university research managers through agency’s online data system
Australia’s main research funding agency has defended a ministerial embargo that delayed public announcement of its grants for early career researchers.
The embargo on the Australian Research Council’s discovery grants was lifted on 15 November, and the full list was published on the agency’s website.
However, many researchers had complained on social media that the embargo added to anxiety about income and employment.
Education minister Dan Tehan announced a total of $81.8 million to fund 200 research projects under the ARC’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards.
“This research will generate new knowledge, develop new technologies, and lead to new products and jobs. The research targeting natural disasters will make Australians safer and improve how we prepare for future challenges,” he said in a government statement.
Earlier in the week, the ARC moved to defend the embargo on announcing the full list of grant recipients. This followed social media posts claiming that Tehan was “politicising” the grants through a succession of media announcements involving local coalition MPs.
Some posts claimed the embargo was unfair, and those grants announced by the minister meant some researchers knew their applications had been successful, while others were “left in limbo”.
Responding to these claims, the ARC published a statement clarifying the embargo process. It explained that university grants administration staff could access the embargoed results through the federal agency’s research management system. They could pass on the information to researchers but on the understanding it was strictly embargoed.
“Successful and unsuccessful outcomes will be visible in RMS to staff at the administering organisation who have the following RMS roles: research office delegate; research office end of year reporting delegate; research office signatory; and research office staff,” the ARC said.
“As part of the embargo process, relevant grant agreements and offers will also be released in RMS to successful administering organisations for acceptance by the research office signatory.”
The minister’s office has not commented on the tactic to roll out a series of selective media announcements, but it follows public comments by Tehan about the need to improve public awareness of ARC research projects.
“We have to get better at telling these stories and making it relevant for every Australian,” he said in a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra in August.
“Taxpayers, the majority of whom have never attended university, still fund the majority of university fees and costs – around 54 per cent of the cost on average, as well as significantly subsidising the student loan scheme. Our universities need to connect with the Australian people who fund them.”