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Researchers upset to hear about fellowships via spreadsheet

Image: Australian Department of Home Affairs [CC BY 3.0], via Youtube

Australian Research Council posts list of recommended grants, but no word from minister on approvals

Applicants for Australian Research Council Future Fellowships and Linkage Project grants have expressed their disappointment at the informal announcement of results, with some still in limbo.

A spreadsheet with a list of grants recommended for approval was uploaded to the ARC’s website on 20 July, without notification to applicants or final approval from education minister Alan Tudge (pictured).

Unsuccessful applicants have called the process “distressingly impersonal”. The grants are listed only by title, not by researcher or institute.

Since early 2020, an order by the Australian Senate means the ARC must publish lists of recommendations by certain dates. However, the recommendations still require approval or rejection by Tudge—and there is no timeframe for that.

While the online list has upset applicants, some say it is better than the previous long delays that the Senate’s order has helped to prevent. “I prefer this to the alternative of waiting further weeks or months to learn the results,” one unsuccessful Future Fellowship applicant told Research Professional News. “I am grateful that the Senate order limits the amount of time that ARC recommendations can sit unacknowledged on a minister’s desk.”

They said they had been hoping the fellowship would be the next step in their career, which had been affected by lockdowns and family responsibilities during the pandemic.

The Linkage Project grants, worth up to A$300,000 a year for a maximum of five years, support major university-industry joint projects. The Future Fellowships support four-year investigations by leading mid-career researchers.

‘Political situation’

Ariadne Vromen, deputy dean for research in the Australia and New Zealand school of government at the Australian National University, said she did not have a vested interest in this round of grants but was concerned “about the effect on the applicants to this prestigious fellowship scheme. They have been caught up in a political situation between the ARC and the minister. Top university researchers are our future and should be of central importance to both of these groups, but they are now being lost in the mix as collateral.”

“I am a big supporter of the ARC as a core research-funding institution,” Vromen added.

Even researchers whose applications and projects are listed as “recommended” must still wait to hear if Tudge will give final approval.

Mehreen Faruqi, the Greens’ spokesperson on education, told Research Professional News that “researchers are rightfully frustrated by the lack of transparency in how and when decisions will be made about millions of dollars’ worth of research funding. This has direct and real impacts on people’s livelihoods and lives.”

“It’s simply not acceptable to leave researchers furiously refreshing government websites for weeks on end to find out the fate of their applications. So many of them are already under immense stress due to government funding cuts and the impacts of Covid-19 on universities. Researchers should have full clarity on when decisions will be made, how they will find out and what the process is.”

‘Far from ideal’

Research Professional News asked the Department of Education, Skills and Employment when final decisions on the grants would be announced, but was referred back to the ARC. An ARC spokesperson said that “the release of the spreadsheet each month is a requirement of [the] Senate motion and is not the primary way grant outcomes are communicated.”

“The ARC has an embargo process in place which allows the ARC to notify all applicants and release outcomes to applicants (the eligible organisation) in our research management system, as soon as practicable once the minister has made a decision.”

Euan Ritchie, a professor of ecology at Deakin University, said that “quite a few of us are frustrated at this process”. Ritchie, who had applied for a Future Fellowship but was not on the list of recommended grants, said “the fact that decisions aren’t even finalised [signed off by the minister] either, but are essentially made public, isn’t the best nor most respectful process”.

However, he said he understood why the Senate had made its order mandating publication of recommendations. “In the past, a minister could sit on these things for weeks or months and not make an announcement while people and their careers were essentially left dangling.”

But in the new setup, with the minister’s decision not made, it would be better for researchers to also get “an email saying ‘you have been unsuccessful or successful’”, he said, rather than having to work it out via an online spreadsheet or, in some cases, being made aware by colleagues. “It’s not the ARC’s fault, but it’s far from ideal,” he said. “I know the [selection] panel is working really, really hard to deliver outcomes as fast as they can.”

‘Thoughtlessly cruel’

Another Future Fellowship applicant, who did not want to be named, said they had found out they were not recommended by following a link from the Twitter account @ARC_Tracker. Days later, there was “still no formal advice of rejection from the ARC or via my research office”, they said. “It makes no sense and is thoughtlessly cruel to applicants whose careers and even success at getting or keeping their academic job in the current climate hinge so much on grant success.”

Another researcher, who was not an applicant, said in a tweet: “I think it’s genuinely awful—what a cold way for 80 per cent plus to find they are unsuccessful. With academia burning in general in Australia, ARC results almost need to come with trauma counselling, not via a cold, mostly hidden spreadsheet that a minister hasn’t bothered actioning yet.”

On 21 July, the day after the spreadsheet went up, the ARC announced A$74 million in funding for eight research hubs and eight training centres. Those grants were also included in the spreadsheet, marked as approved.