Academy of Social Sciences in Australia
President's Report
Professor Fay Gale
The review of the four Learned Academies has been one of the major events of 2000. As reported in Dialogue 2/2000, the Academy Secretariat, aided by Fellows on our various committees, put considerable time and thought into preparing our submission to the review. The terms of reference for the review were wideranging:
- Examine the role and effectiveness of the Learned Academies in promoting their respective areas of interest to the Australian and international communities, noting in particular, developments that have occurred since the last Review undertaken in 1995.
- Examine the role and effectiveness of the Learned Academies, including through their publicly funded activities, as sources of advice to Government.
- Identify cost effective means by which the public funded activities of the Learned Academies could further contribute to the development of public policy.
- Develop and examine mechanisms to ensure the Academies' effectiveness in assessing excellence in research and scholarship, with particular regard to the role the Learned Academies could undertake in benchmarking and quality assurance, and how this might be achieved.
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Our submission spoke to each of these items and attempted to cover the broad range of influences our Fellows have upon policy development within Australia and internationally.
To date we have been given a rather disappointing draft report. It does little to help us enhance our role or to recognise the enormous value of the Academy as a source of high level knowledge across all the social science disciplines. Its major recommendation is for increased funding for the joint academies program currently run under the umbrella of the National Academies Forum, but no increase for individual academies. We await the final report and the effect of any recommendations but given the draft report, it seems unlikely that the work of the Academy or its role in scholarship and the assurance of quality will be assisted further or endorsed in any way as a result of the time-consuming review. In these days of the so-called 'budget neutral' reviews my lack of enthusiasm for the draft report mirrors that of most Fellows who have been through similar review processes. I have always maintained that the most beneficial part of most reviews is the preparation of one's submission and the self-analysis that goes into the preparation. Certainly those most involved did articulate the role and work of the Academy extremely well.
A major role of the Academy, since its establishment 28 years ago, has been to recognise scholars of high distinction in their discipline and to elect those intellectual leaders to the Fellowship. Over the past two years we have been refining the membership processes to ensure greater objectivity. To be elected, a Fellow must pass a number of stages in recognition of outstanding scholarship through referee and assessor reports, voting by panel members, ranking by Panel Committees, a final scrutiny by the Membership Committee and, ultimately, a vote by the whole Fellowship.
This year some thirty-five scholars were nominated for membership. Of these the Membership Committee recommended nineteen names to be mailed to all Fellows for voting. I am pleased to say that all nineteen were accepted in the ballot and will be welcomed into the Fellowship at this year's Annual General Meeting. Our revised procedures have not only tightened the scrutiny given to all nominations by increasing, as it were, the number of hurdles a candidate must pass, but also in ensuring as much as possible that all truly worthy scholars are recognised in these very high-quality stakes.
At the Annual General Meeting last year a Finance Committee was established with Professor Gavin Jones as Chair. Since then the committee has met not only to evaluate present financial arrangements but also to consider ways of gaining further funding to enhance the work of the Academy. We are planning to establish a Foundation through which Fellows and various organisations will be encouraged to contribute. Professor Wilfred Borrie left a sum of $5,000 in his will, and this will contribute to setting up the Foundation. It is clear that the very small government grant of a little over a quarter of a million dollars is quite inadequate for the Academy to meet its objectives. Only by seeking other sources of funding can we hope to promote the work of the social sciences for the benefit of our society.
Last year we established a Research Projects Committee with Professor Sue Richardson as Chair. This committee has been very successful in establishing important projects and gaining funding for them through competitive arrangements. Indeed funding for these projects has virtually doubled the Academy budget. The projects themselves are detailed later in this Annual Report. These projects are largely transdisciplinary, bringing together a number of scholars from different disciplines. They exemplify the role of the Academy as an interdisciplinary body of social scientists.
The Workshop Committee, under the leadership of Professor Peter Saunders, also promotes the transdisciplinary role of the Academy and its great social relevance. But these are short-term occurrences and involve more people than the longer running research projects. They are not directly funded from an external competitive grants process but are usually given a small subsidy from the Academy. But with the support of the Academy, endorsed workshop topics often obtain outside funding from a variety of sources. They are very successful and their results are often highly visible. The details of the program for 2000 are given later in this report.
For several years the International Committee has been chaired by Dr J Jupp. He has done a great deal to enhance the Academy internationally and to develop ties, agreements and exchanges with a number of countries. Dr Jupp has now retired from chairing that committee but he has left it in good shape for continuing development. Reports of the committee appear later.
During the year I again visited Lord Raymond Plant, the President of the newly established Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences, and the Executive Officer Andy Cawdell. The first academicians to be appointed to this new Academy were named in the Times High Education Supplement on 19 November 1999. This is a fledgling Academy growing out of the Association of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. We have established good information exchange with the new body and I found it interesting to hear of their development since I last met with Lord Plant. I also visited the British Academy and met with Sir Tony Wrigley, the President, Professor Nicholas Mann, the Foreign Secretary and Mr Peter Brown, the Academy Secretary. The British Academy was established in 1902 as the national academy for the humanities and social sciences and it sees itself as the counterpart to the Royal Society which exists to serve the natural sciences. The British Academy is well established and occupies elegant rooms at Carlton House. It has a substantial government grant of over £30 million sterling to support its wide-ranging programs.
The relationships between the British Academy and the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences are somewhat strained in these early days but negotiations are proceeding and our Academy will continue to maintain contact with both organisations.
At the invitation of UNESCO, I visited their headquarters in Paris and met with the directors or acting directors of the various social science divisions and units. UNESCO has an extremely wide remit in relation to the social sciences with a number of different projects currently being undertaken. These are all encompassed within the Sector for Social and Human Sciences but there are several divisions and units dealing with different issues in the social sciences. I met with Dr A Kazancigil, the Director of the Division of Social Sciences, Research and Policy, and discussed exchanges of information and issues in their strategic planning. It would be beneficial to both our organisations if we could share information on a greater scale.
In November this year, just prior to our AGM, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is hosting a think tank on the social sciences. I am attending this on behalf of our Academy. The title of the meeting is Summit of the World Think Tanks: Tendencies of Social Sciences and the Humanities in the 21st Century. I am giving a paper on the work of our Academy and its role in promoting the social sciences.
Our Executive Director, Mr Barry Clissold, is retiring at the end of the year. An advertisement for this position has been sent to all Fellows and placed in several papers. I hope that I will be able to introduce the new Executive Director at the AGM. When that position is filled, the structure of the staffing in the Academy office will be reviewed. The staff are already overstretched and work very hard to assist the Academy. If it were not for their dedication and the large amount of voluntary assistance and leadership given by many Fellows, we would not achieve our considerable outreach with such a very small budget.
During the time of my Presidency the Academy has seen many changes. All of the committee structures have been reviewed and all of the guidelines revised. Our programs have expanded considerably and our move to new premises has been most important. The restructuring of the office remains the main organisational change left and the nature of this will depend upon the skills and experience of the new Executive Director. Since this is my last Annual Report as President, I wish to thank all members of the staff for their great support and dedication. The Academy passed the review process with credit and has been praised for many of its activities. I thank the many Fellows who work so willingly on our various committees and give so generously of their time and expertise.
Fay Gale
President, 2000
Last modified: 2 November 2009.