Academy of Social Sciences in Australia
President's Report
Professor Sue Richardson
The Academy has had a full and satisfying program of activities this year, including several innovations. It has appreciated the particularly enjoyable challenge of managing increased resources. As a result of the effective case made to the Government in 2003, the Academy received an additional grant of $115,000 pa for three years. We have been determined to put this money to good use and to see tangible benefits from it in the level and range of our operations.
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The year began, as always, with the Annual General Meeting and Symposium in November. This was Leon Mann's final AGM as President and the opportunity was taken to reflect on his fine contribution to the life and direction (and resources) of the Academy. Among his many achievements his most outstanding was the conception, funding and implementation of the Indigenous Post-graduate Summer School. This is an initiative of which all Fellows should be proud. The symposium, Youth in Transition, was unusual in that it was held in conjunction with the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils (AASSREC). Our former President, Fay Gale, as President of AASSREC, organised the Symposium and the full program for the AASSREC delegates over the following days.
Relations with other Academies
Our Academy continues to maintain active and friendly relations with our sister learned Academies in Australia. At their invitation, I have attended annual meetings, dinners and Council meetings of all the other academies. We continue to have close and productive contact between the Executive Directors and other staff of the four academies. By this means, we share ideas, learn from each other's successes and failures and collaborate on important projects. Part of this collaboration comes through our participation in the National Academies Forum (NAF), which comprises the Presidents and up to three other representatives of the four Academies. Our Academy has been represented this year by myself, Leon Mann and our Executive Director, John Beaton. NAF's major activity this year has been a forum on measuring the quality of research - of which more later. Our Academy is also involved in an ongoing project on sustainability.
We have had particularly close ties with the Academy of Humanities as we worked together to establish the new Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS). An interim steering group was established, on which John Beaton, Tom Stannage and I represented our Academy. This steering group appointed an Executive Director of CHASS, drafted a constitution, established the basics of a modus operandi and held the inaugural Annual General Meeting. At this meeting, over 80 groups signed up as members and a Board was elected, with Malcolm Gillies from the Academy of Humanities as President.
From this successful beginning we expect much. Our Academy will continue to support the work of CHASS as it develops a program to best represent the interests of our sector. CHASS has significant initial funding ($200,000 pa for four years) and an impressive list of member organisations. Its purpose is to promote the contribution that the humanities, arts and social sciences make to Australian economic, cultural and intellectual life. It is unique in bringing the diverse arts groups under the one umbrella, and in collaboration with the humanities and social sciences. Its major initial program of work is to identify the extent and character of the contributions of the HASS sector to the Australian economy. There are many intriguing and surprising examples of such contributions. In his fine National Press Club address at the launch of CHASS, Iain McCalman noted the contribution that the celebration of James Joyce's Ulysses made to the Irish economy, and the production of Lord of the Rings made to the New Zealand economy. Of course, the case for the social sciences is much more than can be measured in gains in economic output. It includes contributions to the art of good government, to knowing ourselves and our history and our relations with other nations; to the art and science of education; to concepts of and means to achieve fairness and much more besides. But jobs and incomes matter too, and we will advance the cause of the social sciences if we can show that in addition to their many other contributions, they also actively lead to and assist innovation and new economic ventures. CHASS, facilitated by a grant of $500,000 from the Commonwealth, has the job of locating and describing the many cases where this happens.
At the international level, we have boosted our engagement with related bodies overseas, assisted by the additional funding for this purpose that we received from the Commonwealth. The active and highly successful exchange program with the French has been consolidated. It is with great pleasure that I record here that our colleague Darrell Tryon was awarded the prestigious Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French Government in 2004. Active exchanges also occurred with scholars from the Chinese and British Academies. Considerable progress has been made in establishing more formal links with the Indian and Vietnamese Academies.
In May I attended the annual symposium of the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences, whose theme was intergenerational solidarity. The Pontifical Academy contains outstanding scholars and other thinkers, who put a great deal of care and effort into their contributions to the work of that Academy. Their thinking is sharpened by the objective of producing reasonably concrete conclusions that will assist the Catholic Church in the development of its social teaching on major issues. This requirement to go beyond the life of the mind for its own sake, to more instrumental outcomes, is pertinent to our own Academy. The Pontifical Academy process of nominating a major theme, having an initial symposium on the topic (where contributions from members are supported by those from several invited scholars), appointment of a smaller team to work solidly on the topic and having at least one further symposium, leading finally to publication, has much to recommend it. It suggests to me that we could consider making more systematic use of our own programs to develop deep thinking on a small number of major topics. We could, for example, use a combination of workshops and an ARC-funded research program to develop material for final presentation and discussion at our annual symposium. This symposium could be invited to develop (perhaps with written contributions in advance) some specific and concrete policy recommendations.
From 9-14 November 2003, the Academy hosted the Association of Asian Social Science Research Council's (AASSREC) 15th biennial general conference. The conference marked the culmination of the Fay Gale's term as President of AASSREC. AASSREC comprises representatives of national social science research councils, academies and institutes committed to the promotion of regional cooperation in the field of social sciences among Asia-Pacific countries. Thirty delegates from twelve of the member countries in the Asia-Pacific region: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, participated in the week-long conference. In addition, four Australians and a visiting US academic gave papers. The theme for the conference was Youth in Transition. This was an extremely successful event, and the Academy received many compliments for both the content of the program and the efficiency with which it was organised. We are indebted to Fay Gale and the Academy Secretariat for the intense and effective effort they put into the successful hosting of this event.
Quality in research
The Academy has been actively involved in the national discussion of what constitutes quality in research and research training, and how to measure it. We participated in two forums in 2004 on this topic: one on scholarly communications hosted by the Australian Academy of Humanities and one on measuring excellence in research and research training, hosted by the Australian Academy of Science on behalf of the National Academies Forum. The issues are as important as they are difficult. A relatively large proportion of research in Australia is funded by government, who naturally wish to be confident that their funds are being used to best effect. There is a presumption that you get better results from research if funds are concentrated on those who already have very strong research performance, and on groups rather than individuals. But it is difficult to articulate the full range of purposes of research and to find a metric for measuring its quantity and quality and for ranking researchers. Peer review retains strong support, and the case for it was well-argued by Valerie Braithwaite (Australian National University) on behalf of the social sciences. Citation indices have their place, but have significant flaws and are not appropriate for some areas of research, including areas of the social sciences. The counting of publications without regard to type and quality, and the sum of dollars earned, are at the more contentious edge of measurement strategies. This debate will undoubtedly continue as universities jostle for their place in the sun, and as the government searches for ways to evaluate and rank the nation's research institutions.
Academy research
Our program of workshops has again had a most successful year, led by Peter Saunders. This program provides opportunities to our Fellows for multi-discipline reflection on a wide range of topics. It is also one of our avenues for outreach, since many participants are not Fellows. As one of our responses to the Commonwealth request for more consideration of policy matters, workshop conveners are being asked to incorporate in their program, if appropriate, reflections of what policy ideas might flow from their discussion.
The research program has had a particularly active year. Stewart Clegg and Carl Rhodes developed the Academy's successful application for a grant under the ARC Learned Academies program, for a project on management ethics. Earlier projects have either been brought to fruition or are progressing satisfactorily.
There have been two new developments. The first of these arose from an approach by the Australian Mobile Telephone Association (AMTA). Their request to us was to assist them in identifying what the social sciences could contribute to increasing the level of understanding about the social and economic impact of the mobile phone. It is not often that the Academy is approached by a private sector organisation that wants to learn what insights are available from the social sciences. Our first reaction to such an approach should be encouraging. But there are also potential difficulties, and considerable thought went into crafting the best response and the nature of our involvement. There is no question that in any work that we do with other parties (including our main source of funds, the Commonwealth government), we must be free of pressures to promote a particular view or to remain silent in order to comply with the preferences of the other party. The Academy has no interest in participating in partnerships that might compromise our integrity or independence. The Academy agreed to develop a discussion paper with funding from AMTA on topics that the social sciences could advance, and with ideas on how they might do so. The paper drew on contributions from a wide range of scholars, some of whom were Fellows, and was written by Judy Wajcman and Executive Director John Beaton. Both ASSA and AMTA are pleased with the quality of the paper and I think it is fair to judge the experiment a success. It may well lead to further opportunities in this field of inquiry. The second development was a partnership between the Academy and the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements. With financial support from the Monash Institute, and research led by ASSA Fellows, a book is being prepared that explores the contribution of the social sciences to public policy.
Policy
As part of its additional funding to the Academy, the Commonwealth wished to see more public reflection on policy matters by the Academy and its Fellows. This aspiration accords well with our objectives and has been warmly embraced. We established a separate committee with responsibility to amplify our range of policy-related activities, chaired by Michael Keating. One tangible sign of the higher level of activity is the expansion of the number of Occasional Papers that have a strong policy focus, commencing with 'The Case for Increased Taxation'. Dialogue too has been superbly edited by Peg Job to produce a large number of provocative and thoughtful articles of great policy relevance.
Outreach
Our most important program of outreach is the Indigenous Summer School for post-graduate students, led by Leon Mann and Marcia Langton. The second of these was held in February 2004 and was attended by 16 Indigenous higher degree students over the course of a week. Feedback from participants made it clear that the support and skills offered by the Summer School was highly valued and that the experience was an extraordinarily positive one for the participants. A program of follow up has been instituted to reinforce the initial support. The Academy is indebted to the Commonwealth government and to private donors for the funds to run this valuable program.
The Academy routinely incorporates into its scholarly activities social scientists who are not Fellows. They participate in workshops, the research program, the Symposium, international exchanges and activities of the National Academies Forum, and contribute to the Academy journal Dialogue and the Occasional Paper series. In this way, the scope of the Academy's reach is extended to the full range of social science capacity in Australia. In addition, Academy activities provide opportunities for multi-discipline, high quality engagement with ideas for many who are outside its own Fellowship.
Each year we honour an early career scholar who has made an exceptional contribution to the social sciences in the first few years of her or his career. This year we had a very strong set of nominations. It was a pleasure to give the award to Alex Bellamy, in recognition of his exceptional level and quality of research in peace and conflict studies, achieved in combination with an extensive teaching commitment.
One of the important regular functions of the Academy is to elect to its membership scholars who have made a distinguished contribution to the social sciences. This year there was an unprecedented number of nominations for election, of whom 21 successfully passed through all stages of the election process. It is a sign of the health of the social sciences in Australia that all the nominees are making fine contributions in their field. The nomination process is both rigorous, and onerous on the Panel Chairs and Secretariat. To reduce the demands on referees, the nominator and seconder will comprise the referees in future. I here express my appreciation for the efficiency and commitment with which Robin Taylor managed the process, and the invaluable advice given by the Panel committees and the assessors.
The Academy is an outstanding institution because it comprises outstanding people. Each year, Fellows of the Academy are recognised in the Australia Day and Queen's Birthday Honours: this year they included Michelle Grattan AO, James Jupp AM, Ian MacFarlane AC, Margot Prior AO, and Hugh Stretton AC.
But each year too, literally hundreds of scholars, not all of whom are Fellows, contribute their capacities to the work of the Academy. The regular programs of the Academy - international, research, workshop, symposium, election of new Fellows, policy and advocacy, the National Academies Forum, the Indigenous Post-graduate Summer School and so on - run smoothly and effectively because many hours of voluntary contribution of the Fellows are combined with the skilful support of the Secretariat staff. I wish here to express my admiration and thanks to John Beaton, our Executive Director, and to his highly effective team. It generally goes unnoticed when the accounts receive an unqualified audit, when the election of new Fellows runs smoothly, when the web site is informative and up-to-date, when our research projects deliver their promise, within budget, when Dialogue appears on time full of interesting material. Thank you John Beaton, John Robertson, Jennifer Fernance, Robin Taylor, Peg Job and Mark Pinoli.
My final thanks go to the members of the Academy Executive and its Standing Committee, for your sharp minds, collegial spirit and active contributions to a most successful year in the life of the Academy.
Sue Richardson
President, 2004
Last modified: 2 November 2009.