Academy of Social Sciences in Australia
President's Report
Professor Sue Richardson
The Academy is a robust and vital organisation with a proud history, a membership with remarkable talents, and effective processes professionally administered by its small staff. It has a record of achieving a great deal with modest resources and 2006 was no exception.
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The Review of the Learned Academies that reported early in 2006, summed up an important aspect of our contribution in the following words:
Together the five institutions [the four Learned Academies plus the National Academies Forum] provide easy access to independent advice from some of the nation's best minds. This advice is not only important for guiding the nation in building and maintaining excellence in each of the disciplines represented by the Academies. It is also invaluable for collecting, validating, and disseminating critical knowledge that the public and the nation need for wise decision-making.
And
The Academies maintain fiercely their mandated independence, and the advice and assistance they provide to Government is therefore perceived to be free of political constraints. Advice from the Academies also carries the special prestige and credibility of the Academy members. Government decisionmaking, therefore, gains an enhanced credibility where it has been informed by the Academies' inputs.
The dollars contributed by Government towards the necessary administrative cost of operating the Academies are greatly leveraged because the expertise of the Fellows is provided on a pro bono basis. Hence the Academies' advice represents excellent value for money to the Government and the community generally.
Optimising the value of this resource to the Government depends on having appropriate infrastructure to mobilise the volunteers. Harnessing the talents of the Fellows, whether fully employed, or retired, requires talented professional staff to identify, mobilise, coordinate, and support them in their pro bono work.
This applies at the individual level - finding one or two Fellows to give advice on a specific issue - but it is especially critical when assistance is requested that requires a consolidation of information and judgments from a range of disciplines, such as preparing a submission on sustainability issues. The Secretariats of the Academies already provide leverage capacity, but the provision of modest additional resources could considerably increase the capacity of the Academies to assist Government and contribute to the national benefit.
The Review recommended that our grant-in-aid from the Commonwealth be doubled to $660,000 for each Academy. The outcome, however, was that there was no increase in our grant-in-aid, and no continuation of the three years of additional funding of $115,000 that came to an end in 2005. We therefore must deal with a substantial decline in our budget for the financial year 2006-07. We have decided not to cut back on our programs and staff to bring our expenditure within our reduced means. Rather, we will draw on our reserves to fund a modest deficit in the 2006-07 year, while we work to have the decision with respect to our funding modified. This very disappointing outcome aggravates our concerns about the report of the Review of the Learned Academies. This report made a number of generally useful recommendations to which we are responding. But the full report of the Review included a few critical sentences directed to our relation with CHASS, and the opinion that we have been less energised in reinvigorating [our] organisation, that, to our eye, appear gratuitous and ill-founded. We have vigorously contested this view, to the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) and to the Minister, believing it to be based on an inadequate appreciation of our extensive submission.
Our activities
The details of our regular programs are described elsewhere in this Report. Here I would like to give an overview of our activities for the past year, so that their extent and diversity can be appreciated.
Leon Mann and John Beaton represented the Academy at the conference of the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils, held in New Delhi in November. Regrettably, at the last minute I had to withdraw from our delegation and Leon most ably presented our Country paper on my behalf. By all accounts it was a highly successful conference and provided an excellent opportunity for us to nourish our relationships with sister Academies in the region. It was also the occasion for us to take over formal responsibility for the Secretariat of AASSREC, which we have now done. Japan is the current President of AASSREC, and is keen to join with us in re-invigorating this significant body.
The Indigenous Summer School for postgraduate students and their supervisors was held at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, in February. The program and management of the Summer School was greatly assisted by the cooperation with Professor Ian Anderson and his Centre for Health and Society at Melbourne University. I was fortunate to be able to join the participants at dinner during the week of the Summer School and to hear first hand their very positive comments about the value of the program. Leon Mann, who with Marcia Langton initiated this creative and vital outreach activity of the Academy, has stood down from his hands-on role.
We are grateful to Ruth Fincher for stepping into his shoes. An excellent example of the Academy providing easy access to independent advice from some of the nation's best minds is our series of Policy Roundtables. These are managed by the Policy and Advocacy committee, led by Mike Keating. Three such roundtables were scheduled in 2006. The format involves active discussion among all participants, stimulated by introductory remarks on each topic. The introductions are provided by a pair comprising a scholar and a policy maker. Each of the three roundtables this year was based on research done under the ARC Learned Academies Grants.
The first was on the wellbeing of children and a comparison of children's policy with the impact on children of labour market policies. On this occasion, a particular effort was made to involve state-level policy makers. A second roundtable was on the meaning of 'wellbeing' and its implications for policy. It is interesting to note that the Commonwealth Treasury is examining notions of wellbeing that go beyond the traditional reliance on economic output. The Commonwealth Departments Treasury, Finance, Health and Ageing, Family and Community Services, the ABS and the Productivity Commission were present, together with selected scholars. The third roundtable was a response to a suggestion from the Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. They indicated (at the first of our Policy Forums, held in 2005) that they would welcome an informed discussion on the notion of 'community' and how it may best be fostered. The roundtable, to be held in November, will draw on work done in a third Learned Academies Grant project, on the sustainability of rural communities.
These roundtables are an excellent vehicle for the Academy to share the knowledge gained from research projects which it sponsors, and exchange ideas in an interactive environment with leading policy makers. They are by invitation, and restricted to about 25 people, so that genuine discussion is possible. They are a new initiative for the Academy, and each has evoked a very positive response from participants. Roundtables can also be convened on other topics of interest to Fellows and to an identifiable constituency.
Our Workshop program continues to flourish and to evolve. Peter Saunders stood down as its chair after four years of impressive leadership. He has been replaced by Mary Luszcz. This program is part bottom-up ideas generation, and part outreach: increasing numbers of applications are coming from scholars outside the Academy. We continue to have many more applications than we can fund, and expansion of the program is a high priority should there be an increase in our revenue. The success of the Workshops arises from the niche they fill in enabling people from a variety of disciplines and organisations to come together to share ideas on selected topics. The participant numbers are restricted to ensure that all are engaged in a genuine sharing of ideas.
The most sustained research that occurs under the auspices of the Academy is through the Learned Academies Grant of the ARC. Each year the Academy chooses a project to put to the ARC for funding. The project must be multi-discipline, on an important topic, and led by a Fellow. The Academy keeps in touch with, and contributes to, the project through the appointment of a project committee of two or three Fellows who participate in the discussions of the project, but do not write contributions. This has proved to be a very successful model. Stuart Macintyre has led the selection and management of the research project (the one newly funded in 2006 being on 'New Social Policy Approaches for Sharing Risk'). Stuart also leads an important piece of self-reflection, in the form of an ARC Linkage project on The Social Sciences and the Making of Postwar Australia. Our partner in this project is the National Library. The research focuses on our institutional history, research policy and how the Government viewed the importance of research. A key aim is to present a more extended view of social sciences research.
Our program of international contact and exchange progressed smoothly during the year. Led by Leon Mann, the program consolidated our relations with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; maintained our high profile contribution to the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils; made progress in establishing bi-lateral exchange agreements with India and Indonesia and hosted a delegation from our Vietnamese counterpart. Margot Prior became our nominee on UNESCO in Australia, when Fay Gale retired from her long and valuable contribution to that body. The Academy had a visit from the new French Ambassador, His Excellency Francois Descoueyte, who talked enthusiastically of his interest in the social sciences. We continued to assist the French Embassy in the selection of social science scholars for their funded visiting program to France. Our plans for expansion of the International program, including funded exchanges, were restrained by uncertainty over our financial position. Along with the Workshop program and the work of the Policy and Advocacy group, International activities will have to be curtailed if the grant-in-aid is not restored.
Tangible indicators of the activity of the Academy are seen in the publication of our journal Dialogue, and our Occasional Papers. Our Editor, Peg Job, continues to manage a flow of high quality and challenging publications that deal with many of the most interesting public policy issues of the day. Three issues of Dialogue and three Occasional Papers were published: Re-thinking Australian Governance - The Howard Legacy (Cunningham Lecture 2005) by Paul Kelly; Wages Policy in an Era of Deepening Wage Inequality, by Chris Briggs, John Buchanan and Ian Watson; and Income Contingent Loans as Public Policy, by Bruce Chapman (forthcoming). A fourth Occasional Paper is currently with referees.
The Academy has agreed to manage on behalf of the ABS the generation of eight original papers, based on data from the 2006 Census. These papers will be about 30 pages long, written in an engaging style and telling an important story about some aspect of Australian life. This collaboration is an excellent fit between the needs and resources of the ABS, and the capacities and objectives of the Academy. The Academy will manage the project, choose the topics and select the authors, ensure that the work is carried out in a timely fashion and to a high standard, and publish the results. It exemplifies what the Review had in mind when it said that the Academies provide easy access to independent advice from some of the nation's best minds - [which is] invaluable for collecting, validating, and disseminating critical knowledge.
If the first set of papers is judged a success by the ABS, they are interested in commissioning a second set in 2009, also based on the 2006 Census. In the longer term, the cycle might be repeated for the 2011 Census.
A second example of the Academy's provision of easy access to independent advice from some of the nation's best minds is evident in our response to direct requests to provide such advice. We have provided written submissions to assist the development of policy on ethics in research; on national collaborative research infrastructure; on the management of and access to national data collections; and on the implementation of the Research Quality Framework. In each case, individual Fellows and other scholars responded to our requests for advice and comment, and it is the access to such informed views, willingly given, that is the main strength of the Academy.
Advice on matters of interest to the social sciences is also being promoted through the Council of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS). This year our Academy has been involved in several CHASS functions, is pleased to provide accommodation for CHASS, and in other ways has supported its activities. CHASS is intending to shift its funding from reliance on grants from the Commonwealth Government to reliance on member subscriptions. We have agreed to pay a subscription of about $4000 initially. In September I was elected to the CHASS Board, and I intend to use this position, among other things, to promote harmonious and productive relations between the Academy and CHASS.
Each year the Academy identifies an early career scholar who has made an exceptional contribution to the social sciences. This year there was a very strong field and two awards have been given. Our Early Career Scholars for 2006 are Dr Jennifer Hudson, a psychologist at Macquarie University, and Dr Andrew Leigh, an economist and lawyer in the Research School of Social Sciences at the ANU. The quality of the field is an encouraging sign for the future of the social sciences in Australia.
An important part of the calendar for the Academy is the election of new Fellows. This is a demanding and meticulous process. This year we had 45 nominations of whom 24 were elected. There is a large amount of information that must be scrupulously and discretely assembled and Executive Assistant Robin Taylor performed this role with skill and professionalism. The Panel Chairs and their committees have a crucial role to play in the election process, as does the Membership Committee. It is always difficult, and great care is taken to be objective, fair, and comparable across the disciplines. While not all those who nominate candidates are happy with the outcome, I am confident that our processes are robust, if not infallible.
A second important part of the calendar is our annual Colloquium, Symposium and Annual General Meeting, held in November. In 2006, they will comprise a Colloquium on the topic of 'Who stole Australian history? Current debates and future directions'; the Symposium, on the intriguing issue of the large scale internal migration in Australia, and the Cunningham Lecture, to be given by distinguished student of International Law, Hilary Charlesworth on the extremely topical theme of 'Building justice and democracy after conflict'.
I wish to acknowledge those Fellows who have made donations to the Academy during the last financial year: Don Spearritt, Harry Rigby, John Grant, John Elkins, Ron Taft, JDB Miller, Peter Groenewegen, John Legge, Mary Luszcz, Maxwell King, Ronald Gates, Michael Clyne, Chin-Liew Ten, Bob Tonkinson, Harry Edwards, Charles Price, Lenore Manderson, Lois Bryson, Anne Edwards, Leon Mann and Keith Hancock. Thank you.
As the Review team observed, harnessing the talents of the Fellows… requires talented professional staff to identify, mobilise, coordinate, and support them in their pro bono work. Our small Secretariat does this and more. We are fortunate to have an excellent staff. Our Executive Director, John Beaton, leads this team with distinction, and by example. He and his team take initiative and action where appropriate, provide quality support to Fellows in their Academy roles and collaborate usefully with the other Academies. The Fellows owe a great deal to the Secretariat, for the excellent work that is done in their name.
My term as President ends in November 2006. It has been a privilege to lead the fine organisation that is the Academy. The Academy stands for the high ideals of the pursuit of understanding and insight in the public interest. It achieves much with its small financial base and its enviable human resources and intellectual capital. The Fellows and the staff combine to produce an exciting, influential and intellectually vibrant addition to Australian life and thought.
The talents, support and friendship of the Executive, Panel Chairs, other Fellows on whom I have called from time to time, and the staff of the Academy have made my job, as an honorary position, both manageable and a pleasure. Thank you, John Beaton and your staff. Thank you Fellows.
Sue Richardson
President, 2007
Last modified: 2 November 2009.