Academy of Social Sciences in Australia
President's Report
Professor Stuart Macintyre
The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia is a learned society that seeks to advance the social sciences. Through a range of activities it promotes research and teaching, provides expert advice, fosters greater appreciation of the social sciences and represents them in national and international settings.
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The Academy is also an autonomous, non-governmental organisation. While most of the Fellows hold academic posts, the membership extends beyond the universities. The Fellows are elected to the Academy on the basis of their scholarly distinction in one or more of the social sciences, and comprise an unusual breadth of expertise. The advice and assistance that the Academy provides to government and to the public is valued because of its independence.
From its formation the Academy has worked with a modest budget and the annual grant-in-aid from the Australian Government has been its principal source of income. The chief asset has always been the expertise of the Fellows. Their willingness to contribute time and energy for no recompense has allowed the Academy to serve its objectives; but in order for this resource to be mobilised effectively the Academy depends on an appropriate infrastructure of professional staff and operational support.
In 2008 the Academy benefited from the substantial increase in government funding announced in the previous year. This enabled an augmentation of the policy roundtables organised by the Policy and Advocacy Committee, and the Workshop Committee was also able to expand its support for a number of workshops, including one on the 2007 federal election. Similarly, there has been an enlargement of our international programs. These and other activities are reported elsewhere in the Annual Report. We have also initiated three public lectures to honour former presidents of the Academy, each of whom has made a substantial contribution to the work of the Academy itself. One lecture is to be delivered by the winner of the award for early career research and named after the late Paul Bourke; the other two will be delivered by eminent scholars and will be named for the late Fay Gale AO, and Keith (KJ) Hancock AO.
Contributions of Academy expertise to public policy
The new government that came to office at the end of 2007 gave notice of the importance it attaches to higher education, research and innovation, and Senator Kim Carr, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, placed particular emphasis on the need to incorporate the humanities and social sciences in the national innovation system. The Minister appointed me to the Advisory Council he has established for the Australian Research Council, and has frequently sought the advice of the Academy on matters within his portfolio. In September the Minister widened the International Science Linkages Program to include the Social Sciences and the Humanities, and provided additional funding to allow the two Academies to strengthen international collaborations.
The new government commissioned a number of reviews. One was established to prepare a new Roadmap for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, and Graeme Turner, a past president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities played a key role in ensuring a new attention to the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Graeme was also appointed to a key body, the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. Another review chaired by Mary O'Kane reviewed the operation of the Cooperative Research Centres and among its recommendations is one that urges our disciplines be included in the ambit of the CRC scheme.
The Academy convened a special roundtable workshop to consider the discussion paper produced by the Review of Higher Education chaired by Denise Bradley, and used it to prepare a submission. We have been actively involved in the Australian Research Council's preparation of the research assessment exercise, Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), and John Beaton co-ordinated the collection of data for ranking outlets by the four Learned Academies. I am chairing a sub-committee of ERA that is elaborating indicators for a number of disciplines embraced by the Academy. Finally, the Academy helped organise a workshop of the National Academies Forum to discuss the review of Australia's National Innovation System chaired by Terence Cutler, and we used that discussion to prepare a communiqué that was presented to the Minister in September. Mark Dodgson gave leadership in this exercise.
All of these activities drew heavily on the energies of the Secretariat and Fellows, and I am grateful for those who contributed to them. The involvement of the Academy in policy issues is substantial and is likely to increase, with implications for our support arrangements.
Activities
During 2008 there were four Roundtables, which convened policy makers and researchers to engage in discussions on public policy in the areas of urban water supply and use, public service independence and responsiveness, university sector policy and skills needs for Australia. My thanks go to Glenn Withers, who has chaired the Policy and Advocacy Committee alongside his very substantial responsibilities as Chief Executive Officer of Universities Australia. More details of the Policy and Advocacy program can be found later in the Annual Report. Summaries of each roundtable are published in Dialogue and posted at the Academy's website.
The 2007 Symposium on 'Power, People, Water', convened by Patrick Troy and James Walter, was highly successful and a book based on the Symposium has since appeared. The book, edited by Pat Troy, was launched in July 2008 by Graeme Hugo in a public lecture at the Australian National University. On the evening of the Symposium, Robert O'Neill delivered a stringent and persuasive Cunningham Lecture on 'World Order under Stress: Issues and Initiatives for the 21st Century'. Don Aitkin and Anne Edwards convened a lively Fellows' Colloquium on 'Social Science Research: Making Our Research Count'. Barry McGaw drew on his work at the OECD to contribute to that Colloquium, held the evening before the Symposium, and he is now making his research count as head of the National Curriculum Board. These activities were led by James Walter as convenor of the Symposium Committee. Recognising the enhanced range of activities in the public sphere, including the three newly established named Lectures, we have expanded and retitled this committee as the Public Forums Committee.
Among the research projects undertaken by the Academy, under the auspices of the Research Program Committee, a collaborative exercise with the Australian Bureau of Statistics is notable. A group of social scientists have drawn on data from the 2006 census to prepare eight interpretive essays on important areas of social change, and the first three of these will be launched shortly after the Annual General Meeting. Anne Edwards and Jeff Borland have provided leadership of this exercise.
The Workshop Program, which has operated since 1989, supported seven workshops in 2008, all of which are scheduled to be held before the end of the year, and two are already in the process of publication. The Program has benefited from the increased grant-in-aid and in 2008 the funding allocated to each workshop has been increased by up to 30 per cent. To date six workshops have been approved for the 2008-2009 funding round. Details of the Program are reported elsewhere in the Annual Report.
Publications
Three issues of the Academy journal Dialogue have been published. Besides publishing reports of Academy activities, each edition provides a forum for discussion of a topical issue. In the year just elapsed, issues were dedicated to discussions of aspects of Australian financial futures (26, 3/2007), Universities and the Australian higher education landscape (27, 1/2008), and belief/disbelief in Australian society (27, 2/2008).
I am also pleased to announce the publication of the 2007 Cunningham Lecture by Robert O'Neill, in addition to two titles in the Academy's Occasional Paper Series: 'Population and Australia's Future Labour Force' (1/2008, Policy Paper #7) by Peter McDonald and Glenn Withers, and 'Public Service Independence and Responsiveness: Striking a Balance' (2/2008, Policy Paper #8) by Jenny Stewart. Special note should be made of McDonald/Withers paper, which was the last in a series of research papers commissioned by the Academy's Research Committee, and attracted some degree of media coverage. A longer report on the activities of the Academy's Research Committee can be found elsewhere in this Annual Report.
Election of Fellows
In 2008 twenty-two new Fellows were elected to the membership of the Academy. They will be introduced and welcomed at the Annual Academy dinner in November.
The Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research for 2008 has been won by Dr Murat Yücel, Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, who heads Neuroimaging and Cognitive Neuroscience Research in Drug Addiction at the ORYGEN Research Centre in the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre. I congratulate all new Fellows and the Early Career Award recipient on their success.
Donations
I wish to acknowledge the donation made to the Academy by Keith Hancock during the financial year. Thank you.
Deaths
All Fellows were saddened by the death during the year of our former president, Fay Gale, who had a long record of involvement going back to participation in the project 'Aborigines in Australian Society', undertaken by our predecessor body, the Social Science Research Council, in the 1960s and 1970s. We also mourn the loss of five other Fellows: Harrison Bryan, Greg Dening, Christopher Heyde, Les Hiatt and John Keats. Obituaries appear elsewhere in the Annual Report.
Indigenous Summer School
The Academy also recognises its responsibilities in outreach activities. Since 2002 ASSA has each year conducted a summer school for Indigenous postgraduate students from all round the country. The summer school was initiated by a former President, Leon Mann, and a Fellow, Marcia Langton, and operates in partnership with the University of Melbourne, primarily through the Centre for Health and Society (and with the active support of its Director, Professor Ian Anderson). Jennifer Fernance of the Academy Secretariat provides administrative/accounting support.
In 2008 another successful summer school attracted 17 Indigenous postgraduate students. Nine faculty members participated fulltime and three part-time, assisting the students in developing skills and techniques appropriate to their postgraduate studies.
National Academies Forum
In addition to the increase in the grants-in aid to the four Learned Academies, the government also increased the grant to the National Academies Forum (NAF). NAF is the umbrella organisation of the Learned Academies, and its presidency rotates among them. The Academy of the Social Sciences took responsibility for NAF's secretariat in 2007.
Through the Learned Academies Special Projects scheme NAF undertakes collaborative research projects, and the current project is an inquiry into Australian attitudes to nuclear power. Robyn Eckersley, Penelope Sanderson and Peter Spearritt, on behalf of the Academy, are contributing their expertise to this project. The project will concentrate on both historical and contemporary formations of attitudes towards nuclear power, and will centre on understanding why previous debates faltered and stalled, and what will be the determinants that will influence the nature of the debate in the future.
Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
The Academy remains a major affiliate and supporter of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS), and has been involved in a number of its activities during the year.
CHASS was established as a much-needed advocacy group on behalf of the humanities and the creative and performing arts as well as the social sciences. During the year there was a review of CHASS, and with Ian Donaldson, the president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, I worked with Stuart Cunningham, the president of CHASS, to clarify its role. We believe this provides a good basis for future co-operation and enhanced effectiveness.
International Program
The Academy's international program has also been bolstered by the recent increase in the grant-in-aid from the Federal Government. Most notably it has allowed the Academy to double its commitment to the Social Sciences Collaborative Research Projects exchange program, run jointly with the Embassy of France in Australia. The Academy is increasingly positioning itself as a key component of the research and funding landscape in Australian social sciences research, and I am pleased to note the number of research collaborations which have used the Academy's international programs as a springboard to substantial research projects and funding opportunities. I would like also to acknowledge the valuable contributions of our other international partners: the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research, the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the British Academy.
ASSA's opportunity to foster internationally collaborative research can be illustrated by a recent application to the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF), which was submitted on behalf of two Fellows and their respective research centres. The AJF saw the Academy as the most suitable body to facilitate collaboration between Australian and Japanese researchers in high-level social science projects, and the Academy assisted the researchers and research centres in question to secure around $25,000 worth of funding for two collaborative research exercises. This demonstrates the evolution of the Academy's capacity, through the expertise of its Fellowship, to act as both coordinator of, and conduit for, high level international research collaboration.
A full report on the International Program appears later in the Annual Report.
Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils
The Academy has also assumed the secretariat of the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils, and the Executive Director reports on its activity in his General Report.
Acknowledgements
I noted above that the efficacy of the Academy derives from the expertise of the Secretariat and the willingness of Fellows to participate in its activities. We are fortunate that the staff who constitute Secretariat are so highly skilled and committed to the fortunes of the social sciences. During the first half of the past year, when I was abroad, I relied particularly on their advice and assistance, and I thank John Beaton as Executive Director along with all his colleagues. During my absence Sue Richardson acted as President, and I am indebted to her.
The same holds for the Fellows who constitute the Executive and chair the various committees, as well as those who serve on them, the Panel chairs and committees, the branch convenors and others who contribute to the life of Academy. They have contributed to a successful year.
Stuart Macintyre
President, 2008
Last modified: 2 November 2009.