Academy of Social Sciences in Australia
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President's Report
Professor Sue Richardson
2005 has started full of activity for the Academy. Our program of Policy Papers - a new series initiated by the Policy and Advocacy Committee - has, in a short time, become a vehicle for the intelligent discussion of major policy questions. Meredith Edwards provided a systematic look at the mechanisms by which the social sciences and the arena of public policy could relate more fruitfully, in her Social science research and public policy: narrowing the divide.
Most recently, we have published the most ambitious paper yet - a three part contribution to Uncertainty and climate change: the challenge for policy. In this paper, the Academy was especially fortunate to have the first of the trilogy written by John Zillman. John is President of the Academy of the Technological Sciences and Engineering and Director of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology from 1978-2003. He is thus extremely well placed to reflect on the level and character of uncertainty in the science of climate change, and the challenge to scientists of providing useful information while conveying an accurate sense of the degree of uncertainty. Warwick McKibbin then reflects on how economics can provide guidance on how to deal with the uncertainty that John Zillman identifies. He is critical of the Kyoto Protocol in this regard, and puts forward a well developed alternative approach. Aynsley Kellow focuses on the politics of managing such an important public policy issue when policy must be made with very imperfect information, but the price of getting it wrong will be high. These policy papers are part of the Academy's program of showing the social sciences at work, and displaying the major contribution that they can make to intelligent debate on important issues.
In the pursuit of the same agenda, the Conveners of workshops in the Academy's Workshop program are being encouraged, where appropriate, to provide time in their program for participants to come to a view on the policy ideas that flow from the insights of their scholarship. The outcomes of these reflections can be found on the Academy website (a most interesting place to browse, if you have not been there for some time). In addition, again where appropriate, Workshop conveners are being encouraged to invite one or two suitable public servants to join in their discussions.
In early March, the Policy and Advocacy Committee, of which Mike Keating is Chair, arranged to meet with the Secretaries of the Commonwealth departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet (Peter Shergold), Family and Community Services (Jeff Harmer) and Education, Science and Training (Lisa Paul). This meeting heard what the major agendas are for each department, and discussed ways in which the Academy and the social sciences more generally might contribute intelligent ideas to the policy process. As a result of this meeting, it is likely that the Academy will offer to identify distinguished social scientists who could speak at the regular monthly breakfast meeting of senior public servants. We hope also to establish a regular (perhaps annual) meeting with appropriate people from the main policy departments, with an eye to keeping informed about major policy issues and providing advice about scholars in the Academy, or more broadly, who can provide original thinking on these issues. We also intend to encourage senior public servants to attend our Annual Symposium, where it has a policy flavour, and will offer free places to a number of junior staff from departments that do attend.
In all, I believe the meeting with Secretaries was most fruitful, and an excellent initiative of the Policy and Advocacy Committee. The Secretaries themselves expressed similar sentiments.
The theme of connecting the social sciences with the policy makers was continued in an initiative from the Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (of which this Academy is an active supporter). CHASS invited a number of members of the Federal Parliament, their advisors and some senior public servants, to attend a dinner, kindly hosted by the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University, Professor Ian Chubb. At this dinner, Hal Kendig and I (on the basis of our roles in the NHMRC/ARC Ageing Well Network), conducted a dialogue on some of the important aspects surrounding the ageing of the Australian population. This was intended to show the social sciences at work, and to have the members of parliament leave with some ideas that were new to them. By all accounts it was a successful evening, and several of the parliamentarians were interested in the possibility of providing such events in Parliament House.
The Academy has been actively involved in the consultations initiated by Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) to review the way in which research activity is measured. With the financial support of DEST, the Academy convened a meeting in February of 10 Fellows plus our Executive Director, selected to represent a broad range of the social science disciplines. The Fellows were: Sue Richardson, Diane Gibson, Doug McEachern, Alison Booth, Frank Jackson, Beryl Hesketh, Stuart Macintyre, Alan Woodland and Marian Sawer.
This meeting discussed at length the following topics:
- Attributes of an Research Quality Framework (RQF)
- What attributes should an RQF as a whole have?
- How should quality and impact be defined?
- How should an RQF ensure that 'new starters' to the system are not locked out?
- How can future/potential/emerging excellence as well as past excellence be recognised?
- Does the quality of research training need to be considered as part of or separate to research quality?
- How could the National Research Priorities be applied within an RQF?
- Implementation and Metrics
- How should quality and impact be measured?
- How is the quality of research training best measured?
- How frequently should the assessment process be run to ensure that there is a greater focus on improved research quality and impact?
- What sort of transition arrangements would be appropriate?
The group generally accepted that a revised method of evaluating research is likely to be beneficial, for several reasons. These were a) a more credible system would help to boost the level of funding for research; b) it would lead to a better allocation of research funds and c) it would probably improve the quality of research. The discipline or department was seen to be the most appropriate unit of assessment, with each department making a case for its research quality based on explicit guidelines. The process would need a capacity to evaluate multi-discipline units. It would also need to have criteria that encouraged a long-term perspective on research quality and quantity. There was considerable discussion of the risks of gender bias in the usual measures of output and esteem, and an emphasis that such bias must be avoided. It was argued that introduction of a revised quality system that was used to allocate resources would be resisted if it did not increase resources at the same time. A copy of the full record of discussion from this workshop has been provided to DEST and is, or soon will be, available on their website.
A similar round table consultation was organised by the National Academies Forum, with an emphasis on how to deal with multi-discipline research. Our Academy was represented at this discussion by Brian Head and Frank Jackson. The consultation process on this vital topic has been extensive and taken considerable Academy time. I am very grateful to the Fellows who contributed their expertise and time to enable the Academy to play its proper role in these consultations. Let us hope that the final outcome will be substantially improved as a result.
The Academy also made an important contribution to the NHMRC review of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans. This is an extremely important review, since the new National Statement intends to apply to all forms of research involving humans, rather than just medical and bio-medical research. It was crucial to contribute an informed social science voice to this review, in order to assist the review team to avoid the manifest problems for social science research in the current National Statement. The Academy submission was prepared by Robert Cribb, Robert Gregson, Don Byrne, Conal Condren, Duncan Ironmonger and Nic Peterson. Before it was submitted, it was endorsed by the Academy Executive. The working group did a fine job and again, all social scientists are indebted to them for the quality and careful reasoning with which they represented the research interests of our disciplines. A copy of the submission will be placed on our website in late April.
I am pleased to be able to report that our annual Indigenous Summer School was held in February, at the University of Melbourne. This is one of our most important forms of outreach, and has been convened since its inception by Leon Mann and Marcia Langton. It was again an outstanding success, judged so by the important criterion of participant satisfaction.
This is just a brief review of the major representative functions of the Academy so far this year. Much else is happening besides, in our regular workshop, research and international programs. I should note in particular that in February, the Academy signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian Council of Social Science Research. We are optimistic that this will lead to a number of joint projects and academic exchanges between our two academies.
Sue Richardson
2005
Last modified: 2 November 2009.