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CHASS Submissions / Statements / Letters

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CHASS Policy Review of the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP)

12th May, 2024

Policy Review of the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP)

About CHASS: we are a peak body with a membership of over 50 humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) organisations, including academic discipline associations, universities and members from HASS associated industries.

Terms of Reference
The review’s terms of reference identified six key themes:

⦁ Purpose and impact of ARC grants

⦁ Program structure and design

⦁ Alignment with other government research funding programs

⦁ Strong and diverse research sector

⦁ Advancing support for Indigenous Australian research and researchers

⦁ National priorities for research

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) welcomes the Discussion Paper’s acknowledgement that the NCGP’s capacity to help Australia realise its potential applies equally to the humanities and social science (HASS), and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. There is a public interest in supporting basic research in the HASS disciplines that will help us to better ‘understand ourselves and the world around us’ (https://thepolicymaker.jmi.org.au/australias-research-funding-system-is-broken-heres-how-to-fix-it/). We also believe that the HASS disciplines must play a part in grappling with the most pressing problems that face our societies and our planet. This submission addresses the terms of reference in direct response to the nine questions posed by the discussion paper.

(Full Review) CHASS Policy Review of the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP)

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Letter to Professor Cramer regarding Professor Hage

21st February, 2024

Prof. Dr Patrick Cramer
President, Max Planck Society
praesident@gv.mpg.de

cc. Prof. Dr Ursula Rao
Director, Anthropology of Politics and Governance Department,
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle
office.rao@eth.mpg.de

Dear Professor Cramer,

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in Australia wishes to convey its great disappointment at the decision to dismiss our colleague, Professor Ghassan Hage.

As you know, Professor Hage is one of Australia’s leading scholars as well as being a world-renowned anthropologist. He has an exemplary record of humane scholarship and anti-racism. Many of his colleagues in this country find particularly unreasonable the unsubstantiated insinuation of racism in your public statement.

We recognise that German academic culture and German law are different from Australia’s and we respect that difference. But we cannot forbear from pointing to the grave threat to freedom of academic enquiry and expression that is posed by both your decision to dismiss Professor Hage, and the terms in which it was conveyed to the public.

It is essential that scholars with relevant expertise be able to criticise the actions of any government or state, including their own. They should not, in doing so, find themselves ostracised, sacked or the subject of unwarranted accusations of racism.

Yours sincerely,

(Prof.) Frank Bongiorno AM FRHistS FASSA FAHA
President, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Letter to Professor Dr. Cramer re Professor Hage

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CHASS Submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee

January 15th, 2024

Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee
Australian Research Council Amendment (Review Response) Bill 2023 [Provisions]
Submission from the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)

About CHASS: we are a peak body with a membership of over 50 humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) organisations, including academic discipline associations, universities and members from HASS associated industries.

This submission was authored by Matthew Champion, Ilana Mushin, Dan Woodman and Frank Bongiorno on behalf of the Board of CHASS.

(a) Promoting a Strong and Vibrant Research Culture

CHASS welcomes the expanded definition of the role of the ARC’s role, notably to ‘promote and conduct activities to shape and foster the Australian research landscape and community’. This addition, advocated strongly by the CHASS in its submission to the review of the ARC Act 2001, brings the ARC’s role more closely into line with similar bodies and councils elsewhere. We believe the new ARC Board will be ideally placed to play a leading role in this important mission, which must include the strengthening of the academic research workforce. One major challenge will be to devise adequately funded programs and activities that operationalise the goals of strengthening Australia’s research culture and demonstrating to the public the ‘economic, social, environmental and cultural benefit’ of ARC-funded research. This will depend, in the first instance, on much closer collaboration and consultation between ‘the centre’ – the ARC itself – and the individuals and organisations engaged in funded research, including through representative bodies such as our own. It will also demand more productive dialogue between the ARC and the wider community, which has sometimes only learnt of the existence of the organisation when Ministers have vetoed grants, most commonly in the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS). Raising the profile and enhancing the social license of Australian research will also necessarily depend on improving public access to ARC-funded research through better funding of its dissemination via Open Access arrangements.

We note that the legislation includes provision for the ARC’s role in ‘evaluating the excellence, impact and depth of Australian research’. The ARC must be able to ensure that the projects which it funds have been carried out in accordance with their terms. There is also a need to support the necessary data collection and articulation of benefit that will underpin successful advocacy for research to the Australian public. CHASS does not, however, support elaborate reviews of research impact and assessment. The experience of such reviews, e.g., REF in the UK, and the ERA in Australia, suggests that these exercises are costly, often gamed by institutions, and waste resources that would be better deployed elsewhere. They are a drag on research and innovation.

(b) Scope of Research Funding

The ARC Act has previously been unclear about the scope of research funding supported by the Council. From the point of view of the HASS fields, to which basic research is integral, this lack of clarity raised the concern that resources were too easily shifted to applied areas that marginalised HASS disciplines. CHASS supports research across basic and applied fields. We therefore welcome the inclusion of the following purpose: to ‘administer funding of excellent pure basic research, strategic basic research and applied research in all disciplines under the National Competitive Grants Program, except experimental development’. We note that the Minister will be responsible for approving funding rules consistent with the Act and that central to this task will be ‘to rebalance the focus of the ARC between basic and applied areas of research’. The international evidence reveals that basic research in HASS and STEM drives innovation across multiple spheres essential to the flourishing of social life. The Council should be required consult regularly and widely within the university sector in setting priorities that will strike this critical balance between pure and applied research, recognising their interdependence.

(c) Ministerial Veto

CHASS endorses the initiative of an ARC Board to secure ‘the independence and integrity of the ARC and its decision-making processes’ and welcomes the transfer of responsibility for approving grants from the Minister to the Board. HASS disciplines have been the principal targets of Ministerial interference in the past and should therefore gain a measure of protection from this change, which will reduce the confusion between academic and political judgement. We welcome the preservation and strengthening of peer review and agree that decisions about funding should be based on research excellence. Grant rounds should not be opportunities for political performance.

We welcome the move towards some codification of these situations in the Act and agree that there should be a process for Parliamentary oversight. The veto should only be possible in certain bounded (and highly unusual) circumstances:

Where the Board has failed to follow the due process;

Where additional information about a grant or proposed grant holder has come to light that may require an application to be reassessed;

Where the project can be shown to pose a genuine threat to national security.

Ministerial justifications of a veto should address at least one of the categories.

We note that the Minister can decline to approve a grant where the ‘security, defence or international relations of Australia’ are relevant, but we also see dangers in an expansive understanding of these fields, especially ‘international relations’. It is essential to academic freedom and a democratic society that the decisions of funding bodies facilitate critique founded on evidence-based research in HASS disciplines. It is not their role to enhance Australia’s international relations or to act as purveyors of ‘soft power’. We suggest that the legislation should retain the Minister’s power, in exceptional circumstances, to decline to approve a grant in relation to ‘security’ and ‘defence’ but that ‘international relations’ might be amended to ‘international obligations of Australia’.

(d) Composition of the ARC Board

We find the provisions for appointment of members of the Council lacking in clarity in relation to the expertise required of Board members. While we understand the need for some flexibility here, and recognise the potentially important role to be played by members drawn from industry and the wider community, the provision that ‘a majority of the Board members are persons whom the Minister is satisfied have substantial experience or expertise in one or more fields of research or in the management of research’ does not specify standing in the academic community or any familiarity with specifically university-based research systems. It is an unfortunate reality of modern life that the term ‘research’ is applied to many activities that are not regarded by reputable experts as sufficiently grounded in sound methodology to warrant such a label. We are concerned by the lack of any specific provision for experience of, or familiarity with, university-based research systems and practices in the bill. We believe, therefore, that there should be some specific provision for university standing and expertise for a majority of members. This would be achieved by the addition of the words after ‘research’ to 12(4)(a): ‘in a university environment’.

While welcoming the other provisions for diversity, such as those involving Indigenous representation, regional, rural and remote Australia, and ‘the general community’, we are unable to understand why no specific provision is made for experience in the broad areas of research represented by the ARC. Specifically, there should be provision for expertise across HASS and STEM disciplines to ensure diversity in the Board's composition. This would be achieved by adding a provision: ‘ensuring that the members reflect the diversity of fields of research’.

More generally, the Board structure should be articulated to codify requirements of meaningful consultation with the sector, including peak bodies, learned academies and universities, so that the ARC Board is trusted as representative of the country’s most significant thinkers and academic leaders.

In accordance with this basic principle, appointment of the College of Experts by the Board should continue to occur via a process of application with an emphasis on transparency of process.

(e) Conclusion
CHASS welcomes this opportunity to contribute to recalibrating the ARC's structure and functionby commenting on the Australian Research Council Amendment (Review Response) Bill 2023 [Provisions]. We are hopeful that the future of the ARC will allow further avenues for peak bodies such as ours to contribute to its success.

CHASS Submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee

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CHASS Board Letter to ACU Chancellor and Chair of the Senate

September 18th, 2023

The Honourable Martin Daubney AM KC
Chancellor and Chair of the Senate, Australian Catholic University (cc: Senate)

Dear Chancellor

I am writing to you as President of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) on behalf of the CHASS Board to share our deep concern about the proposal for substantial cuts to positions in the Humanities and Social Sciences in History, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies. We urge the University to step back from these ill-considered plans.

The areas under threat in the current Change Plan are among the core HASS disciplines, which provide a foundation for interdisciplinary, engaged, and impactful HASS teaching and research. It would be highly damaging to ACU’s reputation to have so recently invested in these areas on these grounds and now to make such deep and uncompromising cuts.

Complex problem solving, reasoning, comprehension and understanding of the social world as it changes over time are widely identified as necessary skills for students now and in the future and for thriving communities that can manage political differences productively. A move to ‘discontinue’ research centres, and to reduce both teaching and research capacity in areas that provide foundational methods and understandings about human nature and capacity for change over time and about collective decision making and processes of political consensus and struggle seems counterintuitive given the needs of your students and the wider communities you serve.

Universities that have built their current strength and reputation on understanding and serving the communities in which they are based have large and vibrant HASS programs. Until now we counted ACU among these universities. You have a vibrant culture of excellence in HASS and the academics now at risk of losing their jobs are among the most respected in the HASS sector in Australia and internationally. Given ACU’s mission of being committed to the pursuit of knowledge, the dignity of the human person and the common good, so sharply reducing your capacity in HASS is difficult to understand.

In the light of ACU's emphasis on the dignity of the human person, we also wish to highlight the human cost of these proposals. Numerous scholars – including early career scholars – have relocated to Australia from across the world to take these posts. They have enormously enriched the country's capacity across multiple disciplines. These scholars were promised continuing roles. To turn around so swiftly and 'disestablish' these roles would be a a breach of trust and a denial of the dignity of the human person.

The recent challenges faced by the university sector, including the drastically restructured funding models in teaching, learning and research, are our present reality but the current accord process will provide a unique opportunity to reimagine research and teaching across the disciplines. For the good of the University, its students, and the communities it serves, we urge ACU to withdraw its current Change Plan, and to explore ways to maintain its leadership in these crucial and foundational HASS disciplines.

Yours sincerely

Professor Dan Woodman
President of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences on behalf of the CHASS Board.

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Australian Universities Accord Discussion Paper

April 11th, 2023

Australian Universities Accord Discussion Paper Submission:
Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)

About CHASS: we are a peak body with a membership of over 50 humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) organisations, including academic discipline associations, universities and members from HASS associated industries. Our aim is to communicate the value of HASS and its crucial role in building a thriving, prosperous, sustainable, and equitable Australia.

This submission focuses on HASS disciplines and on four main themes from the terms of reference. This submission is on behalf of the CHASS Board.¹ Many member organisations contributed to a discussion that informed this document, but the submission does not necessarily represent the views of these groups.

Meeting Australia’s knowledge and skills needs, now and in the future
Recent policy (Jobs Ready Graduates [JRG]) has aimed to actively dissuade students from taking humanities, arts and social sciences offerings. There is no good reason to discourage students from taking subjects like criminology, history, or philosophy. Doing so runs counter to an emerging consensus that current changes in the labour market make the skills learned in HASS more valuable and fails to recognise the broader purpose of education and the unpredictability of future societal needs. Some of the fastest growing jobs for university graduates are in new fields and many of these emerging roles have HASS related skills and knowledge at their core. HASS degrees, or other study pathways incorporating a HASS component, provide a foundation for working in a changing economy and provide a solid foundation for lifelong learning that will address changing individual and collective needs over time.

Students should be well informed about options and outcomes, but it will be very difficult to convince students to pursue areas outside their interests. There is also evidence that students pursuing their interests are more likely to succeed.

Increasing student contributions in particular areas (i.e., JRG) should not be used as a mechanism to redirect student preferences.
The opportunity to develop skills that will prepare people for life in a changing world should be available to those taking all courses of study.

While interests are relatively stable, they do change, and new interests and opportunities will arise over time for students, particularly in the context of changing labour markets and a changing society:

Students should have the opportunity to leave courses or change direction within their study without heavy penalty and with minimal fuss.
Earlier exit points with a recognised qualification (such as a certificate) should be available wherever possible.
Lifelong learning will need to be resourced, recognising the needs that emerge at different points of the life course and the equity considerations that attend them.

Further, our global position as an English speaking, cosmopolitan society in the Asia Pacific, and as a country that is the home of the longest continuing culture in the world, means that many of our areas of strength (and global competitive advantage) are aligned to HASS study. Australia will be well served by encouraging as many students as possible, local and international, to add an understanding of the social world in which they are living to their areas of expertise.

We recommend settings and incentives that give students the capacity to combine areas of interest, including HASS study, wherever possible.

Governance, accountability and community
HASS is core to the role of Australian universities as socially engaged institutions. The publics our universities serve face rapid technological, environmental, economic, demographic, and cultural changes. HASS research is essential to understanding and supporting the communities our universities serve. Many universities rightly have a strong place-based mission, for example in regional areas or growing outer suburbs of our major cities. In this context, we note that the discussion paper asks whether there is currently sufficient support for specialisation across different institutions. While there may be value to greater specialisation, there are also substantial risks that some types of specialisation will mean that universities can no longer properly serve their communities.

It is crucial that students in all parts of Australia can study history, society, language, Indigenous studies and all HASS offerings.
It is crucial that HASS research takes place in all communities within Australia.

The social license for universities and for public funding of research and education is underpinned by the relationship between universities, the broader higher education and knowledge sectors, public institutions, and the communities they serve. In both research and teaching university scholarship is often drawn into culture wars. For example, as evidenced over the previous term of government, there is significant scope for confusion between academic and political judgement in the assessment of research (i.e., the use of Ministerial veto over Australian Research Council [ARC] Discovery grants). This has caused substantial damage to Australia's research reputation in recent years and there are better ways to make sure that the broader community’s interests help to shape research and teaching, including making sure that the community in its diversity is represented within universities and the ARC.

Universities, the ARC, and other relevant bodies should be governed under legislation and policy that enshrines Indigenous expertise, disciplinary breadth (across HASS and STEM), and diversity of representation, alongside independence with appropriate oversight.

While the value of university research is enhanced by responding to community needs, it is also essential to communicate the value of what universities do to the public. This need is not currently well met. The ARC currently oversees and put significant resourcing into National Interest Test statements for research projects, but these are clearly not providing the kind of rich and detailed accounts of why research matters to a flourishing society. Some similar international bodies have a mission to advocate for research in a way that the ARC does not. The UK Research and Innovation for example, through its disciplinary councils, has a mission to champion the vibrancy of research across disciplines to the broader public and other partners, as well as directly funding research projects.
The ARC’s mission could expand to properly support this type of engagement, or a research engagement block grant or other secure funding could be made directly available to major higher education institutions, peak bodies and learned academies to better engage with communities. Activities like Social Sciences Week led by the HASS sector should be supported by Government in the same way that National Sciences Week is.

Higher education institutions, sector groups, and individual teachers and researchers should be resourced to undertake the important tasks of both partnering with communities and showcasing why the research and teaching being undertaken matters to the community.

Access and opportunity
With the JRG package, for many HASS offerings the level of funding per student dropped to less than 10 per cent of their degree costs, with students’ personal contribution rising to the highest band. Students studying HASS are currently left to pay largely for their own degrees in a context when other cost of living pressures are growing. This has the greatest effect on women and minority groups, who are more likely than other groups to be studying HASS and will leave them disproportionately burdened with debt.

The JRG changes are unlikely to improve pathways to employment for graduates but appear to be likely to exacerbate the effects of the gender pay gap and other pay inequities between groups, and impact career and family choices in ways that are negative both for the individual and for Australian society. JRG also makes it more difficult for low SES students to engage with and contribute to HASS.

Student contributions should not be based on dissuading people from study pathways based on a narrow assessment of value linked to short term job outcomes and graduate salaries.

The Jobs Ready Graduate package should be replaced.
The current required pass rate to retain a Commonwealth supported place should be reduced.
Student contributions should be relatively similar across offering, while allowing some upward adjustment for cost of teaching and for likely individual benefit as measured by earnings.

Delivering new knowledge, innovation and capability

HASS knowledge undergirds all matters of public importance. The challenges and questions Australia faces include environmental and health issues that are as much social challenges as they are technical ones, entrenched inequalities, the need to recognise the voice and rights of First Nations peoples, and questions about how best to regulate financial markets and build a fairer economic system. Australia is also reflecting on the fundamental need to successfully manage differences on the issues of what makes our lives valuable and the type of world we want to live in. All of these are questions requiring HASS expertise.
We also know from international evidence that basic research in HASS and STEM drives unexpected innovation across multiple spheres essential to the flourishing of social life. Australia needs a research ecology that does not set up a trade-off between applied research and leading the world in excellent and innovative pure and basic research.

There is a need for a sustainable and diversified portfolio of research supports beyond the limited number of grants currently present in the Australian research landscape.
There is a need for legislation to further support joint public-private research investment funds that can support Australian researchers and the community, potentially freeing ARC Linkage funding for other ARC schemes.

It is also crucial that the value of the higher education sector and universities is not reduced to a narrowly defined servicing of skills needs and applied research and commercialisation. A large part of the value of HASS disciplines is the creation of a rich ecology of knowledge, in fostering multiple analytical traditions that can adjust to an inherently unpredictable social world. The contribution of HASS to innovation is dramatically undervalued if it is measured primarily in terms of commercialisation potential. At the same time, the Australian community, and our university-based researchers both have much to gain by better connection and further support.

Settings and resourcing should aim at strengthening the links between universities and industry, including in HASS areas.

_____________________________________________

[1] This submission builds on and draws upon recent CHASS submissions and reports, particularly our Federal Election Statement - Priorities for Supporting World Leading Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in Australia from 2022.

https://www.chass.org.au/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=239946&module_id=464739

[1] https://www.humanities.org.au/issue-item/the-power-of-the-humanities/

https://socialsciences.org.au/publications/the-social-sciences-shape-the-nation/

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/skills-qualified-future-quantifying-demand-arts-humanities-social-science/

[1] https://andrewnorton.net.au/2020/06/21/jobs-interests-and-student-course-choices/

[1] https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/University-attrition-background.pdf

[1] https://socialsciencesweek.org.au/

[1] https://www.dese.gov.au/job-ready/improving-accountability-information-providers

[1] https://bcec.edu.au/publications/analysis-of-costs-and-savings-of-proposed-reforms-to-higher-education/

[1] https://www.mpg.de/799746/W000_Viewpoint_006-009.pdf

CHASS Accord Discussion Paper Submission

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Review of the Australian Research Council Act 2001

14 December 2022

Review of the Australian Research Council Act 2001
Submission from the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)

About CHASS: we are a peak body with a membership of over 50 humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) organisations, including academic discipline associations, universities and members from HASS associated industries.

This submission was authored by Matthew Champion, Ilana Mushin and Dan Woodman on behalf of the Board of CHASS.

Q1. How could the purpose in the ARC Act be revised to reflect the current and future role of the ARC? For example, should the ARC Act be amended to specify in legislation:

a. the scope of research funding supported by the ARC;

b. the balance of Discovery and Linkage research programs;

c. the role of the ARC in actively shaping the research landscape in Australia; and/or

d. any other functions? If so, what scope, functions and role?

a.) The ARC Act is unclear on the scope of research funding supported by the ARC. There are advantages to this model of legislation, allowing flexibility. There are, however, significant drawbacks. The most obvious is that resources are shifting away from basic research. We know from international evidence that basic research in HASS and STEM drives unexpected innovation across multiple spheres essential to the flourishing of social life. Without excluding support from applied research, consideration should be given to enshrining in the act the ARC's critical role in placing Australia at the forefront of advancing excellent and innovative pure and basic research.

b.) The principles articulated under a.) suggest the need to re-evaluate the function of Linkage grants. While Linkage grants can foster pure and basic research and important research partnerships that would only emerge with this grant support (particularly when the industry partner is a not for profit or otherwise unable to directly fund the research themselves), there is a risk that funding is primarily directed to areas with significant non-government investment in research and development and other sources of funding available without Linkage support. The Act might be amended to specify that only a percentage of ARC funding (such as 10 per cent) be directed towards Linkage grants, liberating funds to support essential Discovery programs. There is a need for a sustainable and diversified portfolio of grants beyond the limited number currently present in the Australian research landscape. A modification to the Act or alternative legislation to support a joint public-private research investment fund may be part of filling this gap.

c.) and d.) The ARC plays an important role in shaping research in the country. The ARC currently has limited resources to imagine long term, sustained clusters of research excellence beyond Centres of Excellence. But research in many fields simply does not progress in 3–4-year increments. Many successful DPs have outcomes which clearly point to the next phases of the research but at that point the applicants must start all over again with a new application that is treated by the process as an ab initio application and even penalised for a relative lack of innovation. The Act might be altered to specify that a variety of timeframes must be supported by ARC schemes, with proportions of funds allotted to short-term projects, from 1 to 5 years, with some avenues to support longer term work (e.g., 10–15 year).
We do not see any role for the ARC in large-scale research evaluation exercises which international and Australian experiences have shown are a costly and unreliable way of evaluating research excellence that encourage distortions across the HE sector. These roles should not be enshrined in the Act.

Q2. Do you consider the current ARC governance model is adequate for the ARC to perform its functions?
If not, how could governance of the ARC be improved? For example, should the ARC Act be amended to incorporate a new governance model that establishes a Board on the model outlined in the consultation paper, or another model;
Please expand on your reasoning and/or provide alternative suggestions to enhance the governance, if you consider this to be important.

CHASS endorses a lightly revised version of the Board advanced in the consultation model. As the Act is currently drafted there is significant scope for confusion between academic and political judgement. Including a board structure within the Act, with appropriate safeguards regarding expertise and independence from ministerial interference outside of reasonable ministerial oversight (this interference includes arbitrary veto after funding rules and criteria are set and have been met), would help to address major concerns with the functioning of the ARC process in recent years. One approach to supporting ARC's independence from the Minister would be to make certain positions on the ARC Board elected by members of the learned academies.
The Board structure should be articulated to codify requirements of meaningful consultation with the sector, including peak bodies, learned academies and universities, so that the board is trusted as representative of the country's most significant thinkers and academic leaders. In defining the composition of the board, a revised Act may also include clauses enshrining Indigenous expertise, disciplinary breadth (across HASS and STEM), and issues of diversity in the Board's composition.

Q3. How could the Act be improved to ensure academic and research expertise is obtained and maintained to support the ARC?

How could this be done without the Act becoming overly prescriptive?

The formation of the Board should in part address these issues (as outlined in Q2 above). Other issues of process, including the appointment of the Colleges of Experts, should be via transparent application process, but left to the ultimate judgement of the ARC Board.

Q4. Should the ARC Act be amended to consolidate the pre-eminence or importance of peer review?
Please provide any specific suggestions you may have for amendment of the Act, and/or for non-legislative measures.
The Act should be emended to remove the clauses that allow for unchecked ministerial veto of research funding recommended by the CEO (or, in the new revised Act, the Board) of the ARC. This will assist in addressing the major damage done to Australia's research reputation in recent years by arbitrary uses of veto powers.
In some extraordinary and rare situations, ministerial veto may be appropriate. These situations might be codified in the Act and the processes for Parliamentary oversight of these powers articulated. The veto should only be possible in certain bounded (and highly unusual) circumstances:

1. Where the Board has failed to follow the due process of independent peer review of proposals;

2. Where additional information about a grant or proposed grant holder has come to light that may require a grant to be reassessed by an independent panel of experts;

3. Where the project can be shown by an independent panel of security experts to pose a real threat to national security.
Ministerial justifications of grant veto must address at least one of the categories and be provided to Parliament within 14 days of the veto power being activated.

Q5. Please provide suggestions on how the ARC, researchers and universities can better preserve and strengthen the social licence for public funding of research.

The social license for public funding of research must be a collaboration between politicians, ARC, researchers, universities and sector and discipline groups. Structures such as the NIT are clearly not providing the kind of rich and detailed accounts of why research matters to a flourishing society. Some similar international bodies have a mission to advocate for research in a way that the ARC currently does not. The UKRI for example, through its disciplinary councils, has a mission not only to support research projects directly through funding but to also champion the creativity and vibrancy of research disciplines and the research priorities and network building capacity of different sectors, including HASS. The ARC might consider establishing research engagement funding that is a 'bolt-on' to existing grants, or funding a block grant to major research HE institutions, peak bodies and learned academies to enable experienced educators to work with local communities to undertake in the important task of partnering with communities and bringing the case for research and its benefits to wider publics. The ARC itself, through its officers and Board, as well as politicians, may wish to take a more active role in showing why research matters across a variety of domains – economic, social, cultural and so on.

Q6. What elements of ARC processes or practices create administrative burdens and/or duplication of effort for researchers, research offices and research partners?

Current ARC processes have significant strengths but can be refined in a number of directions. CHASS welcomes the articulation of problems in the ARC Consultation Paper. We include the following is a list of areas that have been identified by CHASS members to provide further support for practical reforms to ARC processes.

1. The low success rates, and the enormous expense of academic labour across the country (and the world) for very limited rewards. Possible solutions to this problem are a.) increase the funding to improve success rates; and b.) reduce the length of applications, and duplication of information across the application; c) insert an EOI stage which allows certain grants less likely to succeed to be identified at an early phase before weeks or months are spent in the drafting process.

2. Confusing rule changes. There have been positive movements here in recent times, but there is a simple fix here: state the rules clearly without multiple confusing revisions.

3. Calendar issues. Again, there have been positive movements here in recent times, but it should be standard to fix the dates for rule releases, applications and announcements and stick to these dates.

4. International collaboration is difficult given the lengthy requirements of the application not only for the team but for each investigator, including international partners (the ROPE for example). The ROPE plays an important role in applications, but often duplicates sections of the applications given over to investigator capability. Reducing the length of the ROPE may be an advantage here, alongside removing duplication with the investigator/capability sections from early in the application.

5. Budgets are currently cumbersome and should be simplified where possible. The tools on the RMS are not fit for purpose and should be replaced.

6. Non-traditional outputs are hard to track and insufficiently valued in ARC application processes. This difficulty can be addressed by clearer guidelines to applicants and assessors about these important facets of academic life. A consultation of the sector may be required to develop these guidelines.

7. Australia's Science and Research Priorities are often narrow and risk alienating international collaborators. Broad Research Priorities may have a role in the ARC's processes, but risk being politicized if they are not developed by an independent board of research experts from across sectors. If Research Priorities are maintained, they should never be used to crowd out novel ideas which often emerge unexpectedly without reference to strategic directions or goals.

8. Funding for minority disciplines. Several important areas of research, including in HASS, that risk being crowded out by larger disciplines with larger research communities and consistent ARC success. The ARC may wish to target some funding or funding schemes towards certain at-risk fields of knowledge, where investment is necessary to maintain expertise.

Q7. What improvements could be made:

a. to ARC processes to promote excellence, improve agility, and betterfacilitate globally collaborative research and partnerships while maintaining rigour, excellence and peer review at an international standard?

b. to the ARC Act to give effect to these process improvements, or do you suggest other means?

1. The ARC may wish to institute a small fund for networks that allows international collaboration to develop towards larger grants. This has been a highly successful method of research funding in a variety of European contexts.

2. The DECRA scheme is clearly not fulfilling its purpose as an early career award. CHASS does not advocate for its abolition. The DECRA should remain, as a valuable means of attracting major international talent and for supporting emerging researcher leaders. But a further scheme should be established: a genuine postdoctoral award, to be held one or two years after the award of a doctorate. A requirement of the award should be that the recipient not hold a continuing academic post. This will allow the retention of a group of scholars who often disappear from academia or Australia. Future Fellowships may also need to be recalibrated as the current number is not enough to support mid-career excellence and progression (investment and support for mid-career academics is often missing within and outside of HE institutions, with a greater focus on ECRs and senior research leaders).

3. The ARC may wish to re-institute a smaller grant scheme of the kind covered by various other research funding schemes in international contexts. Grant proposals are sometimes overblown or given an extended timeline simply to match the scheme funding rules and accessor expectations and may be better served by other funding configurations.

4. The transfer of grants between institutions should not require elaborate justification or unnecessary and lengthy delays. Grants are not a form of debt bondage, but rather a means to foster research excellence, and thus should follow researchers as they develop their careers.

5. CHASS believes that these kinds of procedural issues about new funding schemes and their rules are best decided by the newly constituted Board.

Q8. With respect to ERA and EI:

a. Do you believe there is a need for a highly rigorous, retrospective excellence and impact assessment exercise, particularly in the absence of a link to funding?

b. What other evaluation measures or approaches (e.g. data driven approaches) could be deployed to inform research standards and future academic capability that are relevant to all disciplines, without increasing the administrative burden?

c. Should the ARC Act be amended to reference a research quality, engagement and impact assessment function, however conducted?

d. If so, should that reference include the function of developing new methods in research assessment and keeping up with best practice and global insights?

CHASS does not believe the ARC Act should be amended to include an assessment function of any kind. There is no need for elaborate reviews of research impact and assessment if there is adequate reporting and review of ARC of grant outcomes at the conclusion of funding periods. Experience of these elaborate reviews, e.g., REF in the UK, and the ERA in Australia, suggests that these exercises are costly, often gamed by institutions, and waste resources that would be better deployed elsewhere. They are a drag on research and innovation.

Q9. With respect to the ARC’s capability to evaluate research excellence and impact:

a. how can the ARC best use its expertise and capability in evaluating the outcomes and benefits of research to demonstrate the ongoing value and excellence of Australian research in different disciplines and/or in response to perceived problems?

b. what elements would be important so that such a capability could inform potential collaborators and end-users, share best practice, and identify national gaps and opportunities?

c. would a data-driven methodology assist in fulfilling this purpose? The ARC should have an oversight role in making sure that the grants which it funds have been carried out in accordance with their terms. There is also a need to support the necessary data collection and articulation of benefit that can underpin successful advocacy for research to the Australian public. The ARC may play a direct or indirect role in this. However, as outlined in section 8 we do not see the benefit of a larger role as adjudicator of research excellence in the form of an ERA type exercise.

Q10. Having regard to the Review’s Terms of Reference, the ARC Act itself, the function, structure and operation of the ARC, and the current and potential role of the ARC in fostering excellent Australian research of global significance, do you have any other comments or suggestions?

CHASS welcomes this opportunity to contribute to recalibrating the ARC's structure and function. We are hopeful that the future of the ARC will allow further avenues for peak bodies such as ours to contribute to its success.

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National Cultural Policy (NCP) Submission from the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)

19 August 2022

National Cultural Policy (NCP) Submission from the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)

About CHASS: we are a peak body with a membership of over 60 humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) organisations, including academic discipline associations, universities and members from HASS associated industries.

Challenges and opportunities related to the ‘five pillars’ from Creative Australia

First Nations: recognising and respecting the crucial place of these stories at the centre of our arts and culture.

Investment in First Nations artists and culture should be a crucial pillar of an NCP. The value of these ways of knowing are gaining increased recognition across policy domains, and arts and culture have been a catalyst for this. There is now the opportunity to support First Nations people across the full range of artistic forms and industries. Australia can not only recognise the importance of over 70,000 years of culture and creativity but provide an avenue for extending its influence across politics, sciences, and society in the coming decade as we face significant challenges. A commitment to, and investment in, preserving and promoting the use of Indigenous languages is crucial to this. This support must be on First Nations terms. However, it is also important to move beyond a still-common view that First Nations people working in the cultural and creative industries can only be employed in positions relating to their own cultural background and experience.

A place for every story: reflecting the diversity of our stories and the contribution of all Australians as the creators of culture.

The evolution of cultural policy away from the national policies of the 1990s that focused on the ‘talented few at the expense of the many’ should continueⁱ. Participation in culture should be accessible to all, across all forms of arts and culture, in all parts of Australia. There is a real opportunity to extend an NCP to people who are not working artists and invite them to be part of the policy conversation – for example, in supporting the crucial work of volunteers in supporting our culture. A recognition of the broader right not only to consume but to participate in and have a voice in shaping Australia’s culture should be a cornerstone of a new NCPⁱⁱ. Yet there are challenges within this pillar. Stories are contested and not all stories need to be supported. A reality that the NCP must grapple with is the emergence of a new kind of reactionary politics: a revival of the ‘culture wars’, as well as new social movements around identities and inequalities. It is important at all stages and across institutions to respect the ownership of stories and the sensitivities, tensions and constraints regarding their sharing.

Strong institutions: providing support across the spectrum of institutions which sustain our arts and culture.

Strong institutions are the foundation of a thriving culture. Supporting a diverse ecology of arts and cultural institutions across all parts of the country is a foundation for an NCP for all Australians. Currently, our institutions face significant challenges. A broad lack of trust and sense of belonging around social institutions in Australia, as in many countries, has eroded support for arts and culture. Often in the past these institutions have not been directly attacked but suffered steady attrition through mechanisms like efficiency dividends. Finding ways to build diverse and democratic institutions that meet the needs of different communities and places to support culture activity in Australia while also helping them recover from the corrosive effects of past policy neglect is a key challenge facing an NCP. Our institutions also have a responsibility to partner with communities and with artists and researchers to fulfill their missions. But they require the resources to do this.

The centrality of the artist: supporting the artist as worker and celebrating their role as the creators of culture.

In recognising the cultural rights of Australian citizens to participate in culture, an NCP must not neglect the fact that art is also work. It must be recognised, regulated, and remunerated as such. There is international evidence that employment in arts and culture remains stratified by socio-economic background and may be becoming more soⁱⁱⁱ. Social and cultural capital shape access to cultural opportunities^iv. The ‘bank of mum and dad’ is too-often used to navigate the precarity of employment in the arts. The demand that people in the arts often work for free remains an ugly and pressing issue.

As well as recognising diverse cultural needs, and ensuring that people of all backgrounds can engage with the arts, supporting artists should take a ‘whole of life’ approach. Policies specific to children, young people and the arts are largely lapsed. Federal youth arts policy culminated fifteen years ago in Young People and the Arts, delivered by the Australia Council for the Arts^v. The absence of young Australians in recent policy statements is stark. Young people should be taken seriously as artists in their own right, not in waiting and training. An NCP should support structured pathways through education for careers in arts and culture. Established artists often have access to more avenues to seek funding and relatively high-levels of support, even if more support is needed and the programs available do not articulate with each other. A focus on ‘whole of life’ careers in the arts highlights the need to remember mid-career artists in developing a national cultural policy. Taking such a tiered approach is a significant opportunity to create a model of artist support that works in the context of the contemporary world of work.

Reaching the audience: ensuring our stories reach the right people at home and abroad.

While proper investment in infrastructure and technology is part of making the culture and arts produced by Australia’s artists available to audiences, there is a risk that this becomes the only approach to reaching audiences. Today, the line between audiences and producers is well and truly blurred. Reaching audiences requires recognising diversity, including generational diversity, and ‘whole of life’ policy strategies. The Australia Council’s A Culturally Ambitious Nation: Strategic Plan 2014 To 2019 states that, “[c]reativity starts with childhood curiosity. It continues through our lives. A culturally ambitious nation embraces the arts in everyday life. … We want to be a nation where artistic enterprise and respect for culture are entrenched”^vi.

There is an opportunity with a new NCP to properly articulate culture policy with other areas, most especially education and industry policy. This will support Australians to be passionate, informed producers and consumers of culture across established and emerging media throughout the life course wherever they live within the country. While subsidisation of access is not always the answer, the evidence is clear that cost is often a substantial barrier to participation, for young people and others^vii. An integrated and properly resourced cultural policy will help build the type of environment that creates audiences, that international artists will want to visit and create within, and in which Australia can create art that speaks to the places within and beyond Australia.

The importance of the five pillars

The core foundations of a strong NCP are obvious: adequate support for arts and culture, respect for our cultural institutions and proper alignment of policy and initiatives across state and local governments. The goals of the Creative Australia policy from 2015 still have relevance and there is value in translating them into the five pillars put forward for this consultation. First Nations culture, artists, institutions, audiences, and diversity of stories should be central to the new NCP. However Creative Australia is a starting point and not revivable as a working document as the context in which it was developed has changed markedly. A current NCP needs to be attuned to the current context.

_ⁱGardiner-Garden, John. (2009). Commonwealth arts policy and administration – Parliament of Australia Library Background Note, p. 44.

ⁱⁱRankin, Scott. (2018). Cultural Justice and the Right to Thrive. Platform Papers No. 57. Sydney: Currency House, pp. 8-9.

ⁱⁱⁱ Friedman, S., & Laurison, D. (2020). The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged. Policy Press.

^ivMorgan, George., & Nelligan, Pariece. (2018). The Creativity Hoax: Precarious Work and the Gig Economy. U.K.: Anthem Press.

^vAustralia Council for the Arts. (2003). Young People and the Arts. Strawberry Hills, Sydney: Australia Council for the Arts.

^vi Australia Council for the Arts. (2014). A Culturally Ambitious Nation: Strategic Plan 2014 to 2019, p. 1.

^vii Dockery, M. et al (2021). Creativity at the Crossroads? The Creative Industries in Western Australia. Perth: Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre.

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Federal Election Statement - Priorities for Supporting World Leading Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in Australia

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) is a peak body with 46 institutional members that brings together humanities, arts, and social sciences (HASS) disciplines inside and outside of the higher education system.

Our aim is to communicate the value of HASS and its crucial role in building a thriving, prosperous, sustainable, and equitable Australia.

Please access our Federal Election statement via the green button below:

CHASS Federal Election document_2022

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CHASS Submission to the Senate Inquiry into Vetoed Grants

February 22, 2022

Attention: Committee Secretary
Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee

RE: ‘Australian Research Council Amendment (Ensuring Research Independence) Bill 2018’

Dear Committee Secretary,

The Board of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) in Australia makes this submission to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee, in support of the inquiry and report into the ‘Australian Research Council Amendment (Ensuring Research Independence) Bill 2018’. The intent of the bill is to remove Ministerial discretion from the awarding of research grants administered by the Australian Research Council (ARC). This submission gives CHASS’s expert opinion on the Minister for Education’s capacity to veto applications recommended for funding by the ARC. For the reasons outlined below, the CHASS Board supports the proposed amendment to remove this veto.

About CHASS: CHASS is a peak body with a membership of over 40 humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) organisations, including academic discipline associations, universities and members from HASS associated industries.

Background: In 2021 the acting Minister for Education, Stuart Robert, vetoed six applications to the Discovery Scheme that were recommended for funding by the ARC on the grounds that supporting them was ‘not in the national interest’. This follows similar vetos of five applications by Minister Dan Tehan in 2020 and 11 grants vetoed by Minister Simon Birmingham in 2018.

ARC Discovery schemes are highly competitive and only a fraction of applications (typically less than 1 in 5) are recommended for funding. Each grant application is developed by expert researchers, often following years of preparation and international collaboration. All 22 vetoed applications had been independently and anonymously peer-reviewed according to standard academic and ARC procedures. All 22 applications had been recommended for funding by the relevant ARC College of Experts. Beyond the expertise required to undertake these assessments, this represents considerable labour costs across the sector. All 22 ARC applications that have been vetoed have been in HASS, representing a significant loss to the sector we represent in particular, including damage to its international reputation and the loss of expert HASS scholars to overseas universities.

Implications: Government has an important role in setting the rules for research funding and maintaining fair and transparent processes. The ministerial veto power undermines the rigorous and independent procedures of ARC grant review. Veto powers, allowing non-expert Ministers to deny funding based on application titles and 100-word national interest statements, are a procedural error that undermines academic freedom, removes the incentive for academics to undertake the unpaid work of reviewing applications that are generally 50+ pages in length, damages Australia’s research, and undermines its international reputation. If national interest were used to assess the current ministerial veto powers, they themselves would not pass the test.

Further: the current application of the veto strongly suggests that ministers have deployed these powers only in relation to grants in HASS. That ministers without higher level qualifications in these fields have used these powers suggests a misunderstanding of the expertise required in the sector, where academics routinely undertake 10+ years of discipline specific training before commencing academic research, and only the country’s top scholars are ultimately recommended for ARC funding. Assessors of ARC grant applications typically have many additional years of experience developing and conducting research, and in evaluating new directions in their fields and supporting the development of the next generations of the research workforce.

The current use of the veto also means that researchers who have developed high-quality applications (developed over many months and even years), who have passed the stringent independent peer review process, and been recommended for funding through the rigorous procedures of the College of Experts, find their work is not funded at a final and seemingly arbitrary hurdle. The consequences of such actions are serious. The veto damages the careers and lives of investigators and collaborators, as well as students whose research is funded through these grants. It potentially forces people out of their academic careers or compels them to leave Australia to pursue their research, leading to the loss of some of our most talented minds.

Despite recent commentary suggesting otherwise, funding that is denied is not reallocated to unsuccessful grants, meaning these vetoes represent a major financial loss to the Higher Education (HE) sector as a whole. This needs to be understood in the context of broader challenges facing HE, including massive job and revenue losses (including 1 in 6 of all HE workers and $1.8 billion in revenue in 2020), widespread insecure employment, and huge overall cuts to the university and TAFE sectors in recent years.¹

Recognising the dangers of the ministerial veto powers, all five learned academies in Australia, covering health, technology, and the natural sciences as well as HASS have highlighted the risk of real or perceived political interference.²

Finally, this direct interference in the ARC’s expert review processes is generating harm beyond the researchers directly affected. It impacts negatively on Australia’s entire HE sector, reducing research capacity, research innovation, and international standing. Importantly, it tarnishes our reputation in the global academic community, working as a disincentive for leading overseas researchers and institutions to partner with Australian universities to pursue new research collaborations.

Principles: Cutting-edge and innovative pure and applied HASS research is essential to a vibrant, internationally competitive, and economically successful HE sector in Australia. It is vital that Australian legislation, policy and procedure recognise the multifaceted, direct, and indirect benefits that such research brings. The distribution of funding for research is most likely to be beneficial to Australia when it is driven by decisions made by people who have the information, experience, and expertise to judge the quality of research questions, methods, and likely outcomes.

Academic Freedom

The ministerial veto powers compromise Australia’s admirable record of academic freedom. For context, we note that:

1. Article 15. 3 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states that “The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research and creative activity.” Australia is a party to this covenant.

2. There is strong support for the principle of academic freedom articulated by the current Australian Government in the context of the ‘Model Code for the Protection of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom in Australian Higher Education Providers’ proposed by the French Review.

3. Finally, we urge the adoption of the Haldane Principle in relation to research funding in Australia. The Haldane Principle’s fundamental insight is that research funding decisions should be based on academic review independent of ministerial interference. It is a pillar of HE policy in the UK. It is fundamental, for example, to the UK Research and Innovation’s recent transformation of the UK HE research-funding landscape. It is widely recognised in international contexts as providing a basis for research excellence and academic freedom.

Recommendation:

1. The Ministerial veto be removed from the Australian Research Council grant approval procedure.

Removing the veto, as suggested by the bill, will provide the strongest framework for the integrity and transparency of the ARC’s independent processes into the future.

Contact for this submission:
Professor Dan Woodman (President)
Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Old Arts Building
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC 3010
membership@chass.org.au

¹https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/media-item/17000-uni-jobs-lost-to-covid-19/
₂ https://2r6hgx20i76dmmstq2nmlon1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/220202-Joint-Sta

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CHASS Statement on Ministerial ARC veto

January 18, 2022

STATEMENT FROM THE BOARD FOR THE COUNCIL OF THE HUMANITIES, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) joins other sector peak bodies, associations, and universities in strongly condemning the vetoing of six, expert review panel-recommended research projects by acting Minister for Education, Stuart Robert, in the latest Australian Research Council Discovery Scheme round.

We stand in solidarity with those researchers who developed high-quality applications over many months, made it through the rigorous review process ––with a success rate of less than one in five¬¬––only to find the Minister had vetoed their projects on the grounds that supporting them was ‘not in the national interest’.

We are extremely disappointed that all the six projects were from the Humanities and Social Sciences, and include ones aimed at investigating the Western literary tradition, understanding contemporary Chinese culture, and researching student climate change activism.

We do not see how any fair and reasonable application of a national interest test can lead to the exclusion of these projects. Rather, it suggests it is partisan political interest that is behind the application of the veto in these six cases.

Such unjustified interference in the ARC’s expert review processes generates a harm that goes beyond the researchers directly affected. It impacts negatively on Australia’s entire higher education sector, reducing our research capacity, research innovation, and international standing. Tarnishing our reputation in the global academic community, it works as a disincentive for leading overseas researchers and institutions to partner with Australian universities to pursue new research discoveries.

At a personal level, unjustified interference has a profoundly negative impact on the careers and lives of the investigators and collaborators of the vetoed projects. It potentially forces people out of their academic careers or compels them to leave Australia to pursue their research, leading to the loss of some of our most talented minds.

While there is a place for a national benefit criterion in allocating research funding, it must recognise the benefits of cutting-edge pure and applied HASS research, and it is vital that it is fairly and reasonably applied, and never used as a means for partisan political interference in the expert peer review processes the ARC uses.

We do not believe that any minister can fairly and reasonably judge the value to the nation of research projects based on a title and a 100-word summary alone.

To interfere on political grounds with the ARC’s expert review processes threatens the aim of academic discovery and the principle of academic freedom that lie at the heart of our national grant system. It also shows a shocking and self-defeating disregard for the time and effort of researchers submitting projects to the Discovery Scheme, and disrespect to the many members of the academic community who assess their applications.

We call on both the Government and Opposition to commit to support the integrity and transparency of the ARC’s independent processes in the future, including removing the Ministerial veto from the Australian Research Council grant selection process save under exceptional and readily justifiable circumstances.

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University Research Commercialisation Scheme

8 April 2021

RE: University Research Commercialisation Scheme

As President of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) in Australia, I write on behalf of the CHASS Board to give our perspectives on the University Research Commercialisation Scheme. CHASS is a peak body with a
membership of over 40 HASS organizations, including academic discipline associations,
universities and members from HASS associated industries.

In this submission I make two overarching statements before addressing questions raised in the Consultation Paper released by the Department of Education, Skills and
Employment. I conclude by noting areas in which commercialisation in the Humanities
Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) sector can be supported. Read on...

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JOBS READY GRADUATES LEGISLATION CONSULTATION

14 August 2020

Dear Minister Tehan

As President of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) in Australia, I write on behalf of CHASS in response to the draft legislation for the Job-ready Graduates Package released this week.

Others have noted that the proposed changes will likely not have the effects the government desires and may have deleterious unintended consequences. I wish to focus on the value of education in HASS disciplines for producing job ready graduates, and the burden the changes will impose on our next generation of Australians, particularly young women.

While encouraging additional students towards the STEM disciplines has some merit, there is no reason to actively dissuade students from studying subjects like criminology, history or philosophy. To do so runs counter to an emerging consensus that current developments in the domestic labour market makes the skills learned in HASS more valuable.(1) Some of the fastest growing job areas for university graduates are new, many of which require exactly the skills and experiences that the study of HASS subjects can provide. Content Specialists, Customer Officers, Data Scientists, and Sustainability Analysts are in high demand. These jobs did not exist five years ago, and a strong humanities or social science degree provides a foundation for working in these and the new, related fields that will inevitably emerge in the coming years. Australia’s global position as an English speaking, cosmopolitan society in the Asia Pacific region, with a world-class higher education sector, means that our competitive advantage lies in areas closely aligned to the study of human action and society in all its myriad forms.

For both STEM and HASS graduates, the transition to the labour force is more complex than in the past and efforts to support work-integrated learning and industry engagement are important. However, investment in this area (which we strongly support) should not be narrowly focused for graduates from a small range of disciplines. Emerging high-end manufacturing and STEM-based industries will increasingly require the skills HASS graduates bring, as reflected in the cross-disciplinary graduate programs that many STEM employers now offer.

HASS is core to universities continuing role as publicly engaged institutions serving the Australian community. The publics that our universities are part of face challenges, involving significant technological, environmental, economic, demographic and cultural changes. The knowledge and insights drawn from the study of HASS are essential to understanding and supporting the publics our universities serve. This is particularly true for universities with a strong place-based mission, for example in regional areas or in the growing outer suburbs of our major cities. To reduce access to the study of history and society at these universities runs counter to the aim of building skills and knowledge relevant to these regions.

I note with concern that the HASS fields that face the largest fee increases tend to have substantially more women than men enrolled in them. The evidence is that while there may be some shifts at the margins, most women will continue to enroll in these subjects, driven by a passion for theirs fields of study and recognition of the value of the resulting skills to the community. While the proposed changes are unlikely to improve pathways to employment for graduates, they will certainly burden the next generation with debts that will negatively impact on their future careers and family choices. Analysis shows that if this legislation goes forward in its current form young women will be burdened with approximately half a billion dollars more each year in debt as they invest in their education.(2)

Australia needs to invest in higher education to prepare graduates for the jobs of the future, not saddle them with additional debt. I am encouraged by the additional places to be made available to students in coming years, but this cannot be done without investing in the next generation of HASS students as well. The people and place-focused skills that HASS graduates can provide the Australian community are essential. I am hopeful that the consultation period will lead to a rethinking of the proposed legislation, attentive to the important risks and opportunities I have outlined here. CHASS is happy to offer access to its extensive network of HASS expertise – including expertise on the future of work, student choice and outcomes, and on our higher education sector – to assist in redesigning the legislation.

Sincerely

Dan Woodman
TR Ashworth Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Melbourne
President, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

1. https://www.humanities.org.au/issue-item/the-power-of-the-humanities/

Social Sciences Shape the Nation

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/skills-qualified-future-quantifying-demand-arts-hum

2. https://bcec.edu.au/assets/2020/07/Higher-ed-changes_BCEC_FINAL-130720.pdf

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LETTER FROM HASS ASSOCIATIONS OPPOSING CHANGES TO HASS DEGREE FEES

Att. Hon. Dan Tehan
Minister for Education

Dear Minister,

We are writing this open letter in response to the recent announcement by the Federal Government that student fees for university courses in society and culture, humanities, and communications will be drastically increased. You have justified this decision on the grounds of funnelling students into ‘job-relevant’ degrees. This is directly against the best advice and evidence that the skills provided by HASS study are increasingly important, in fact, essential to our future economy and society. Studying Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences equips students with highly valuable skills in critical thinking, creative problem solving, effective communication, advanced analysis and interpretation, and the ability to construct reasoned arguments and to question assumptions. These skills are important now more than ever as the world faces an uncertain future. The Arts and Humanities are the foundation of building a fair and prosperous society.

These changes you have announced will not help prepare the next generation for the future of work but will risk making the study of our history, society, culture and place in the world out of reach of all but the most wealthy students, at a time when this knowledge is more important than ever. Training in the Arts and Humanities must be accessible for all students, where equity, diversity and a plurality of voices are vital.

As academics who research, teach, and were trained in society and culture, humanities, and communications, we have seen first-hand the value of studying these fields to our students, and in turn to Australian and wider society. We note how many of our leaders across all sectors have HASS educations, including yourself and many of your parliamentary colleagues.
We condemn these fee increases and all that they represent. They are unfair and the greater burden you are placing on the next generation will only exacerbate widespread job insecurity for them. It will also add to the deep precarity felt by many of our world-leading HASS academics, and likely lead to a significant knowledge dearth at a time when Australia is in most need of these research leaders.
We welcome positive opportunities for university students in Australia, but not at the expense of those degrees that have been arbitrarily and incorrectly deemed irrelevant for employment. We call on you to provide equitable access to higher education for all young people, no matter what they want to study, not least of all because the demand for HASS skills from employers has dramatically risen in the past decade. To not do so would be an unconscionable attack on Australia’s future.

Yours,

Dr Catherine Hoad, Chair, International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Australia-Aotearoa/New Zealand Branch (IASPM-ANZ).

Associate Professor Dan Woodman, President, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS), and President, The Australian Sociological Association (TASA).

Associate Professor Tama Leaver, Vice President, Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR).

Professor Vicki Karaminas, President, Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ).

Associate Professor Elizabeth Stephens, President, Cultural Studies Association of Australasia (CSAA).

Associate Professor Sora Park, President, & Associate Professor David Nolan, Vice-President, Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA).

Dr Julia Prendergast, Chair of the Executive Committee, Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP). Distinguished Professor Jen Webb, Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP).

Dr Alex Wake, President, Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia.

Dr Bettina Frankham, President, Australian Screen Production Education & Research Association (ASPERA).

Professor Will Christie, Director, Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres.

Dr Jonathan Hutchinson, Treasurer, Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA), and Secretary, International Association of Public Media Research.

Dr Tess Ryan, President, Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association (ACRAWSA).

Professor Joy Damousi, President, Australian Historical Association (AHA).

Associate Professor Giselle Bastin, President, Australian University Heads of English (AUHE)

Dr Adelle Sefton-Rowston, President, Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association (AULLA).

Professor Marion Maddox, President, Australian Association for the Study of Religions (AASR).

Associate Professor Lisa Wynn, President, Australian Anthropological Society (AAS).

Associate Professor Lea Beness, President, Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies (AWAWS).

Dr Peter Acton, President, Humanities 21

Dr Timothy Peters, President, Law, Literature & the Humanities Association of Australasia (LLHAA).

Associate Professor Ilana Mushin, President, The Australian Linguistic Society (ALS).

Dr Trish Luker, President, Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ).

Associate Professor Beatrice Trefalt, President, Japanese Studies Association of Australia (JSAA).

Dr Iva Glisic and Dr Samantha Owen, National Convenors, Australian Women’s History Network.

Dr Pauline Griffiths, Principal, Quality Teaching Australia (QTA).

Dr Wendy Garden, President, Art Association of Australia & New Zealand (AAANZ).

Professor Emerita Jean Fornasiero FAHA, President, Languages and Cultures Network for Australian Universities (LCNAU).

Professor Peter Harrison, Director, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH).

Professor Paul Millar, President, Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH).

Dr Tiina Manne, President, Australian Archaeological Association (AAA).

Professor Noah Riseman, President, International Australian Studies Association (InASA).

Dr Jonathan Crichton, President, Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA).

Professor Felicity Cox, President, Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA)

Associate Professor Helen Caple, President, Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association (ASFLA).

Associate Professor Tom Stevenson, President, Australasian Society for Classical Studies (ASCS).

Helen Lardner, President, International Council for Monuments and Sites (Australia ICOMOS).

Anita Yousif, President, Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology (ASHA)

If you are a HASS Association who would like to add your name to the above letter, please email membership@chass.org.au.

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WHAT MAKES US HUMAN IN A WORLD IN CRISIS?

The humanities, arts and social sciences make a vital contribution to Australian life. The Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) is a voice for the sector. To support our members, CHASS has moved to a ‘pay what you can’ model for the coming year.

The present COVID-19 crisis is an unprecedented public health emergency. Yet it has highlighted the rich web of human connections that underpins everything from global trade to our everyday life.

It has also thrown into stark relief the divisions and inequalities that run through our society.

Our social and cultural life has changed as well, shifting into the virtual realm, and highlighting how the arts bring hope and joy, keeping us informed and entertained, during good times and bad.

This crisis is changing how we live. We cannot go back to living the way we did before, whether we want to or not.

The medical sciences are leading us towards the eventual end of the pandemic. Yet, now and in the months ahead, we will also have to make big decisions about how we live together: about issues at the heart of what makes our lives valuable and the type of world we want to have.

Thinking through these questions is the task and promise of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. If we are to do it well, the HASS sector must be supported. So far in this crisis, it has been neglected or worse.

Our universities, and the broader culture and knowledge sectors allied with HASS, have transformed our cities, and indeed all of Australia. If we don’t support HASS now, we will transform society again… for the worse.

CHASS exists to articulate and promote the value of the HASS sector and its critical role in building the world of the future. We have done this since we were established in 2004 and will continue to do so as we ask, “how will we recover from this crisis?”.

We do this by bringing the humanities, arts and social sciences disciplines together, and allowing them to speak with one voice.

More than ever, that collective voice is needed now, but some of our members have never been in a more precarious position.

To support these members, for the coming year, CHASS is changing its membership fees to a ‘pay what you can’ model, recognising for some in the sector this will be very little, perhaps even nothing.

Whether or not your association is in a position to contribute to us, we want to affirm your voice and we want you as a CHASS member.

Membership is open to organisations with an interest in the future of HASS in Australia, including universities and research centres, peak bodies for the sector – such as museums, libraries, major performing arts companies, craft makers and designers, musicians and music managers –professional associations in HASS disciplines and for HASS teachers, and national collecting institutions.

If you are a current member, I will write to you outlining these changes and our plans for the year. If your organisation would like to join CHASS, please contact us at membership@chass.org.au .

Dan Woodman
President, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

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CHASS CALLS ON THE NEXT GOVERNMENT TO STRENGTHEN ITS COMMITMENT TO HASS

CHASS calls on the next government to strengthen its commitment to HASS The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) joins its member organisations and other sector peak bodies and associations in calling on the next
government of Australia to strengthen its commitment towards the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) sector.

CHASS endorses the 2019 Election Statement - Shaping the Nation released by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the 8-Point Plan to Humanise the Future released by the Australian Academy of the Humanities. CHASS publication 'Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences: It's everyone's business' (2016) illustrates the diverse ways in which HASS disciplines provide essential services to citizens in all walks of life and reinforces the importance of the sector.

Increased funding support for education and research in the HASS sector is crucial to
securing Australia's future in a global context. The 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap recognises Humanities and Social Science research as a top priority. It is recognised by all leading stakeholders in the research community globally that advances in research (impact and progress) will be made more quickly and more effectively where there
is cross-disciplinary collaboration and a holistic view.

CHASS urges key political players and policymakers to restore crucial funding to the sector, develop a comprehensive national policy for teaching and research in HASS programs, and commit to investing in the future of all Australians.

Professor Joseph M. Siracusa
President – CHASS
On behalf of the members of the CHASS Board

16 May 2019

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STATEMENT FROM CHASS ON THE ARC FUNDING DECISION

STATEMENT FROM THE COUNCIL FOR THE HUMANITIES, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES ON THE AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL FUNDING DECISION

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) endorses the view of Universities Australia in urging Minister Dan Tehan to follow expert advice, not exercise such a veto in the future and practice greater transparency in research funding grants.

CHASS notes that all major Australian Research Council (ARC) grant applications already have the ‘national benefit’ selection criteria in place and that a new ‘national interest’ test should not be limited to a narrow or short-term understanding of Australia's interests.

CHASS joins its member organisations and other sector peak bodies and associations in
condemning Minister Simon Birmingham’s decision to veto 11 ARC grant applications
totalling over $4 million in 2017 and 2018. CHASS is deeply disappointed that the vetoed projects were from the Humanities sector. Political interference in ARC’s independence and internationally-recognised processes harms Australia’s higher education and research
sector. It undermines academic freedom and threatens the core of academic research. The impact of such interference on the careers and personal lives of the academics involved is profound. We stand in solidarity with our colleagues in the sector and call for the preservation of the integrity of the ARC’s independent peer and expert review process.

Professor Joseph M. Siracusa
President – CHASS
On behalf of the members of the CHASS Board

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AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE UNDERCUT: SOCIAL SCIENCES UNDERFUNDED

Australia’s Social Science peak bodies and associations are joining together to launch the first ever Social Sciences Week in 2018 (September 10-16), in response to inadequate support.

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CHASS RESPONSE TO THE CHANGES IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S INVESTMENT PLAN FOR NATIONAL COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) is deeply disappointed at the contents of the recently released federal government Investment Plan for national collaborative research infrastructure.

Despite the 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap clearly recognising Humanities and Social Science research as a top priority, the announcement provides only very limited support for scoping work in two years’ time.

“You might call it jam tomorrow – and not much of it,” said Professor Joseph M. Siracusa, President of CHASS.

CHASS is especially disheartened at the government’s claim that $43 million allocated to CSIRO, to build a facility to care for insect and plant collections, is dedicated Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) funding.

“There is no way under the sun you could describe this as support for Humanities and Social Sciences research. To announce it this way reflects either monumental misunderstanding or just old-fashioned deception,” said Professor
Siracusa.

HASS infrastructure is focused on people and networks. Investment in the area provides time and space for collaborative research in a system until now dominated by bricks and mortar thinking. Globally, there is increasing recognition of the importance of cross-disciplinary research, with interconnections across STEM and HASS sectors producing better outcomes, more impact and greater societal benefits, than a focus on STEM alone.

New challenges require new infrastructure responses. The Roadmap articulates the need to adapt to a rapidly changing social and economic environment. When it comes to the government's Investment Plan, however, HASS research has been ill-served.

Further information
About CHASS
Established in 2004, the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)
promotes and provides advocacy services for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in
Australia. It serves as a coordinating forum for academics, teachers, researchers,
professionals and practitioners in the sector. Supporting more than 70 organisations in their
relationships with policy makers and the broader community, CHASS is an important
network for knowledge and skills. It provides a strong voice to the sector and helps members
to contribute to public debate through programs for knowledge exchange and media
awareness. For more information, please vis

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CELEBRATING CONTRIBUTIONS TO AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE: COUNCIL FOR THE HUMANITIES, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES PRIZES

Oxford, UK, October 2014

Celebrating contributions to Australian cultural and intellectual life: Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Prizes

Australia’s Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) has announced the winners of their 2014 prizes for contributions to Australian cultural and intellectual life. Iain McCalman won the 2014 CHASS Australia Prize for his book, The Reef — A Passionate History, and Dr. Sarah Kenderdine won the 2014 CHASS Australia Prize for Distinctive Work with Pure Land, an immersive and interactive 3D digital experience of the Dunhuang Caves, China.

Iain McCalman’s The Reef is the first social, cultural and environmental history of the Great Barrier Reef. He has this to say about his prize:

‘I am deeply honoured to have been awarded the inaugural CHASS prize for my book, The Reef — A Passionate History. As someone who has been long been keenly appreciative of the important role that CHASS plays within the culture and industry of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in Australia, it is an especial pleasure. I am also humbled to have been on a short list that includes major books by such fine scholars as Mike Smith and Joan Beaumont.’

Dr. Sarah Kenderdine’s Pure Land virtually recreates Cave 220 at the Dunhuang Caves, one of 492 grottoes resplendent with Buddhist mural paintings over 1000 years old. She notes:

‘The Award celebrates the achievements of a team of 30 people in an interdisciplinary research community of art historians, animators, archaeologists, interaction designers, media artists, and software engineers.

The Award is highly significant because it acknowledges that with today's high fidelity digital imaging and displays, 'digital' is no longer a tool in service of the real. Pure Land offers us a context for powerful experiences of aura.’

This is the first year that the CHASS Prizes have been awarded and Routledge is very proud to have sponsored them. Sarah Blatchford, Taylor & Francis’ Regional Director for Australasia, said:

‘Routledge approached CHASS with a view to participating in their prize programme, by way of support for the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities community in Australia.’

The Executive Director of CHASS, Emeritus Professor Steven Schwartz, has this to say:

“On behalf of CHASS, I would like to sincerely thank Routledge for their generous support of these Prizes, and of the humanities, arts and social sciences in general. We are very grateful for their vote of confidence in our mission to recognise and reward achievements in the humanities, arts and social sciences in Australia.”

Each prize, worth $3500, is part of the CHASS Australia Prizes program, which aims to draw international attention to Australia’s achievements in the humanities, arts and social sciences. Routledge are delighted to have had the opportunity to participate in the CHASS prize programme and sends warmest congratulations to the winners.

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About Taylor & Francis Group
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Taylor & Francis Group partners with researchers, scholarly societies, universities and libraries worldwide to bring knowledge to life. As one of the world’s leading publishers of scholarly journals, books, ebooks and reference works our content spans all areas of Humanities, Social Sciences, Behavioural Sciences, Science, and Technology and Medicine.

From our network of offices in Oxford, New York, Philadelphia, Boca Raton, Boston, Melbourne, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, Stockholm, New Delhi and Johannesburg, Taylor & Francis staff provide local expertise and support to our editors, societies and authors and tailored, efficient customer service to our library colleagues.

For more information, please contact:
Jenny Ellis, Communications Officer
Email: Jennifer.Ellis@tandf.co.uk
About CHASS:
Established in 2004, the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) promotes and provides advocacy services for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in Australia. It serves as a coordinating forum for teachers, researchers, professionals and practitioners in the sector. Supporting more than 85 member organisations in their relationships with policy makers and the broader community, CHASS is an important network for knowledge and skills. It provides a strong voice to the sector and helps members to contribute to public debate through programs for knowledge exchange and media awareness.
For more information, please visit www.chass.org.au or call (03) 9925 3935.

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CHASS NATIONAL FORUM 2013 - NATIONAL FORUM DISCUSSES THE CONCEPT OF CIVILITY AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR AUSTRALIAN LIVES

CHASS National Forum 2013 ‘Civility in Australia’

This report is being submitted in accordance with Schedule 2 (3. Milestones) of the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIICCSRTE) Funding Agreement with the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) for the 2013 CHASS National Forum.

Day and date of the event: Thursday, 20 June 2013

Venue: Parliament House, ACT

Theme: Civility in Australia

The CHASS National Forum 2013 ‘Civility in Australia’ aims to bring together representatives from the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) sectors. It will provide an opportunity for researchers, parliamentarians, policy makers and practitioners to interact with one another around the issue of civility, and debate the broader implications for Australian society and beyond.

Registration fee for the one-day event is $185, including all catering costs.

Provisional Program
The provisional program includes five keynote addresses, three plenary sessions and one roundtable discussion.

Plenary sessions

Format: Each plenary session is being planned for the duration of 1 hour and 20 minutes. It will include presentations by four panellists, followed by a facilitated audience interaction.

Themes for the planned plenary sessions are:
• Civility and Democracy
• Civility and the Arts
• The Borders of Civility
• Roundtable: Soft Power and Public Diplomacy

The halo of human flourishing

CHASS National Forum 2013_handbook

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CHASS NATIONAL FORUM 2012 - GREAT THINKERS TO EXPLORE THE BIG ISSUES FOR HUMANITY

MEDIA RELEASE
Tuesday 18 September 2012

Great thinkers to explore the big issues for humanity

Leading commentators, academics, strategists, politicians and journalists from Australia and overseas will be gathering in Canberra next week to explore and debate the big issues in diverse areas including the arts, technology, science, policy making and national identity.

The Inaugural CHASS (Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences) Forum — to be held at the University of Canberra on Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 September 2012 — will focus on the impact that rapidly changing technology and scientific research are having on the lives of Australians.

“There’s no doubt that times are changing rapidly, and the impact of this change is being felt far and wide and in a variety of areas, from the arts through to education,” said CHASS President, Professor Sue Willis.

“It’s vital to ensure that the human element is not forgotten in amongst these challenges and opportunities. This forum puts this very issue into the spotlight, and represents a unique opportunity to learn from and engage with great minds on a variety of topics.”

“The forum will reveal the latest thinking about how the human dimension is integrating with the changes happening across technology, science and society in general. These are issues of national and global significance, and we’re looking forward to some robust discussions,” continued Professor Willis.

Issues to be addressed include:

How do we resolve the tension between technological development and sustainability?
Australia in the Asian Century: is our sense of importance in the region overinflated?
Is technology removing the roadblocks to science, arts and business working together, or creating new obstacles?
How can public policy makers and knowledge producers work more effectively together, particularly when comes to policy on issues such as climate change?

The forum boasts a who’s who of national and international social commentators and industry experts, including Joe Hildebrand (journalist and public commentator), Waleed Aly (broadcaster, author and academic), Lars Klüver (Director - Danish Board of Technology) and Harsh Shrivastava (Consultant – Planning Commission, India).

“We look forward to bringing together diverse areas of knowledge to identify common themes and issues, as well as showcasing the achievements and advances in the humanities, arts and social sciences sector,” Professor Willis concluded.

For more information and online registrations go to: http://www.conferenceco.com.au/chass.

For more information, interviews or to attend the forum as media please contact Fleur Charlton, Threesides on 02 6249 1117, 0418 264 485 or fleur.charlton@threesides.com.au

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CHASS NATIONAL FORUM 2012 - INAUGURAL FORUM HIGHLIGHTS THE HUMAN DIMENSION

MEDIA ALERT
Wednesday 5 September

2012 Inaugural forum highlights the Human Dimension

The impact of technology and science on the lives of Australians will be in the spotlight at the Inaugural CHASS (Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences) Forum to be held at the University of Canberra on 24-26 September 2012.

“With rapidly developing technologies and scientific research changing the way we live our everyday lives, it’s vital to support and invest in our knowledge of the human experience,” said CHASS President, Professor Sue Willis.

“This exciting forum is an opportunity to learn from and engage with the latest thinking from Australian and international experts about the human dimension and how it integrates with technology, science, arts and society. From ‘what makes us human?’ to ‘who decides the public good?’, the forum addresses big questions on issues of national and global significance,” she said.

Highlights of the forum include:

Keynote international speaker Lars Klüver (Director- Danish Board of Technology), who will address the human and social dimension of technology and innovation;
Keynote international speaker Harsh Shrivastava (Consultant – Planning Commission, India), who will highlight the role of humanities, arts, and social sciences in better policymaking;
A session on Australia in the Asian Century, which will address issues of our national identity relationships with broader Asia;
An examination of what makes us human and the merging of technology and the arts; and
A session on academic research and its integration with public policy, particularly when it comes to controversial issues such as climate change.

A who’s who of social commentators and industry experts will be speaking at the forum, including Joe Hildebrand (journalist and public commentator), Waleed Aly (broadcaster, author and academic) and Dr Marcus Hutter (Professor for Artificial Intelligence, ANU).

“We look forward to bringing together these diverse areas of knowledge to identify common themes and achievements and advances made by these increasingly important ” Professor Willis concluded.

EVENT INFORMATION FOR YOUR DIARY/CALENDAR AND EVENTS PAGES:

issues for public advocacy, as well as showcasing the
disciplines and practices,
What: Where: When: Cost: Web:
The Human Dimension - Inaugural CHASS National Forum University of Canberra
24-26 September 2012
Varies – see website for details http://www.conferenceco.com.au/chass/Index.html
For more information, interviews or to attend the forum as media please contact Fleur Charlton, Threesides on 02 6249 1117, 0418 264 485 or fleur.charlton@threesides.com.au

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CHASS WELCOMES NEW GILLARD MINISTRY

13 December 2011

The Council of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences President, Professor Sue Willis welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement of changes to the Ministry and Cabinet.

“The decision to re-integrate science and research with higher education under an expanded Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education is particularly welcomed.” Professor Willis said.

CHASS notes the Prime Minister has identified many challenges ahead for Australia with the transition to a clean energy future, tackling new technologies and addressing social policy reforms over the next few years.

“This is where the humanities, arts and social sciences can assist by providing the interface between the government, professionals and consumers on issues that affect society.” Professor Willis said.

CHASS is a well respected organisation for the provision of knowledge exchange and information sharing including dissemination of evidence-based research and data through its network with universities, faculties, arts organisations and leading research institutions.

CHASS has the capability through its network to engage with government and looks forward to working constructively with Ministers Evans and Combet.

Contact:

Ms Angela Magarry
Executive Director
T: +61 2 6201 2740
E: director@chass.org.au

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IDENTIFYING PRIORITIES FOR A CULTURAL POLICY FOR AUSTRALIA

28 July 2011

A draft National Cultural Policy framework will be released by the Federal Government this month outlining reforms to Australia’s commitment to the arts, its creative industries and the broader areas of cultural life and value in innovation and heritage and social cohesion.

A conference to be held on Tuesday 2 August, at the University of Western Sydney’s historic Female Orphan School will provide a unique opportunity for researchers in the humanities, arts and social sciences to put their case to politicians and policy makers on the key priorities for a National Cultural Policy.

“CHASS will bring together its membership to work with government to identify existing and potential case studies of where and how cultural policy meets practice.” Professor Sue Willis, President of CHASS said.

A keynote address will be provided by Senator the Hon. Kate Lundy on the government’s vision for Australian culture and broad policy objectives covering heritage, innovation, creation and expression.

For more information contact:

Media: Angela Magarry, 0437 227 422

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CHASS AND ASSA WELCOME IMPROVEMENTS TO THE ERA RANKINGS

02 June 2011

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and Academy of Social Sciences in Australia welcomes the government’s decision to drop prescriptive journal rankings in the ERA assessment exercise.

The announcements by Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Senator Kim Carr, and Australian Research Council CEO Professor Margaret Sheil to jointly withdraw support for the problematic ranking of journals for the purposes of assessing research contributions of universities and their scholars were welcomed.

“This action clears the way for Australian political scientists, legal scholars, economists, demographers and regional studies experts in the social sciences to continue to employ their skills in the interest of Australia in its regional and world context” Dr Beaton said.

The ranking of publication outlets based on international prestige had threatened to drive productive researchers away from an Australian research focus in favour of research that would be of interest to countries, or regions, where the highest ranked publication outlets are found and would not be in the interest of Australia.

The announcements will “now strengthen the incentives for publishers to provide the forums where Australian scholars can attend to the crucial debates regarding immigration and population, taxation and public good, education and health, and the host of other issues that are of national importance”, Ms Magarry said.

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and the Academy of the Social Sciences are appreciative of the consultative process by which government arrived at its decision, and looks forward to further opportunities to assist government in the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) assessment exercise.

Contact for information:

Dr John Beaton
Executive Director
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
Phone: +61 2 6249 1788
Mobile: 0438 451 944

Ms Angela Magarry
Executive Director
Phone: +61 2 6201 2740
Mobile: 0437 227 422

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2011-2012 FEDERAL BUDGET

Tuesday 10 May 2011

CHASS welcomes funding for national science engagement strategy.

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) welcomes government funding to implement the Inspiring Australia science engagement strategy.

The Council’s President Professor Sue Willis, said Inspiring Australia will engage all Australians with science by building links between policy makers, industry and the academic and research and community institutions.

“Importantly, the government has recognised the role of the humanities, arts and social sciences in this strategy.” Professor Willis said.

Australia needs these links to realise the opportunities before it and to develop its talent.

CHASS is an important network for knowledge and skills and as part of Inspiring Australia will convene a national forum on science and society.

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences supports more than 90 member organisations in their relationships with policy makers and the broader community. Providing a strong voice, the Council helps members to contribute to public debate through programs for knowledge exchange and media awareness.

For more information contact:

Ms Angela Magarry
Executive Director
+61 2 6201 2740

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CHASS WELCOMES NEW CHIEF SCIENTIST - PROFESSOR IAN CHUBB

19 April 2011

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences President Professor Sue Willis today welcomed the appointment of Professor Ian Chubb as Chief Scientist for Australia.

“Professor Chubb is an outstanding member of Australia’s higher education and research community and will provide a strong voice within the broader scientific community regarding the issues affecting society, in particular the application of knowledge and scientific thinking to tackle the big challenges Australia faces.” Professor Willis said.

The Council wrote to the Australian Government in March this year to advocate for Australia’s next Chief Scientist to be someone who possesses the skills and expertise to enable collaboration across sectors and innovation between the physical, biological, humanities and social sciences.

‘The Council is greatly looking forward to engaging with Professor Ian Chubb in order to ensure there remains space for multi-disciplinary approaches in how Australia addresses the complex social and scientific problems in our future,’ Professor Willis said.

Established in 2004 the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences promotes and provides advocacy services for the humanities, arts and social sciences sector. The Council serves as a coordinating forum for teachers, researchers, professionals and practitioners in the sector.

For more information contact:

Ms Angela Magarry
Executive Director
+61 2 6201 2740

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ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW US COMMISSION ON THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES WELCOMED

1 March 2011

The Presidents of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) jointly welcome the recent decision by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to establish a national Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Professor Barry McGaw, President of ASSA said that “the new Commission will boost education and research in the social sciences. These fields are critical to culture, education and to a nation’s economic prosperity.”

The new national Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences has been established in response to a bipartisan request by Congress for practical action to maintain national excellence in humanities and social scientific scholarship and education, to ensure the preservation of intellectual and economic wellbeing, for a stronger, more vibrant civil society, and for the success of cultural diplomacy in the 21st century. The Commission comprises membership from the humanities, the social sciences, the physical and life sciences, business, law, philanthropy, the arts and the media.

Professor Linda Rosenman, President of CHASS said that “although there has been support for the disciplines of maths and sciences in Australia as a key to our long term economic prosperity, we have not yet embraced the long term importance of the arts and social sciences. Yet, we know that knowledge of history, understanding of cross-cultural communication and an ability to utilise evidence and to think creatively are all qualities critical to a country’s well being and economic prosperity.”

With changes that have occurred over the past decade to student funding arrangements and research funding, including the various reviews underway into relative funding models, it is worthwhile giving consideration to such an innovative model for Australia to ensure support for teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences is maintained.

Contact for Information:

Professor Linda Rosenman
President
Tel: +61 3 9919 4020

Professor Barry McGaw, AO FASSA
President
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
Tel: +61 2 6249 1788

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2010 ELECTION AND THE POLICY AGENDA FOR THE NEW TERM OF GOVERNMENT

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Board has flagged four issues for action for the new term of Government and urges candidates and parties contesting the 2010 election to set clear directions for innovation, research and cultural policy.
These issues are:

Further investment in research funding so that success rates for grants can increase in the next phase of developing the national innovation system for productivity growth:
Maintain flow of funds allocated for research infrastructure and indexation of grants announced in Powering Ideas Agenda and the response to the Bradley Review
Investigate new funding for ARC Discovery and Linkage programs and the research workforce strategy
Include innovation based on humanities, arts and social sciences knowledge and methodologies in the research and development tax incentive.
Knowledge Exchange programs to build research dissemination and research communication into the innovation system. The flow of new knowledge is essential in building the new business models and social policy programs for future Australian prosperity. Programs for investigation should include:
Extending and funding research dissemination of Australian Research Council projects
Extension of the national science communications strategy, Inspiring Australia for multidisciplinary and HASS research
Appointment by Government of a chief social researcher to aid in building the links between policy makers and academic and research institutions
Include design as part of research and development to encourage creative and innovative project and businesses.
Commitment to a national cultural policy to encourage new Australian work and support development of Australia’s creative talent, including new models of investment in participation in the arts.
On-line access to the major resources and databases of Australia’s collecting institutions so they become part of the network of research and knowledge for industry and the community.
The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences is a network of more than 85 member organisations ranging from universities to research associations and professional groups drawing on HASS knowledge and skills. The Council helps members to contribute to public debate through programs for knowledge exchange and media awareness.

Contact for Information:
Ms Helen O’Neil
Executive Director
Phone: 0417 230540
director@chass.org.au

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SOCIAL SCIENCES SUPPORT FOR MATHS EDUCATION

10 March 2010

Joint media release from The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences today welcomed the Group of Eight’s Review of Education in Mathematics, Data Science and Quantitative Disciplines, and its frank acknowledgement of the problems caused by the fall in mathematics participation at Australian schools and universities.

The report, written for the Group of Eight by Professor Gavin Brown AO FAA, says “the state of the mathematical sciences and related quantitative disciplines in Australia has deteriorated to a dangerous level, and continues to deteriorate.”

The Academy of Social Sciences in Australia also welcomed the report. The Academy supported action to boost the statistical and mathematical literacy in Australia.

CHASS Board member, criminologist and statistician Professor Ross Homel AO FASSA says this review highlights the importance of a strong mathematics education for the social sciences. “It warns of the impact of drastically low levels of engagement with mathematics from primary school through to tertiary level on the quality of future research based upon statistical and quantitative analysis in the social sciences.”

“Mathematical ability is deeply embedded in the statistical and quantitative analysis at the heart of many social science disciplines,” Professor Homel says.

Former Australian Statistician and Chairman of the Policy and Advocacy Committee of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia, Dennis Trewin AO FASSA, fully supported Professor Homel’s comments and highlighted the need to also inform parents and teachers of the importance of a good grounding in mathematics to a range of career choices, including those related to the social sciences. “Parents and teachers have strong influences on student’s choices,” he said.

Part of any endeavour to get kids interested in maths is to demonstrate its relevancy in the jobs market.

CHASS has suggested that more engagement in communications and training programs in education by, for example, economists, finance sector professionals, demographers, criminologists, sociologists, geographers and designers could raise awareness of the value of mathematics and statistics beyond the traditional science areas including physics and engineering. Professor Homel says Australia faces shortages of statisticians and researchers with skills to model major policy and industry innovation.

The Council believes all levels and parts of the education sector have a responsibility in this. It agrees with the review that primary level teachers must have the essential mathematical knowledge to share with their pupils and the research intensive universities should make “enabling” mathematics courses available at a tertiary level.

“Enabling programs designed for budding social scientists may help the situation in the short term,” Professor Homel says.

“Given that the review reports that demand for mathematics and statistics graduates is predicted to grow by 3.5% per year till 2013, there is no time to lose.”

Contact for Information:
Ms Helen O’Neil
Executive Director
Ph: (02) 6201 2740
director@chass.org.au

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A STRATEGIC BREAKTHROUGH IN BUILDING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH AND SCIENCE

A strategic breakthrough in building public support for research and science

9 February 2010

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences believes the new science communications strategy, ‘Inspiring Australia’ (released February 8) opens the way for a strong and open relationship between science and society, CHASS President, Professor Linda Rosenman said today.

Professor Rosenman said the strategy was a breakthrough in building effective programs for public engagement and understanding of the potential of new research and discovery to meet challenges before Australia.

“The report recognises the contribution of the humanities, arts and social science disciplines in problem-solving, and notes the social sciences and humanities are critical to the interface between science and society,” she said.

The Chair of the Policy and Advocacy Committee of the Academy for the Social Sciences in Australia, Mr Dennis Trewin, said the Academy should quickly move to take a full and active part in the science communications strategy. Mr Dennis Trewin said his Committee would give priority to those activities where societal and behavioural research is crucial for future productivity growth and social inclusion. Interaction with policy makers and communication of the key findings is an essential element of these activities.

“Social scientists agree that young Australians must be encouraged and inspired to study mathematics and other core sciences so that they can aspire to research and knowledge based careers,” he said.

The Council particularly welcomes Recommendation 7 for an annual Science and Society Forum, and Recommendation 15 for tracking and evaluation of the strategy.

President Rosenman said CHASS was already developing proposals for a national forum in the humanities arts and social sciences, to boost Australia’s research and innovation work. “The forum will provide a platform for transdisciplinary approaches to major issues – and the science communications strategy will allow the Council and its member organisations to ensure it also extends to public engagement.”

Inspiring Australia

CHASS has more than 80 member organisations. It works for greater recognition of people, projects and organisations working in HASS and to help them contribute to Australia.

For further comment: Helen O’Neil, Executive Director, CHASS, (02) 6201 2740

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DELIVERING ON THE INNOVATION AGENDA

13 May 2009

The Rudd Government has used the 2009 Federal Budget to deliver on its commitment to productivity growth through investment in research and innovation, the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences said today.

The Council’s President, Professor Linda Rosenman, said the 25 per cent boost in spending on innovation including research, together with the major investment in higher education and student support, would provide the foundation on which to build the creative imaginative Australia needed for the 21st century economy.

Professor Rosenman congratulated the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator the Hon Kim Carr, for his commitment to consultation in setting up the new support funds for Sustainable Research Excellence in Universities, the ground breaking Joint Research engagement fund and other new initiatives. She also congratulated the Minister for the introduction of a tax credit system for research and development spending in smaller firms – including the opportunity for small scale businesses in creative industries to make a case for access to the scheme.

Among other initiatives the Council also noted new investment into digitisation of Australia’s cultural collections and a total of $62.3 million new investment in the arts and cultural areas. Round 2 of the Education Investment Fund included two projects based on humanities and the arts at UNSW and Charles Darwin University.

“There is much to be done to make these new policies deliver the knowledge and innovation we know Australia can produce. Researchers, education institutions, businesses and professions in the humanities, arts and social sciences look forward to making their contribution to a prosperous and creative future,” Professor Rosenman said.

For further comment: Helen O’Neil, Executive Director, CHASS, (02) 6201 2740

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RESEARCH THAT DELIVERS. DIRECTLY

16 May 2008

Australia is failing to capitalize on the ability of its researchers in the most fundamental area: their power to solve problems.

A new report – Rigour and relevance – from the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS), calls for a three-prong solution to this issue.

Professor Stuart Cunningham, President of CHASS, said such work aims to solve everyday problems such as transport in our cities; welfare in aboriginal communities; climate change; housing affordability, and healthy lifestyles.

“We need to support a new form of research, one that is strategically-driven, problem oriented and cross-disciplinary in nature,” he said.

“If you want to solve a problem, then the person or organisation with the problem has to be in control. They have to set the issues, ensure the work remains focused, and pay the bills. The organisation with the problem needs to be in the driver’s seat.”

The first recommendation is a new role for Government departments: to develop a research plan so they can identify the big problems in their portfolio.

The capacity of government departments to undertake or commission research was heavily run-down in the last decade, and few have the capacity to conduct research.

The second recommendation will make it easier to assemble cross-disciplinary teams to work on problems. Issues may, for instance, require the combined skills of an historian, an engineer, a lawyer, an economist and a biologist.

“Yet all our systems discourage people to work outside their disciplines. It’s hard to work across university departments, and it’s hard to get funding for projects that span disciplines. We need to break down the silos,” Professor Cunningham said.

The third recommendation concerns a new career path for researchers. Generally researchers are promoted for making discoveries and publishing the results.

“Discovery research is vital, and Australia must continue to invest in new ideas,” Professor Cunningham said. “But we also need to construct a new alternative career path, for researchers who want to apply knowledge to solving problems.”

The report Rigor and relevance is available from 3:00pm Sunday 18 May. Principal author was Dr John Howard, Director Research at CHASS.

Media are invited to the launch of the report at the Lobby Restaurant in Canberra, on Tuesday 20 May at 10 am.

For interview: Dr John H Howard 0403 583 600
For information: Toss Gascoigne 0408 704 442
Executive Director
Council of the Humanties, Arts and Social Sciences
Phone: +61 2 6201 2740
director@chass.org.au

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A SOBER BUDGET, BUT PRESSURE MOUNTING FOR 2009

15 May 2008

This budget has delivered what people expected. It reins in expenditure, while investing for the future.

Good news for the tertiary sector is the creation of the Education Investment Fund (EIF) of $11 billion. Both the interest and capital from this fund will be used to restore crumbling infrastructure in the university system.

This will be supplemented by a special one-off Better Universities Renewal Fund of $500 million. BURF is earmarked for capital expenditure on facilities to support teaching, research and student amenities.

The Government has honoured and funded its pre-election commitments on fellowships and scholarships, doubling the number of postgraduate scholarships available to higher degree research students by 2012

Should some of this additional funding have been used to increase the value of the PhD scholarship? Analysis by CHASS and CAPA show that in 1992 the scholarship was 44% of average weekly earnings, but today it is 34%. This year the scholarship dropped below the Henderson Poverty Line.

The Future Fellowships scheme for top mid-career researchers will offer 1,000 Australian and international mid-career researchers four-year fellowships of up to $140,000 a year, with top-up funding to support infrastructure and equipment.

Much of the action in the tertiary sector is anticipated to occur in the next Budget, in May 2009. By then a series of reviews and inquiries will be complete, and the Government will have all the evidence it needs to frame new policies.

These reviews include the Cutler inquiry into the National Innovation System, the Bradley review of Australian Higher Education, and the House of Representatives inquiry into research training and research workforce issues in Australian universities.

There are already encouraging signs that over time the artificial divide between the humanities, arts and social sciences; and the natural sciences will weaken. As Kevin Rudd said in his closing address to the 2020 Conference on 20 April 2008:

“This false divide between the arts and science, between the arts and industry, between the arts and the economy: we’ve actually got to put that to bed. As if creativity is somehow this thing which only applies to the arts, and innovation is this thing over here which applies uniquely to the sciences, or technology, or to design. This is actually again a false dichotomy: it’s just not like that.

“Our ambition should be to create and to foster a creative imaginative Australia because so much of the economy of the twenty-first century is going to require that central faculty.”

The Arts sector is steady as she goes, with some small but welcome increases (resale royalty rights, funds for young and emerging artists, funding for Screen Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive). This sector may also benefit from the results of the Innovation Review

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EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH: A CHASS RESPONSE

27 February 2008

CHASS welcomes the Government’s announcement yesterday (Tuesday) about Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), the new system to assess research quality in the university sector.

Professor Stuart Cunningham, President of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS), said that the Minister has reached beyond sterile debates opposing metrics and qualitative assessment.

“This new approach appears to be committed to a sensible balance between metrics and expert review,” Professor Cunningham said.

He supported the idea of a central role for the Australian Research Council (ARC), describing it as ‘a smart move’.

“The Minister will achieve his objective of a more streamlined approach by using the well-credentialed assessment resources of the ARC,” he said.

Although details of the system have not yet been released, Professor Cunningham expects the process could take two or three years to work through the various discipline clusters.

“As far as our sector is concerned, let’s bring it on for the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS),” he said. “We don’t want to be at the end of a queue, when some of the initial enthusiasm for reform has dissipated.”

“We’re anxious to avoid unintended consequences.

“Our sector remembers what happened with the initial run at National Research Priorities, when a staggered process that started with the natural sciences somehow didn’t get around to the promised focus on the human and social sciences.”

Professor Cunningham said the diversity of the humanities, arts and social sciences needs to be recognized in the ERA process.

“Some of the HASS disciplines have very well established traditions of research and well-formed measures of quality,” he said. “Other disciplines are still working on those measures.”

He said CHASS looks forward to being actively involved in helping establish the new system, and playing a positive part in a new way of measuring research quality in Australia.

See also: Media release from Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research,

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LABOR ANNOUNCES ITS VISION FOR THE ARTS

14 September 2007
Peter Garrett AM

Federal Labor today released a comprehensive arts policy framework

New Directions for the Arts represents the most detailed arts policy document released by either side of politics in the lead up to the election, and confirms Labor’s commitment to a vibrant, diverse and well-supported arts sector.

Labor recognises that as the century unfolds creativity will become increasingly essential to our national well-being and prosperity.

For eleven years the Howard Government has marginalised the arts and artists by dampening artistic freedom of expression and failing to properly address the perennial financial sustainability problems that beset many arts companies, organisations and individuals.

A Rudd Labor Government will restore the role of the arts in our national life by cutting the bureaucratic red tape involved in the grant application process, boosting the capacity of Australian students to access arts education and supporting the growing digital industries including film and television.

The key initiatives of Labor’s New Directions for the Arts are:

Resale royalty scheme
Labor will implement a resale royalty scheme for visual artists. This, in particular, will provide additional support for Indigenous artists who have witnessed a boom in the Indigenous art market.

Supporting Australian artists
Labor will establish ArtStart to review the current state of artists’ incomes and develop policies to redress the fact that many artists are poorly remunerated for their work. ArtStart will be developed in consultation with the arts sector and state and local governments.

An independent and transparent Australia Council
Labor will ensure transparent board appointments, simplified funding application processes and a greater voice for practising artists and arts entrepreneurs.

A strong commitment to Indigenous arts
Labor will respond to the Senate Committee Report Indigenous Art – Securing the Future to address the issues of sustainability and unscrupulous conduct

Arts education for all students
Labor will work with the states and territories to improve the current provision of arts and music education in schools. Currently only 23 per cent of state school students have access to music education.

Developing the creative industries
Labor will develop a Strategic Digital Industry Plan, engaging with the digital sector in the areas of IP, government procurement and export and innovation.

Labor is committed to world-class telecommunications infrastructure and will invest up to $4.7 billion to establish the National Broadband Network in partnership with the private sector.

A Rudd Labor Government will recognise the critical contribution of the arts to our identity, community and economy.

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