RUN SUBMISSION TO THE ARC RESEARCH INSIGHTS CAPABILITY

RUN, while supportive of the proposed objectives and principles of the New ARC Research Insights Capability, holds significant concerns regarding the future direction of the exercise.

At the outset, there is insufficient detail available in the consultation draft for RUN to adequately gauge what outcomes are being proposed by the exercise, and therefore adequately gauge the extent of value (or otherwise) that would be realised by RUN universities.

RUN recommends, as a matter of urgency, that additional information be provided to the sector so an informed and useful consultation process can take place.

The consultation draft suggests there will be no objective measure of research quality as a feature of the proposed Data Dashboards, In-depth/Bespoke reports, nor the State of the Research Environment Report. The absence of objective evaluations of research quality significantly diminishes the usefulness and impact of the exercise for regional universities and their external stakeholders. This is an acute limitation that risks reducing the ability of the ARC to conduct meaningful evaluation of Australia’s research capability.

While RUN is encouraged by the prospect that the capability aims to be less burdensome for stakeholders, the concern is that this efficiency comes at the expense of an objective measure of research quality that would otherwise demonstrate the individual research capabilities of Australia’s universities.

RUN also holds concerns about the proposed use of Open Alex, noting the unacceptably high levels of predatory/fraudulent journals that it currently accommodates, alongside an indexing policy which does not screen for publication outlet quality.