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Knowing Ourselves and Others
The Humanities in Australia into the 21st Century
Title page
Volume 1 - Summary and statistics
Volume 2 - Disciplinary surveys
Volume 3 - Reflective essays
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    Volume 2 - Chapter 3

    Issues and Recommendations


    We now turn to consider the many large issues with which the Review was confronted and to the Recommendations we make upon them. Note that the institutions and bodies to which each Recommendation is directed are listed in brackets immediately below it.

    Present Circumstances

    There can be no doubt that the quality of Australian research in the Humanities, judged both by its achievement in a number of different fields and taken as a whole, is high by international standards. Given the far narrower base from which it has come just 40 years ago this is a considerable achievement. At the outset we had rather expected to come across some fields of Humanities scholarship which were important to Australia that were not represented. In the event that has not been so.

    These achievements are now, however, under very serious threat. The full dimensions of the crisis can be illustrated by the figures set out by the most authoritative figure in Australia on these matters, Professor Peter Karmel, in his submission to the West inquiry. Twenty years on from the Murray committee, he specifies, government outlays on higher education reached a peak in 1975-6 of 1.7 per cent of gross domestic product. Since then there has been a marked decline to the point where the most recent round of cuts will bring this back to close upon 1 per cent. This has been coupled, moreover, with an increase between 1988 and 1996 in academic and general staff numbers of only 26 per cent when student load increased by 49 per cent. On top of this has now come the decision of governments since 1996 not to fund salary adjustments which, as Professor Karmel details, 'is effectively imposing a cut of around 8 to 10 percent in the real value of university funds'. In Higher Education as a whole some of this deficit is being counterweighted by increases in non-government funding. But, despite all the efforts that are currently being made, non-government funding is only available on a very limited scale to the Humanities. The net result amounts to a serious contraction of funding for the Universities since the Menzies-Murray-Martin reforms of the 1950s-60s, and it is scarcely therefore to be wondered at that the consequences down the line for Humanities research in Australia, despite the range and quality which it has achieved over the last 40 years, are now very serious.

    Although we have not encountered important whole fields of Humanities research in which no work is being done in Australia, some serious weaknesses have now opened up within all too many of them. Since the full effects of the current phase of financial cuts are not as yet clear we may well feel the need to issue a supplementary report in 1998 that will specify more precisely the effect these are now having. Unsurprisingly the reports we have received from most Deans of Arts and/or of Humanities contain one constant theme; of reduced staffing, of a return to a 1950s situation in student-staff ratios, of significant reductions in library expenditure, and so on.

    The Academy's recent in-house report on 'Tertiary Languages in the National Interest: New Imperatives for Planning' (July 1997) allows us to illustrate the crisis in the Humanities as it applies currently to one specific but large disciplinary area: languages other than English and the cultures associated with them.

    Although global student numbers in languages have increased during the last two or three years (with most of the growth occurring in Asian languages), staff numbers in University language departments over the same period have been cut by approximately 10 per cent and this figure does not take into account the replacement of professorial and other senior staff by junior and more often casual teachers. (An extreme illustration of this trend can be seen in the case of Russian: whilst in the 1970s there were five Chairs of Russian in Australia, in 1997 there is none.) Increasingly, language departments are expected to do more with less, to the point where teaching standards are under serious threat and research output can no longer be maintained, let alone improved. Funding cuts are forcing languages programs

    • to prune weekly contact hours and teach larger classes;
    • to reduce the range and depth of offerings, especially at the senior levels of the curriculum; and
    • to erode research time available to staff.

    All of which demonstrates that the predicament of language programs in Australian Universities has reached a crisis point. (Further details for specific subjects are provided in a number of the Discipline and Area Studies Surveys in Volume 2, which should be read in conjunction with these general remarks). This situation is particularly serious since strong language expertise underpins a great deal of Humanities research that is not specifically language-directed. For example, competence in Spanish and/or Portugese is a prerequisite for Latin American Studies and a good knowledge of Latin is required for researchers in Medieval Studies. Urgent action is now needed at the national level if resources, both practical and intellectual, which were painstakingly built up after the 1960s, and which need to be nurtured and developed if the country wishes to remain competitive internationally, are to be salvaged. The safeguard of Australia's 'fundamental resource' has become a matter of national priority.

    A decade or so ago it seemed that serious attention was once more being given to the importance of foreign language skills for the country's economic, social and cultural prosperity. This awareness found its most explicit expression in J. Lo Bianco, National Policy on Languages (AGPS, Canberra 1987), and in DEET, Australia's Language: the Australian Language and Literacy Policy (AGPS, Canberra 1991). As recently as June 1997 an ARC report described the nation's strengths in language and literacy as 'Australia's fundamental resource', the term also covering English both as a first and a second language. That claim now has a rather hollow ring in the context of current cuts to language programs in Australian universities.

    The impetus of the language revival of the late 1980s and early 1990s appears indeed to have been lost, even though the policy has not been formally repudiated. The country's Universities have been cuting their language offerings in the face of low funding levels. Although offerings of Asian languages have increased, European languages other than French and Spanish have suffered serious losses, and that number includes the ancient classical languages of Greek and Latin. Sixteen languages of small enrolment, not all European, have been discontinued in the last few years and this has resulted in a significant loss of diversity. Several languages, some of national significance such as Cantonese, Cambodian and Burmese, cannot be studied in Australia to research competence level, whilst Hindi -- spoken by more people in the world than any other language except Mandarin Chinese, and the principal language of India which is on the way to being our most populous regional neighbour -- is provided at only one or two institutions.

    There is a trend too to teach languages at the level of basic practical skills only, disregarding their socio-cultural context. This trend is further reinforced by the concentration of growth in beginners' level programs, and the gradual decline in demand for advanced courses which are the only kinds of courses to sustain research and research training. At a time when in Asia, Europe and other parts of the world the learning of second languages and their social and cultural background has become an essential requirement at virtually all levels of education and when Australian universities themselves have unanimously embraced policies of internationalisation, the nation's capacity to sustain serious language programs and especially to train researchers, area specialists and teachers is being seriously jeopardised.

    As we write the overall context of the tertiary system is being investigated by the West Committee. There are many indications, however, that funding for universities from whatever source is unlikely in the short term to be increased -- at a time, we may note, when governments elsewhere in countries such as ours have made education one of their highest priorities, and when there is considerable evidence to indicate that our neighbours to the north -- Malaysia would be only one example -- are attaching very considerable importance to it. We are fearful -- but will be delighted to be shown we are wrong -- that a follow-up review to this in another decade or two's time will report a significant decline in the extent and diversity of Humanities research in Australia of the kind which here and elsewhere in our report is already apparent.

    Given this context the recommendations we offer, though in all the circumstances of great importance, cannot go to the heart of the problem. At its heart lie reduced real levels of government funding for Higher Education, and (since 1996) the successive governments' decisions not to fund staff salary adjustments, along with policies for funding institutions based largely on student quotas determined bureaucratically, with unsatisfactory disciplinary weightings for many subjects, particularly in the Humanities. As our Recommendation 11 indicates, there is now an urgent need for government to adopt funding models based on widely agreed academic criteria to modify the operation of present, largely student numbers-based funding formulae. Current funding levels and practices are eroding the teaching and research base, particularly in core disciplines of small enrolment throughout the tertiary sector.

    To the elucidation of these problems we can give our own testimony and propose some solutions, but their core, it needs to be emphasised, lies outside our remit. We would, however, emphasise very strongly indeed that the well-being of our society rests critically upon the research base that so much of the educational future of our society and of its public life depends on; that this has been at once painstakingly and highly successfully built up especially over the last four decades, and that any continuance let alone worsening of the circumstances to which it in the past decade or so has been subjected can only have exceedingly adverse consequences for Australia's future by quite unnecessarily marginalising us on the world scene.

A Strategy for Research in the Humanities

In our terms of reference we have been invited to outline a strategy for the development of research in the Humanities over the next 15 years. Within the limitations to which we have just alluded, and to which we hope government and DEETYA will pay attention, we think several matters are of strategic importance, though there are others to which serious consideration needs to be given as well. We outline these in this Volume from here onwards.

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School Education

Schooling is linked to the nation's research effort in three ways. First, the training of Humanities researchers builds upon a long educational training, the most important parts of which are laid in the earliest years of schooling. Second, school teachers and students are among the most significant consumers of the knowledge and skills developed by research in the Humanities. Third, all levels of learning are linked together by shared use of extensive information infrastructures, of which university, state, institutional and community libraries are perhaps the most important.

A healthy education system requires an effective interface between the high-level study of disciplines for their own sake, and varied applications in teaching and learning from primary to tertiary settings. The continued health of Australian society depends upon strong Humanities programs at all levels of schooling, regardless of whether students progress to Year 12 or seek university entrance.

There is deep concern about the current situation. The health of Australian society depends upon sustaining and nurturing a literate community. Australian children, however, are still not guaranteed literacy by their schooling, while in many parts of the country the systematic study of the Humanities in schools is in serious decline. This is undermining literacy in English and the learning of languages other than English. As we have seen, the promising nation-wide language policy taking shape in the 1980s has now been abandoned silently. The decline in school studies in the Humanities is also depriving children of historical and cultural knowledge both of their own country and the outside world. That has major implications for the future of Australian public life and culture.

Following the adoption of aspects of national curriculum statements and profiles in a majority of States in recent years, there has been a widespread replacement of the study of disciplines by the study of key learning areas. The move towards these areas follows a general long-term trend in primary and secondary education to cross-disciplinary and integrated study, which has often been at the expense of disciplinary training and the acquisition of strong disciplinary-based bodies of content. Two key learning areas relevant to the Humanities in which disciplinary study has been jeopardised are Study of Society and the Environment and the Arts. There has also been some impact upon disciplinary study in the area of Languages other than English, where sequential and cumulative learning is at the heart of the discipline. While there have been many advantages to learning in a more integrated way, the transition to tertiary study, which is often still strongly disciplinary in its foundations, has every prospect of becoming more difficult, through lack of previously expected content and skills.

At present there is a good deal of concern even in our best universities that students arrive ill-equipped for tertiary study, while those States that have widened their intake of school leavers now report higher university failure rates. It is alleged that too many students appear unable to read basic first-year texts, and that their cultural literacy is seriously limited. Experienced university teachers report having to lower the cognitive level of some courses by one or more years to cope with the students of the 1990s.

There is strong support for the opening of Universities to mass education, but it is unfair to all concerned to admit students who are not adequately prepared. Simple exclusion is not the answer, nor does a foundation year provide any solution, since such ventures have rarely succeeded in the past. One of the most important tasks of the schools is to prepare those students who wish to proceed to tertiary study with the basic skills necessary for success in higher education.

At the same time there has been a marked contraction in the contributions many academics are prepared to make to the development of school education from what was often commonplace half a century ago, and too little concern too with the needs of the teaching profession in the structuring of first degree courses.

Key issues are:

  • Pedagogical aims need to be reassessed so that more emphasis is placed on the teaching of content rather than on process; the imparting of disciplinary knowledge rather than just training in techniques of research and investigation, and the securing of cumulative rather than eclectic learning. Inquiry-based learning has brought many benefits, but it is insufficient when students lack basic knowledge and skills.
  • There appears to be a serious insufficiency in the disciplinary base of teacher training in various existing BEd and graduate education programs.
  • There is considerable evidence of a need for greater attention to knowledge about language in the English curriculum.
  • History and geography need to be returned to a central place in school education. The Expert Group appointed by the Keating government to report on Citizenship Education [1] has drawn attention to the deficient knowledge of Australian and world history among young Australians, and has argued persuasively for the return of these disciplines to the core curriculum of both primary and secondary schools. Many teachers in the Humanities are dissatisfied with the attempt to teach these disciplines within the learning area 'Study of Society and the Environment (SOSE)', that was established in the national curriculum statements in the early 1990s, and this should now be disaggregated. It is heartening that the present Minister, Senator Kemp, has shown his readiness to press ahead with new curriculum proposals for citizenship education. However, this should not take away from time devoted to the core History and Geography disciplines.
  • It is of great importance too that study of languages other than English, including community languages, should be maintained in secondary schools so that Australia can retain a nucleus of people able to speak, read and write in a wide range of world languages. This is particularly important in view of our multicultural society and our international -- particularly Asian -- context.
  • More attention must be given in ongoing curriculum renewal to the need to ensure that a constant and reliable transmission of innovations in discipline-specific content and skills, that derive from the research effort of the tertiary sector, pass into the teacher training and schooling sectors.

Australia must raise its school and undergraduate intellectual standards, or else risk falling behind other countries in our region (as in some instances we are already doing). If our schools falter, so will our universities, and ultimately our intellectual and research culture. Close cooperation not just between schools and universities but between schooling and tertiary disciplines is essential to this task. They all share a common responsibility to the future of the country. The exchange of ideas and experience between them needs to be substantially increased.

The discipline base of school curricula and teacher training pathways now requires urgent review. Such a review needs to give close attention to the requirements both of those students who are likely to progress to further specialised studies and to those who require a more broadly conceived generalist education. These requirements are not mutually exclusive since specialist students in one area are likely to be generalists in others. The review proposed in Recommendation 1 should pay particular attention to the Humanities and to other key fields like Mathematics and Science. It should involve representatives of educational stakeholders, but we believe it is important that it be conducted under the auspices of the Learned Academies and include representatives of disciplines chosen by the Academies.

Recommendation 1
  • That the National Academies Forum be funded to conduct a review, with appropriate representation of educational stakeholders, of Australian school curricula for report to the Federal Minister responsible for school education. It should address the role of the academic disciplines, the disciplinary background of teachers, the true extent of the reported decline of content over process in teaching and learning, the place of cumulative as against eclectic curricula, the balance between vocational and life-skills training and preparation for tertiary studies, and the requirements for a more productive relationship between the schooling and tertiary sectors.
[Federal Minister responsible for School Education; NAF; ARC; MCEETYA; DEETYA]

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Graduate Training

The Essay on Graduate Training in Volume 3 of this Report discusses issues concerning postgraduate research training in the Humanities at some length. Here we formulate Recommendations based on the most important of the issues on this topic that have arisen out of our Review.

(i) Honours Degrees . Postgraduate research by Australian students in Australia is normally predicated on the fourth year Honours degree (which has no counterpart in either England or the United States). Whilst this serves the requirements of the ablest undergraduates regardless of whether they go on to higher studies or not, for those preparing for research training it provides the crucial basic disciplinary training which is quite essential before postgraduate research can be embarked upon. Any diminution in it will have serious consequences for postgraduate research in this country and for the high standard to which Honours students are now trained in their Fourth, specialist year.

Recommendation 2
  • That the provision of Honours Degrees continues to be strongly supported as the primary gateway to postgraduate research training throughout the Australian tertiary sector.
[Universities; AVCC; PVCs Research; ARC; DEETYA; HEC]

(ii) Postgraduate Student and Staff Numbers . In Chapter 2 above, in the section entitled 'Research Students in the Humanities' and Figures 2.19-2.21, we have provided as extensive details as at this stage we can on changes in research student numbers over the period 1990 to 1996. Figure 2.19 shows the substantial increase in postgraduate EFTSU in the Australian tertiary sector between 1990 and 1996. It also shows that the Sciences (in particular) and the Humanities and Social Sciences are the strongest AOUs in terms of postgraduate numbers and in terms of percentage increase in those numbers in the period surveyed.

In the early 1990s there was some concern that there were too few students undertaking PhDs to provide a sufficient supply of new entrants to the academic profession. Because of the increase in PhD numbers that took place thereafter (which has now levelled out) and the low level of academic job opportunities consequent upon cuts to government funding of the tertiary sector, this has proved not to be the case.

Some suggestions have been made that there may now be too many PhD students. That, however, is a very debatable conclusion. It is of great importance that there should be significant fields of candidates for the academic posts which need to be filled. The training which PhD research entails is, moreover, of increasing importance for non-academic life too. Many former research students who have not gone on to an academic career have greatly valued the opportunity in the course of their maturation process to have learnt how to master a large and complex subject, bring some order to its understanding, and explore the intellectual frontiers which it confronts -- and in the process to have had close contact with a significant scholar in the field and the comments of two or more leading scholars on their eventual research work. We accordingly see no reason why the numbers of postgraduates should be arbitrarily curtailed; though in view of the likelihood that numbers of them will go on to non-academic careers, Universities need to attend to the general benefits of research training much more deliberately.

It needs to be noted too that the present number of research students contributes very substantially to the research culture which is vital to the health of Humanities research in Universities, and which, in an era of worsening student-staff ratios and increased administrative burdens, is under such threat. Their person-years' contribution can be illustrated by the following tables.

Figure 3.1: Total: Type of Research Employee (by person years), All Australia

Graph

Source: ABS Catalogue No. 8111.0, titled Research and Experimental Development, Higher Education Organisations, Australia

Figure 3.2: Comparison of Social Sciences vs Humanities: Type of Employees by Field of Research (cf all Australia)

Graph

Source: Fields of Research, Table 11 Human Resources Devoted to R&D by Higher Education Organisations, Australia, by field of Research, 1994 (person years)

It is significant that, if one compares Figure 3.2 showing the ratios of postgraduate students to staff for the Humanities and Social Sciences with Figure 3.1 for the Universities generally, there is a strong representation of the larger numbers of postgraduate students per Humanities academic staff available to supervise them (22 per cent: 8 per cent) than is the case with all other fields (average 54 per cent: 26 per cent) including Social Sciences. The proportion of support staff available for the Humanities research training enterprise is much lower, too, than for all other disciplines. The imbalance of Humanities postgraduate students to staff needs to be rectified by the greater allocation of staff to Humanities disciplines in recognition of their postgraduate load. And, as has been explained both in the Essay on Graduate Training in Volume 3 and in Volume 1, Chapter 1 (iv), the nature of postgraduate supervision in the Humanities does not generally boost the supervisor's own research output nearly as directly as the supervision of postgraduates tends to do in science-based disciplines. It is thus more expensive of the Humanities academic's time and less directly productive in terms of his or her own research.

The Review has given consideration to the question of whether there are likely to be long-term problems from some present shortfall in the number of research students in a particular field. With two exceptions, this is not seen to be a matter for concern. The situation is especially good in the newer disciplines which have benefited by their recruitment of practitioners from a variety of fields. Indeed, in view of the spread of interdisciplinary interests across many Humanities fields, scholarly mobility from one to another, or rather, very often, the development of expertise in more than one, or at all events in the borderlands between them, is very common. What is important is the total quantum of research students in the Humanities, and this at present seems on an appropriate scale.

The two general exceptions where enrolment levels in research degrees leave something to be desired are certain fields of The Arts (especially dance) and in Languages other than English and in the Area Studies associated with these. Whilst English now constitutes the principal international language, it gives little or no direct access either to the overwhelming proportion of the peoples of non-English speaking countries, or to the great majority of topics which research about them and their cultures calls for. There can be no doubt that Australia requires substantial expertise in foreign societies, their languages and cultures. It is essential therefore that we produce language, cultural and other specialists who have the necessary advanced language skills to study topics in a wide range of Asian, European, Middle Eastern, Pacific and indigenous Australian fields through appropriate postgraduate programs in an appropriate number of institutions, and in particular that there are substantial language learning opportunities available to them. These provisions need to cover not only research students specialising in languages and civilisation, but also those in historical, anthropological, archaeological, art historical, musical and linguistic scholarship who require advanced language skills. Whilst distributed diversity over a number of institutions is highly desirable from both an access and equity point of view, a concentration of strength in a few Universities with strong language offerings has considerable advantages for research training, especially in the case of area studies projects. (For Recommendations on this issue, see Recommendation 14 below).

Recommendation 3
  • That Universities inform students and potential employers of the transferable skills of Humanities studies and take steps to facilitate the career paths of research students who will move into non-academic professions.
[Universities; HEC; DOGS; DASSH Deans]

  • That Universities review their mechanisms for the crediting of research supervision in the Humanities and make funding adjustments to provide improved staff-postgraduate student ratios in the Humanities.
[Universities; AVCC; DEETYA]

(iii) Best Practice and Minimum Working Conditions for Graduate Studies in the Humanities . The Graduate Training essay in Volume 3 draws attention to the proliferation of Guides concerning postgraduate studies -- to students, supervisors, examiners, etc. Whilst it would be destructive of the collegial relationships that are crucial in this area to turn these into contracts, a major contribution to the improvement of research training in the Humanities would be the promotion and adoption by all Universities of best practice in these matters.

We draw attention to the issues canvassed in that Essay on these matters, and to one other issue in particular. In many instances the facilities and room space made available to research students in the Humanities as compared with research students in other fields is quite inadequate. It is inappropriate that postgraduate researchers should not be assured of the necessary minimum facilities for their work.

Recommendation 4
  • That Universities and the Australian Research Council through the agency of Directors of Graduate Schools take steps to promote best practice in Universities in their Graduate programs through the adoption of Guides to the various parties concerned with it.
[Universities; ARC; DOGS]

  • That Universities review their provision of rooms and facilities for research students in the Humanities, and where these are inadequate bring them up to a standard comparable with what is available to postgraduates in other Academic Organisational Units.
[Universities; PVCs Research; DASSH Deans; DOGS; CAPA]

(iv)Changes in the nature of the PhD. The strongly favoured nature of research over coursework postgraduate degrees in terms of student fees, scholarships and internal university funding indices has led to some rapid changes in the nature of research degree requirements, and in particular PhD requirements. Originally intended as a research degree assessed solely by submission of a major thesis, the disciplinary PhD has in many instances, however, now attracted substantial accretions of coursework -- sometimes compulsory, sometimes optional. The nature of the thesis has also been broadened, particularly in The Arts, to include submissions of folios of compositions, art works or creative writing, in most cases with a substantial related written commentary, but in some instances, without. Performances too may now form at least part of PhD requirements in Performing Arts disciplines. While both a substantial component of coursework may be highly desirable and doctoral study in creative areas is obviously necessary, the nature of PhD requirements, both generally and specifically in the Humanities, needs to be clarified nationally to ensure a uniformly high standard among PhD graduates, and a clear and commonly understood demarcation established between coursework, research and professional postgraduate studies.

In particular, since there has in recent years been an exponential growth, as the Graduate Training essay notes, in professional as distinct from disciplinary PhDs., these need to be considered too. Although they have not yet proliferated in the Humanities to the extent they have in other fields, there are already Doctorates of Creative Arts, and it is readily conceivable that Doctorates in subjects such as Heritage and Media Management will follow soon.

Recommendation 5
  • That Directors of Graduate Schools review the variations which have been introduced into the thesis-only PhD in the Humanities and advise on any steps to be taken to ensure a uniformly high standard.

  • That Directors of Graduate Schools review the distinction between disciplinary and professional doctorates and advise Universities about best practice with regard to both.
[Universities; PVCs Research; HEC; DOGS]

(v) Masters Degrees. It seems as if at present the requirement that Masters' programs should be either 'course-work' or 'research' is not working. Many Masters programs are both, and are only arbitrarily allocated to one or the other category, although with very different fee consequences for students. As developments in countries comparable in this respect to Australia suggest that there is likely to be an increase in course-work cum (smaller) thesis Masters degrees, particularly so that students having been at one University can experience the expertise available at another, there now needs to be a positive stance taken towards such joint course-work and research Masters degrees.

Recommendation 6
  • That Masters degrees by course-work and minor thesis be recognised in future by Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs as a distinct (and sometimes much to be preferred) category of Masters degree, alongside those by thesis or by course-work only.
[DEETYA; DOGS; HEC]

(vi) Australian Postgraduate Awards. The Review has given some consideration to the present system for the distribution of Australian Postgraduate Awards and APAs without stipend. Whilst it has been pleased to learn that the national system of allocation is not generally replicated within Universities, where almost invariably there is open competition between applicants from different fields, it is nonetheless open to question whether the present system for the allocation of scholarships to Universities based largely on their success in procuring Commonwealth competitive research grants is either equitable or efficient.

The present practice of allocation can severely disadvantage such fields as the Humanities when they are strong in research within Universities without Faculties such as Medicine and Engineering, which traditionally attract the largest external research grants. The present system also rates the fund-raising capacity of Universities above the scholarly merit of individuals. It calls, moreover, for the unnecessary proliferation of applications by intending students, and it takes insufficient account of the distribution of the most appropriate supervisors. We think consideration now needs to be given to a system whereby scholarships should be awarded to individual candidates solely on the basis of their own merits, and that they should be free to seek entry to a postgraduate program at any University of their own choice, and wherever feasible under a supervisor of their own choice as well. Alternatively, if there are still thought to be advantages in the present system, we believe that consideration should be given in any event to an adjustment of the present formula that would take account of the research performance of Humanities Faculties in individual Universities, which, as we are at pains to emphasise elsewhere, is in no way properly measured by the size and extent of the competitive external research funding the institutions receive.

Recommendation 7
  • That the Australian Research Council review the present arrangements for the nationwide allocation of Australian Postgraduate Awards and Australian Postgraduate Awards without stipend so as to allow students more choice and introduce a more equitable and efficient system for the distribution of awards than the present one.
[ARC; AVCC; Universities; DEETYA; HEC]

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Entry into the Scholarly Profession: the Early Career Researcher in the Humanities in the late 1990s

It is now commonplace that a PhD is required for an academic appointment in the Humanities. That will have entailed at least three years concentrated study and may well have been preceded by a Masters degree. As we have said, by no means all those who complete PhDs will either wish or in some instances be likely to proceed to an academic position, but the best of those that do need to be very actively encouraged. For their first appointment they will also frequently be expected to have published and to have had teaching experience. Here we wish to draw attention to the grimly restricted opportunities that are available to such highly qualified early career researchers in the Humanities in the Australian university system at present and to the consequences for the profession if the situation is allowed to continue or to decline still further. All that we say immediately below (Recommendation 9) about the need to improve substantially the working conditions of Humanities scholars applies to early career Humanities researchers with particular force.

The first part of Recommendation 8 is that Universities appoint a greater number of Humanities staff to Level A and B positions as a matter of urgency in order to ensure the balanced continuity of Humanities disciplines in terms of academic experience (including research experience) and age profile. Our statistical data in Volume 1, Chapter 2 above indicates that because of the paucity of and drop in Level A and B appointments we may well have lost a whole generation of younger scholars to the Humanities profession already (Figures 2.2-2.4), and are in grave danger of losing another (Figures 2.10 and 2.11). We repeat here the observation of Volume 1, Chapter 2, p. 61, that 'Particularly striking is that the (below-average) growth in academic FTE in Humanities from 1990 to 1996 has been driven entirely by growth in the 50-and-over age groups. Notable, too, is that the decrease in FTE aged under 30 is far more pronounced in the humanities than overall, leaving under-30s with a share of all FTE that is well below the average'.

The second part of Recommendation 8 suggests two means (there are others) whereby institutions can increase the numbers of academic staff in Level A and B positions even in times of financial stringency.

It is of first importance that postdoctoral Research Fellowships of the kind that can in particular places be found overseas (together with the very often invaluable overseas experience that goes with them) and are increasingly available at Australian universities be sustained and available to researchers in the Humanities. The great importance of the ARC Fellowship scheme to Humanities researchers is the subject of Recommendation 22 below.

It is also of great importance that Universities provide Teaching Fellowships for new entrants to the profession. These, as we indicate below in Recommendation 10, can secure teaching relief for established scholars, but they also provide invaluable teaching practice for newcomers to the profession. Whilst, as we will also shortly emphasise, sustained appointments are of crucial importance for the development of the kind of profound scholarship that is needed, this needs to be deliberately balanced with ensuring that new entrants to the profession are encouraged.

Recommendation 8
  • That Universities as a matter of urgency ensure that they have a higher proportion of Level A and B positions in Humanities disciplines in their staffing profile than has been the case in the period 1990-6, in order to ensure the balanced continuity of Humanities disciplines in terms of academic experience and age profile.
[Universities; AVCC; DEETYA; HEC]

  • That Universities authorise their Deputy Vice-Chancellors and Deans to play a more pro-active role in advancing the interests of and opportunities for prospective newcomers to the Humanities profession by means of postdoctoral Research Fellowships and Teaching Fellowships.
[Universities; PVCs Research; DASSH Deans; ARC]

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The Working Conditions of the University Humanities Scholar

In looking to maintain, let alone enhance, the calibre of Humanities research, few considerations are more important than the need to ensure that the commitment to become and remain a Humanities scholar continues to be attractive to people of first-class ability. In the past it has largely been possible to take this for granted. It would be a grave mistake to do so now. There have been too many adverse changes in recent years in the circumstances in which academics now find themselves to have any satisfactory assurance about this. We describe these adverse changes now.

Most significantly, student-staff ratios in Humanities disciplines in tertiary institutions have now risen to a point where they are frequently worse than those to be found in the secondary sector. Volume 1, Chapter 2 demonstrates that, for Australia as a whole in 1996, Humanities student-staff ratios were 18 per cent higher than the ratio across all AOUs. Financial efficiencies brought about by larger class sizes and the use of new technology have clearly been important, but there has been an accompanying lessening in direct student-teacher contact, a dramatic reduction in undergraduate tutorials and other forms of small group teaching, and a need to devote more time to the marking of assessments in subjects such as the Humanities that are not suitable for objective testing or computerised marking. Marking is a particularly onerous task for Humanities staff, given the large numbers of student essays and assignments that they have to assess. It has also become less possible to undertake individual remedial work with the increased number of students insufficiently prepared for university study, or with students experiencing learning difficulties.

We have already noted under Recommendation 3 the heavy load of postgraduate research supervision carried by many Humanities academics and pressed to have it given full recognition when computing their teaching loads.

Further, over the past decade the burden of administrative tasks has markedly increased as Universities have become more subject to detailed national regulation, and to more intensive internal strategic planning and review. Academic staff are more involved than ever before in day-to-day administration, course and subject management, and student advising. There has been a substantial devolution of administrative tasks that used to be carried out by central administration to teaching and research academics in the faculties. The economic inefficiency of using highly paid and qualified academic staff for many basic administrative tasks, as well as the loss in time for teaching and research, is an all too frequent feature of the current situation.

There are salary and promotion considerations too. Since the 1970s there has been a significant drop in academic salaries compared with other professions into which outstanding people can move (for example, the law or the public service, which were hitherto considered comparable). Australian salaries have lost the sometimes invaluable competitive advantage they used once to have with comparable countries overseas. Academic salaries in some of our burgeoning Asian neighbours are already significantly more attractive. As well, Humanities staff rarely attract salary loadings, as in some other AOUs. In addition, there have been many Level E positions in the Humanities that have been frozen or lost in departmental rationalisations in recent years. This has resulted both in loss of research leadership and in the unavailability in some disciplines of professorial level salaries.

Promotion has in recent years become less dependent, too, on demonstrable individual quality of achievement, and in some universities more determined by quotas and the perceived strategic value of a discipline.

There are also matters concerning security of employment. This remains an essential requirement for long-term commitment to scholarship in the Humanities. Whilst some Science and Technology disciplines experience rapid changes in systems and understandings which might best be served by short-term appointments of highly specialised staff, Humanities scholarship is more dependent upon the establishment of a depth of learning built up over many years.

The current trend towards casualisation will further erode the productivity and creativity of early career academics, and proposals being discussed in some Enterprise Bargaining negotiations to pay academic staff for only nine months of the year will disadvantage Humanities researchers whose expertise is unsuited to commercial consultancies. Without some assurance that a substantial proportion of academic positions in the Humanities will be continuing ones, first-class scholarship in the Humanities will be at a premium, and the availability of first-class supervisors for research students and mentors for newer scholars will not be available. There are already indications that established academics are more productive scholars than those trapped in short-term appointments.

There are as well pressing needs for Humanities scholars in the current provision of library materials and Information Technology.

On a number of these issues ameliorating recommendations will be found elsewhere in this report. Unless they are attended to, the likelihood of a brain drain of people of calibre to better provisioned academic positions abroad, and/or to professions with higher salaries and higher status, can only have deleterious consequences for Humanities Research, Research Training and the maintenance of quality Universities dependent upon them.

Recommendation 9
  • That DEETYA, the Higher Education Council, the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee and University administrators of tertiary education in general give a high priority to addressing the following matters:
    • the necessity to improve the working conditions of Humanities academics (as no doubt in other fields as well);
    • the deleterious effect of high student-staff ratios upon the production of quality research in the Humanities;
    • the inefficiency of using highly qualified academic staff in routine administrative tasks, and the urgent requirement to streamline administrative needs so as to lessen the distraction of these demands upon their time for both teaching and research;
    • the relatively low salary levels of academics;
    • the growing restrictions upon the use of promotion as a reward for outstanding achievement; and
    • the need, because of the necessity to safeguard the requirements of long matured scholarship in the Humanities (and without prejudice to the needs of newer scholars), for a good proportion of Humanities appointments in Universities to be to continuing rather than fixed-term positions.
[DEETYA; HEC; AVCC; Universities; NTEU]

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Time for Research

As we have just noted, because of the substantial changes in student-staff ratios, and the considerable increase in their administrative tasks which have occurred in recent years, there is great concern amongst Humanities scholars about the contraction of time available to them to pursue their research.

For very many scholars in the Humanities, unlike many in the Sciences, this is not to be rectified by the appointment of research assistants. The quality of research in so much of the Humanities is critically dependent for its credibility upon most of it being conducted by the chief investigator her- or himself while virtually everything that is entailed in the lengthy and demanding task of writing is a highly personal enterprise as well. For some Humanities scholars research assistance can sometimes be of help, but very few of them think it appropriate to employ someone else to do their core research and writing. Whilst, moreover, the work of graduate students can enlarge the general field in which an associated Humanities scholar is working, we have seen that coordinated research, in which the research student participates in a larger research project overseen by the supervisor, and in many cases is a co-author on the supervisor's research papers, is a pattern that does not normally apply in Humanities disciplines.

In this situation full and flexible provision for study leave (OSP and SSP) remains of critical importance. It is of great importance too that the ARC continue and indeed strengthen its policy of allocating funds for teaching relief under its Large Grants scheme (we refer to this again below under Recommendation 22). Significant assistance can also be provided by the adoption of time-release arrangements within Faculties and Schools whereby academics can first take on an additional load of teaching and then be granted additional time for research.

In principle, Faculty and School funds can, moreover, fund Teaching Fellowships so as to give recently completed PhD students some teaching experience, while providing teaching relief for academics at some crucial point in their research and/or writing.

In some instances, a good deal can be secured by intelligent timetabling of committees, and by arrangements whereby teaching obligations are concentrated on specific days in the week, leaving one to two others for research.

There are further possibilities too which we discuss below in connection with the ARC's funding mechanisms.

Recommendation 10
  • That Universities maintain to the full their commitment to study leave, both sustaining Outside Studies Program and developing their provision for Special Study Program.

  • That Faculties, Schools and Departments program teaching and administrative responsibilities for academic staff both over successive sessions, and in the course of a teaching week, so as to make adequate time available to staff for research.

  • That Faculties and Schools allocate funds for Teaching Fellowships to provide new researchers in the Humanities profession with teaching experience while providing some teaching relief for more established researchers.
[Universities; AVCC; DASSH Deans; Heads of Humanities Departments and Schools]

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Collaboration

In a variety of ways Universities have inevitably been in competition with one another. They have long been in the market for resources, students and outstanding academic staff. In recent years competition between Universities in Australia has been greatly intensified by an increasingly tight and very demanding market in higher education, and their adjustment to its disciplines is by now considerable. Market forces are now the controlling mechanism in higher education. Yet in some specific instances the present structure of the market and the strong competition which has developed between Universities is militating against the efficient working of the system if, as should be the case, academic goals are paramount.

The case for collaboration between universities in some carefully specified instances has already been amply conceded. This is apparent in the conditions governing the establishment of Cooperative Research Centres and ARC Key and Special Research Centres, and in many of the activities of the AVCC. It is also apparent in the importance which working academics attach to professional collaboration with colleagues in their field in other universities. This is strikingly illustrated in the remarkable proliferation of professional subject and field-based associations which has occurred in recent years. Appendix 1 provides as up-to-date a list of professional academic associations in Australia in the Humanities as the Review has been able to compile. It illustrates how important collaboration amongst researchers in similar fields but located in different Universities is seen to be.

The Review has identified six areas where new collaborative arrangements need to be instituted if the Humanities in particular are to be sustained over coming decades. These are:

  • regional rationalisations of selected subjects;
  • programs of small enrolment;
  • programs in languages other than English;
  • Libraries;
  • IT provision for Universities; and
  • and the establishment of State and regional Humanities Centres.

Recommendations 12-17 deal with each of these areas in turn.

In several of these areas it is now necessary that there should be a strictly limited degree of non-formula funding to cater effectively for them by the earmarking of some Higher Education funding for this purpose. Provision exists for this in the Government's allocation in the 1997 budget of an additional $26m over five years for its 'Higher Education Restructuring and Rationalisation Package'. It should be imaginatively drawn upon, using the information and recommendations made in this Review as a guide. In each instance a realistic calculation needs to be made of the sums that will be essential, and the manner in which they should be dispensed. Thereafter specialised markets should be established within which Universities would compete for the resources which are thus made available upon the basis of credible academic plans for their use and bearing in mind the location of existing infrastructural resources.

Recommendation 11
  • That the principle of non-formula funding through the earmarking of some of the funding for Higher Education be further extended for the purpose of sustaining Humanities enterprises important for the wellbeing of the university system as a whole which under present arrangements would not otherwise be viable.
[Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs; DEETYA]

  • That Universities take steps to secure some proportion of the Government's 'Higher Education Restructuring and Rationalisation Package' for such purposes, and where necessary interested parties nationally present specific proposals to them based on well-justified academic criteria.
[Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs; DEETYA; Universities; AVCC; HEC; ARC]

  • That the Australian Academy of the Humanities maintain a listing of discipline- and field-based academic and professional associations in the Humanities in Australia for general reference and, bearing in mind the resource implications of such an undertaking, take a more active role in promoting the well-being of and interchange between these associations.
[DEETYA; HEC; AVCC; AAH; ARC]

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Regional Rationalisations

There are some subjects in the Humanities which it is well to recognise cannot readily be sustained upon any significant scale in every University. Archaeology arguably might be one; each Area Study another. Most such subjects need, however, to be well represented in at least one University in each region or State of Australia, and there may well be a need for some lesser representation of them elsewhere. In such instances the rational employment of resources calls for Universities, particularly in the same metropolitan city, to enter into cooperative accords with each other. We are aware that it has been suggested that such arrangements would contravene competition law. The Academy of Humanities is advised that there is no reason why this should be the case as appropriate exemptions can be procured.

In this connection it should be emphasised that, even in subjects such as many of the Humanities where individually based research continues to be the norm, scholars are strongly of the view that having a group of researchers working in close physical proximity to each other can be critically important for creating a productive synergy. These groups minimally need to comprise 5-10 people -- about the same as many discipline reviews have seen as necessary to mount a full course of undergraduate and postgraduate study. Where within a metropolitan city it is not feasible to have groupings on this scale in more than one University, but where there are smaller groups of people in the same field in other places, deliberate arrangements should be made for collaboration between them.

More generally we draw attention to our earlier statistics in Volume 1, Chapter 2 above which under 'Staff Levels by State' indicate the differences in provision of Humanities FTE by State, since we believe that Universities and DEETYA should consider the implications of the stark relative staffing differences for students in each State (who do not easily move to others).

Recommendation 12
  • That, for Humanities subjects that cannot be sustained at a significant level in more than one University in a region, Universities, in consultation with the policy body envisaged under Recommendation 29 (Australian Council for Humanities and the Arts), enter into cooperative accords with each other on their distribution.

  • That Universities make arrangements for smaller communities of scholars in a field to be formally associated with a larger group that exists in the vicinity.

  • That Universities in each State, in consultation with Australian Council for Humanities and the Arts and bearing in mind the advantages of information technology, consider jointly any relative shortfalls in the provision of Humanities opportunities for students in that State.
[Universities; AVCC; Ministers for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs and Communication and the Arts; DEETYA; DOCA]

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Programs of Small Enrolment

In the current contracting and highly competitive environment a number of Humanities disciplines are being and will very possibly continue to be so seriously reduced as to be squeezed from existence altogether. There are three reasons for this. The first, from which the others derive, is that the operating grants of universities are based, in the main, on student quotas agreed between DEETYA and the institutions, and not on the basis of what mix of disciplines is necessary to ensure the health of academic units. Universities are also prone to cut staff in departments and fields which are failing to attract students in sufficient numbers to justify their present quota of staff, and even to close them altogether, sometimes in spite of their importance to Australia's economy and culture. Since such subjects are likely to be common to a considerable number of Universities, the net effect in what tends to be an unyieldingly student numbers driven system will be a disastrous reduction in a number of programs of small enrolment in the country as a whole, often to the grave detriment of their inherent importance to the University system in general, and in several instances to the wider national interest. Such reductions are particularly serious where they preclude the continuance or development of advanced undergraduate and Honours programs which, as we have already emphasised, are crucial for underpinning subsequent research work.

In some instances it will reasonably be argued that a working presence in one or two places will meet the national need. In others a strong case can be advanced for each State or metropolitan centre having at least one place where such studies are pursued and can be taught. There is no reason why this should not be achieved by two or more Universities entering into a collaborative venture with each other.

While some departments with low student numbers may need to be closed, in the case of several programs of small enrolment there is now a powerful case for steps to be taken to ensure that they are not erased from the Australian University map altogether. Subjects of strategic importance, which are also important for the country's cultural diversity, but which, under present circumstances, may not be viable in any one university, should be sustained at a level appropriate to the University system as a whole. To give a few examples, one or more centres of Thai Studies (and not just of Thai language studies) should be assured and one centre where ethnomusicology and dance is a major strength. There should be one place in each State where Classics, Italian and Art History are taught to a level of research competence, to cite three areas that have been under threat in recent times. (We should emphasise that we do not think the issue here is necessarily confined to the Humanities.)

The questions here, in respect of languages, were admirably discussed in the report on 'Alternative Ways of Teaching Languages of Small Enrolment' which was produced at the instance of the Evaluations and Investigations Program of DEET's Higher Education Division in 1994, and they are well illustrated by the Academy of Humanities Languages review (July 1997) outlined under 'Present Circumstances' above. Remedial action may now be generated by access to the Higher Education Restructuring and Rationalisation Package.

Recommendation 13
  • That, to fill existing gaps and ensure that new ones do not open up, a system of targeted funding be applied by Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, on the advice of Australian Council for Humanities and the Arts, for the support of significant programs of small enrolment (which we do not think need be confined to the Humanities), so as to ensure that there is some basic provision for them by encouraging inter-university cooperation in their maintenance. The Universities can then compete on the basis of rational academic plans for the resources that would be made available for this purpose.

  • That Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs and the Universities take collaborative steps to make good the gaps that have been opened up by recent funding shortfalls; and that where necessary professional academic bodies and associations make specific proposals to them.
[DEETYA; HEC; ARC; AVCC; Universities; DASSH Deans]

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Languages other than English

The issues canvassed in Recommendation 13 are of special importance in relation to Languages other than English. We have seen earlier that the impetus to language revival of the late eighties and early nineties has been lost, even though the policy that sustained it has never been formally repudiated. As we have specified under 'Present Circumstances' above, despite the hopes that were once raised, Universities have let their language offerings decline significantly.

Such a position is not helped by a common Australian perception that languages, if required, need only to be taught at the practical skills level. Such a view is dangerously myopic. At a time when the nation and its Universities have enthusiastically embraced major policies of internationalisation, our capacity to sustain language programs at any depth so as to train the necessary area experts, area specialists, area researchers and language teachers is now under serious threat. Many university administrators are also unaware that, even if enrolments are considered satisfactory, language teaching needs to be funded at a higher level than for many Humanities disciplines because it is teaching-intensive.

The Review is aware that the Victorian Universities have united in a Language Consortium that aims to remove the administrative burdens to cross-institutional enrolments by allowing any student enrolled in any Victorian University to study any language taught in Victoria. [2] It also seeks to act as an umbrella to existing and new bilateral arrangements between member Universities, while its language committees provide platforms for the development of cooperative teaching. Such a model could well be replicated elsewhere.

But it is also now urgently necessary that at the national level there should be a renewed commitment of a major kind to the redevelopment of the Universities' language capabilities both in practical and intellectual terms along the lines that were built up after the 1960s. This will not only involve the development of a comprehensive policy of language education, but recognition of the real costs of effective language teaching and of research that requires second and sometimes further language immersion. It will entail ensuring that there is a sufficiency of graduates, consonant with nationally determined objectives, to meet the challenges of the globalisation of the economy, the internationalisation of society and culture, and the need for a substantial body of researchers with the necessary linguistic skills to keep us abreast of these and other developments and underpin our capabilities in these respects. These issues are of immense importance to Australia in areas as diverse as economic exchanges, diplomatic and political relations, tourism, international events of various kinds, artistic and media contacts, whilst making a vital contribution too to intercultural understanding within our own society.

Recommendation 14
  • That, in consultation with this Academy and the profession, Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs and/or the Higher Education Council set up a National Language Strategy Board, as a sub-group of Australian Council for Humanities and the Arts, empowered to ensure that there exists adequate provision for the delivery of programs in languages other than English in an agreed number of institutions in appropriate locations and at appropriate levels, keeping in mind the need
    • to equip with adequate language and cultural skills a number of graduates consonant with nationally determined objectives, in order to meet the challenge of the globalisation of the economy and the internationalisation of society and culture;
    • to equip researchers and future researchers in non-language-based disciplines with the language and cultural skills they need in their own specialisation;
    • to train language teachers for the present and future needs of primary and secondary education; and
    • to form researchers in languages other than English and in the cultures associated with those languages.
[DEETYA; HEC; AAH; AVCC; Universities]

  • That the Language Strategy Board advise the Government on the provision of appropriate earmarked funding for programs in languages other than English, bearing in mind their distribution by State.

  • That the eligibility of institutions for this kind of non-formula funding be dependent on the quality of their programs (both intellectual and skills-based) and more specifically on benchmarking based on international best practice, moderated by considerations of geographical spread and cost.
[DEETYA; AVCC; Universities; Language Strategy Board]

  • That mechanisms be developed by the Australian Research Council and the Universities in consultation with the Academy of Humanities to strengthen postgraduate programs in Asian, Pacific, European, Middle Eastern and indigenous Australian languages, cultures and other such fields, and in particular ensure that their advanced language teaching requirements are met.
[ARC; AAH; Universities]

  • That the Australian Research Council and Universities monitor research students' foreign language needs in other than language-based Humanities disciplines, with a view to ensuring that pre-enrolment training provisions are adequate before the point of entry into the research program (with the possibility of establishing formal postgraduate language prerequisites where appropriate), and to encouraging the introduction of concurrent language programs where pre-enrolment requirements could not be met.
[ARC; AAH; Universities]

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Libraries

The vital importance of well-found libraries to all scholars in the Humanities cannot be exaggerated. The intellectual infrastructure they provide is critically important for all quality research and advanced teaching. Excellent, comprehensive library, archive and audio-visual support, which requires regular, substantial and long-term investment by individual Universities, and by the University system as a whole, is indispensable to Humanities research. Without this support, it will be hard to pursue Humanities research at the requisite standard.

There are now, however, major problems in continuing to collect all print sources. The number of academic books published world-wide continues to escalate annually, and their cost is frequently considerable too. The proliferation of journals also proceeds apace. The perennial dilemma of breadth versus depth of collecting grows in significance. All this reflects the growth of academic research across the globe.

These developments have particularly serious consequences since they are occurring at a time when library budgets are not only failing to keep pace, but are being cut significantly below their former levels. The eight largest universities in Australia have cut their acquisition of monographs in the last decade by up to 30 percent in absolute terms, or 50 percent in terms of acquisition per student. They are now facing further cuts of up to 10 percent per year. The decision of the National Library of Australia to cut its collecting of overseas printed material by 60 percent, and concentrate upon the Asia-Pacific region at the expense of other and particularly European and North American material, only highlighted the problem.

The present situation is that Australian libraries are not able to support world-class teaching and research across the normal range of Humanities disciplines. Forty years ago, fourteen of the 40 recommendations in The Humanities in Australia referred to problems with university libraries. A considerable number of these were given effect during the years that followed the Murray Report to the great benefit of Australian scholarship. However, library budgets have been on the decline again for some time. Now, therefore, the situation requires that there be no less energetic action than there was in the late 1950s if libraries in Australia are to continue to support Humanities research of a world-class standard.

Several strategies need to be vigorously pursued.

The first is already on the way to being widely adopted. Although there are few signs that in the short to medium term IT will replace the need for hard copy books in the Humanities, it promises to serve a number of important scholarly purposes. Already libraries are being increasingly integrated with, or linked to, computer networks. This approach to the availability of electronic resources involves the concept of the virtual library, one which integrates analogue media (print in particular) with computer services and digital media (eg from the Internet or optical discs).

However, while access to Humanities material has been and will continue to be enhanced by electronic means, there are two further crises to be addressed. The first is that much material is still being published in print form and is not accessible in Australia. It can only be accessed by Humanities researchers through interlibrary loans (which are expensive) or travel to better-resourced libraries abroad. The second is, as we discuss elsewhere in this Review (Volume 3, Community Interaction ), that much Humanities research is not being published at all at present. To improve publication prospects, there needs to be a revolution in electronic access which is supported by university and national initiatives. It is also important that DEETYA move to recognising electronic publication for Research Quantum purposes.

It is appreciated that no Australian library, not even the National Library of Australia, can now be expected to maintain a comprehensive print collection. The existing strengths of Australian libraries, university, public and other, and research collections of archives of various types, can, however, be linked and integrated by computers, and in this the National Library is playing a major role. We believe that the National Library should make its top priority the availability on the desktop of the National Bibliographic Database with appropriate acquisition and delivery mechanisms.

The urgent need now is for action to be taken on what has been described for the past 15 years as a 'Distributed National Collection' that in many respects would be built up from and certainly coordinated with what may be termed Regional Distributed Collections within metropolitan cities. The latter are especially important since these could be expected to provide within the same region many of the collections that are more widely used by students and researchers.

Within such a system libraries would commit themselves to ensuring that there were significant collections in particular fields, in the first instance of their own choosing and appropriate to their primary clientele. Fields in which provision was found not to be adequate would then be identified, and arrangements would be made for the most appropriate repositories or computer links to cover them. National centres of excellence in library resources to support the more esoteric areas of Humanities research should be identified. Once established such Distributed Collections would be reinforced and invigorated by linked computer networks both within Australia and internationally. Here the National Library's already strong Home Page could well provide the crucial gateway. Archives and other cultural institutions around Australia which are automating access to their collections could be included too. All Australian organisations, whether in the public or private sectors, which own digital information of potential value to research could be encouraged by Commonwealth and State governments to make these available on the network. Arrangements should at the same time be made to ensure that all bona fide research scholars can have access to any specialist collection relevant to them.

If such a collaborative policy is to be successfully implemented -- it has long been pursued in Germany, and variously exists in Britain -- a further degree of earmarking of central funding will be required so as to render some of the exceptional commitments that will be made by individual repositories financially viable. Such a policy would provide some hope that a reasonably comprehensive collection will exist nationwide. It could prevent unnecessary duplication, and it could provide a means by which more information could flow to and from the wider community through public institutions and schools via state-based public-access networks (e.g. VICNET, provided by the State Library of Victoria). It will mean that in many instances scholars will have from time to time to travel to their specialist libraries, but that is greatly to be preferred to there being quite inadequate specialist collections available to them anywhere in Australia.

Recommendation 15
  • That Universities in their Library allocations and the Australian Research Council in its Research Infrastructure (Equipment and Facilities) Programme grants specifically acknowledge the major role Libraries play in the generation of research in the Humanities and make funding decisions accordingly.
[Universities; ARC]

  • That the National Library make its top priority the availability on the desktop of the National Bibliographic Database with appropriate acquisition and delivery mechanisms.
[National Library; Minister for Communication and the Arts]

  • That policies to advance the concept of the virtual library be vigorously pursued, although not at the expense of preserving hard copy collections.
[Universities; University Librarians; DEETYA]

  • That Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs recognise refereed electronic publications for Research Quantum purposes.
[DEETYA; AVCC; Composite Index Working Party]

  • That, in accord with the resolution of the Seventh Round Table of the National Scholarly Communications Forum, a National Information Infrastructure Committee be established, reporting to the Australian Research Council and the Higher Education Council, with appropriate new funding, to provide advice on national requirements and to develop and implement a plan to improve the nation's information infrastructure, with an initial timeframe of three years.

    The National Information Infrastructure Committee should be charged with establishing

    • a means to purchase, manage and distribute via AARNet the major electronic journals in each discipline;
    • the mechanism to support and underwrite the gaps in the research information infrastructure;
    • a means by which the Australian Research Council identifies and supports para-national centres of excellence in the library infrastructural resourcing of esoteric areas of Humanities research; and
    • a way of supporting locally produced databases which will never be self-funding, but which are of national importance.
[Universities; University, National and State Librarians; AVCC; NAF; NSCF; DEETYA; HEC; ARC]

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IT Development

The importance of IT development in the Universities is clearly immense, and is not confined to Libraries. The issues were extensively discussed by the 5th Round Table of the National Scholarly Communications Forum (which is sponsored by the Academy of the Humanities on behalf of the three other Academies) on 'Information, Innovation and Scholarly Communication' held on 21-22 October 1996. Among those attending were the Chairmen of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and of the British Universities Joint Information Systems Committee. They and others reported on the impressive developments in the UK associated with the Follett Report, the Joint Information Systems Committee itself, the JANET and SuperJANET facilities and much else besides. In October 1996 the AVCC put out an 'Issues Paper' by its Standing Committee on Information Resources on 'Exploiting Information Technology in Higher Education' which seemed to grapple with many of these issues. Among a great many other things it pointed to the need 'to develop policies for educational applications of telecommunications technologies which provide equity of access, common standards and a unified network strategy including all communications services (voice, dat, fax, video etc.) together with interconnections between institutions and with the external world', along with the need 'for national approaches to the establishment of software and communications standards, the education of staff and students, the collaborative development of critical and innovative software packages ... the collection of information resources in a standardised format and the making of them available to educational centres through both conventional and advanced communications networks'. It asserted too that: 'Serious consideration needs to be given at the highest level to establishing a coordinating and funding body under the joint auspices of DEETYA and the AVCC to coordinate all national activities and initiatives in this sector'. Such matters are as important to the Humanities as to other academic fields. Once again it needs to be recognised that, to be successful, such a development would require another element of earmarked funding. Regrettably no steps seem to have been taken to implement this very important proposal.

In considering the particular needs of Humanities scholars there are a number of IT issues which call for special attention (we refer below to intellectual property matters). There are, for example, considerable difficulties at present for Humanities scholars in the appropriateness and reliability of information retrieval systems that are currently available upon the Net. Especially in the globalised electronic environment, major improvements are required in the indexing available on the Web, and particularly in the capacity to search appropriate 'metadata' regimes (principally bibliographies).

Moreover, it seems certain that over the coming decades a great deal of the data that is the stock-in-trade of so many Humanities fields and disciplines is likely to become available electronically, and that an immense variety of institutions and individuals will be engaged in placing this on the Net and on its future developments. Since this is certain to be done mostly by those in other continents, collaboration and common procedures will be essential, and steps need to be taken at an early date to secure the protocols for this.

It needs to be recognised, however, that the major obstacle at present to the continued exploration and exploitation of information technology by Humanities scholars principally lies in the serious lack of resources. Lack of funds for computer staff is forcing those who wish to create useful Web sites or run mailing lists to master the technical difficulties involved themselves, which, if this does not deter them from proceeding altogether, reduces the time available for their own research. Maintaining a Web site or moderating a mailing list requires a continuing commitment of time and effort. While, moreover, some Humanities scholars report a good level of access to computers and computer networks, others find themselves forced to make do with obsolete technology to a greater degree than many in other fields. The only conceivable justification for such a policy -- the notion that Humanities scholars only use computers for word processing and e-mail -- is hardly convincing if their computers allow them to do little else. The Humanities have as great a claim to up-to-date IT as any other disciplines, and the Visual and Performing Arts (requiring work stations to handle sound and graphics needs) a greater claim than most.

Recommendation 16
  • That the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee take steps to procure the implementation of the recommendation of its Standing Committee on Information Resources for the institution of a high level coordinating and funding body to coordinate national activities and initiatives in IT development in Higher Education.

  • That such a body and Universities generally recognise the claims to state-of-the-art IT for the Humanities as for other academic fields.

  • That a National Scholarly Communications Forum be arranged with overseas participants to consider policies concerning the digitisation of data for Humanities and other scholars.
[AVCC; DEETYA; HEC; Universities; NSCF]

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Centres for Humanities and The Arts

In relation to the injunction in its terms of reference 'to project future institutional needs for the advancement of research in the Humanities in Australia' the Review believes that, at a time when there is widespread concern that the achievements attained by Humanities scholars in Australia are under serious threat, there could be one especially valuable, ameliorating initiative. This would be the establishment over the course of the coming years of a Humanities Centre in each major metropolitan city.

These Centres should be located in the community, not on any particular campus. They should be managed by a consortium of Universities and representatives of other local cultural and educational institutions in the area. Their distinctive feature should be a close association with the State Library, Museum, Art Gallery and other major cultural institutions in their vicinity, and they should act as communication nodes both face-to-face and electronically for students, independent scholars, university researchers and the interested general public.

They could be funded in part by a levy on participating institutions (universities, schools, museums etc.), but we would hope that they would attract new Federal Government funds and significant State Government support for the local connections and outreach they would engender. The funds could be administered through ACHA.

The Centres should operate principally through the tried and tested methods of conference, symposium, workshop, seminar, public lecture, exhibition and such like. They should commit themselves to making the sum of their Humanities components dramatically greater than their individual parts, and they should take steps to enhance greatly the public face of the Humanities. Among many other things they could make a special point of bringing scholars together from around the Pacific and Asian region to explore major issues of common concern in Humanities research. They should be subject to five-year reviews, and there should be a degree of competition between them for the available resources.

Recommendation 17
  • That in the coming years a Humanities Centre be established in each major metropolitan city with Federal and State funding whose key tasks should include:
    • the dissemination and popularisation of Humanities research;
    • the creation of an improved nexus between State Libraries, Museums, Art Galleries and University Libraries and their users, particularly in relation to research collections; the mounting of cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary workshops, symposia and conferences, drawing particularly on scholars and interested parties of all kinds in their vicinity, but where appropriate from elsewhere too (not least from the Asian and Pacific region); and
    • the facilitation of cross-institutional studies in the Humanities; and the broad fostering of Humanities subjects, concepts and values in schools, the professions and before the public.
[Universities; DEETYA; Ministers for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs and Communication and the Arts; State Governments; HEC]

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Research Priorities

The Review has been asked to outline the principles to be adopted in setting priorities in research and research training in the Humanities. The cardinal principles governing support for research in the Humanities (and in other fields too) should as ever be to foster creativity in scholarship and research of the highest order. This includes the cultivation and exploitation of existing cultural capital, the readiness to explore alternative propositions energetically, and the imaginative grasping of new research opportunities. The critical test must continue to lie, moreover, in confidential peer-review, wherever possible and appropriate on an international basis.

Some scholars are ready to allow that there is a case for setting certain priorities for research within some broadly defined fields so long as this is done judiciously and circumspectly. It should be noted, however, that stronger views were expressed to the Review by active scholars against any such proposal than upon any other topic.

At the same time there can be no doubt that a great deal of emphasis should be placed upon topics of particular importance to Australia. It is nonetheless important that a broad view is taken of what these comprise, and that imaginative new ventures should be fostered.

Just, however, as it is unthinkable that Science researchers should be governed by specific Australian concerns only, rather than by global scientific agendas, so a good deal of Australian research in the Humanities needs to be integrated into research as it operates on a world scale. Our main overseas partners will naturally expect us to lead in most fields of Australian studies, but would be dismayed if our research were to become too Australia-specific. A wider agenda will ensure we retain our entrée into global intellectual networks. That in turn will safeguard our local standards of performance.

It warrants mentioning, moreover, that the considerable advances in recent years in international connections (travel, Internet, etc.) now serve to make some highly specialised scholarship, where the scholarly community in any one country is likely to be in any event small, fully appropriate to Australia. This often adds to the overall depth of Australian scholarly endeavour, and to Australia's scholarly reputation internationally.

It must never be forgotten, moreover, that some of the most fruitful scholarly ventures are due to historical accident rather than specific planning; that the academic freedom of scholars to pursue research of their own choosing remains of very great importance to them; and that it is of the very essence of research that it quite precisely seeks out the unknown, and finds, so often, the unexpected.

Recommendation 18
  • That, should research priorities be called for, they should be imaginatively wide, and the Academy of the Humanities should be consulted about any which touch the Humanities.

  • That, in the granting of financial assistance for research, prime importance continue to be attached to peer-group refereeing, including wherever appropriate some from overseas.

  • That research on topics of importance to Australia should be actively fostered.

  • That at the same time there be ample provision for research on topics that are not thus defined, and that, in the interests of scholarly freedom and Australia's scholarly reputation internationally, some boldness be displayed here.
[ARC; DEETYA; AAH; Universities]

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Costs of Humanities Research

By comparison with other fields of research, Humanities research is very cost effective. While there is often no correlation between the size of a research grant made in the Humanities and the quality and quantity of the outputs that result, Humanities research is generally considerably more productive per research item produced for research dollar invested than many other fields of research.

The current preoccupation of Universities and DEETYA in measuring the level of research activities by grant size and by the total external research income received not only works to the disadvantage of scholarship in the Humanities (where what is often most notable is not the high amount research is estimated to cost but the relatively modest amount that it actually did), but is a quite inadequate measure of its quality.

Nevertheless it is no longer the case (if indeed it ever was so) that all that Humanities researchers require is pen and paper. They need, as we have emphasised elsewhere, time, and very considerable library and IT resources. Nowadays they also increasingly need grants for field work, for research assistance, for travel (not least to enable them to visit specialist libraries and other source repositories), for computer hardware and software, and sometimes considerable equipment and technical support, for example as some of them move into the new fields of multimedia.

ABS statistics show, however, that whereas in 1992 the Humanities received 9.6 per cent of Australia's R&D budget, by 1995 this had dropped to 7.5 per cent. We will see below (Recommendations 22 and 23) that there has been a clear decline since 1987 in the Humanities' share of ARC Large and Small Grants funds. There has been a smaller increase in Humanities FTE (7.82 per cent) compared with the average of all FTE (18.06 per cent) in the period 1990-6 (see Volume 1, Chapter 2, Figure 2.2), but as far as we are aware this discrepancy has not been reflected in any decline in the volume or quality of Humanities research. As we have detailed elsewhere, Humanities scholarship in Australia enjoys internationally a high profile, and as we emphasise here it is increasingly costly. There is a good deal of current anecdotal evidence that Humanities scholars often bear a good deal of this cost out of their own pockets.

It is sometimes suggested, and frequently repeated in documents emanating from the ARC and other bodies, that Humanities research in Australia secures a greater proportion of public funds for research than is common in other OECD countries. [3] In view of the present tax regime and the marked lack of an Australian culture of private donations to scholarly enterprises, this is quite beside the point. In other OECD countries public funding of research is extensively supplemented by grants from non-government sources to an extent that is still not conceivable here. Even in Australia there are many industry, non-government sources of funding for non-Humanities projects which do not extend to the Humanities. An American survey in 1994 calculated that, quite apart from the $US158m disbursed by the (US Government's) National Endowment for the Humanities (only a third of which went to Universities), $US50m was 'flowing annually to the humanities from large foundations'. Moreover, this calculation did not include the very extensive and seemingly unquantifiable amounts which alumni and others personally make to their Universities, not least through very substantial private endowments. In the UK public funding for research in the Humanities is significantly supplemented by such bodies as the Leverhulme Trust which have no counterpart here, not to mention the very many endowments enjoyed by the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Likewise it is supplemented in Portugal by the Gulbenkian Foundation, in Denmark by the Carlsberg Foundation, in Germany by the Volkswagen Foundation, none of which are complemented in Australia. Changes in the conditions under which donations to Humanities research may be made need to be sought here.

Recommendation 19
  • That the Australian Research Council, the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs and the Universities recognise the relative cost-effectiveness of much Humanities research, but recognise too that, as its cost is now significantly increasing because of the growing need for computer hardware and software and travel to specialist research collections etc. for individual scholars, there is a strong argument for increasing the overall percentage of research funds allocated to the Humanities, directly and indirectly, to reach parity of treatment in the provision of research infrastructure.
[ARC; DEETYA; Universities]

  • That the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee make contingency plans to present the case for tax relief for private donations to research in the pending political reconsideration of the Australian tax regime.
[ARC; AVCC]

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Quality of Humanities Research and the Research Quantum

We do not need to repeat at this point in our Review the high standing of Humanities research in this country. It warrants stating, however, that whatever may the case in other fields, the current propensity to judge the quality of research by reference to the US-based Institute of Scientific Information citation index based largely on journal articles is inappropriate to most of the Humanities. Scholarship in the Humanities does not advance through a sequence of journal articles alone. In rating its quality, prime importance needs to be attached to the quality of reviews of the books and monographs produced in the field.

Nor does the citation index used for the Composite Index capture a high percentage of Humanities research published in refereed journals. Its listing of Humanities journals from Australia, for example, has been entirely arbitrary. The premier world journal on South Asia was not included. It is published in Armidale. Nor were such characteristic items as the Journal of Australian Studies and Aboriginal History , both of them of high standing. We attach as Appendix 2 a list -- a long list -- of Australian journals in the Humanities for reference. No less seriously many journals in non-English languages in which Humanities scholars do especially well to publish have not been listed either.

Our principal concern here, however, is with the manner in which the publications component of the Research Quantum is currently calculated. This has sparked very considerable discontent amongst Humanities scholars. Even in the earlier version when 22 categories were provided in the data collection procedure, numerous, quite unimpeachable outlets for Humanities research were in no way acknowledged. Following the reduction to four categories introduced in 1997 the objections have only been compounded.

We are fully aware of the argument that the four categories chosen have a high statistical correlation (over 80 per cent over all fields) with the earlier publication index and that their use is more efficient and more amenable to quality control than the 22-category system. However, it simply does not satisfy researchers in fields like Humanities, where much valuable research output is deemed statistically irrelevant, to be told that, although their output is not adequately measured, their institution is morally bound to distribute its allocation internally to further its own mission, whatever that may be. No one can have confidence in institutions' abilities to act fairly, when those whose output has been adequately measured clamour loudly to have Research Quantum money returned to them in the manner in which they believe they have 'earned' it. This is a recipe for discord within institutions and for growing perceived unfairness in the internal distribution of research funds. It betrays a lack of responsibility to the research enterprise. The signals which the present system, and these arguments, send out as to what is and is not valued in the University system are at once damaging and resented.

Leaving aside our concerns about the present method of calculating the Composite Index, we have major concerns about the relative value assigned to items within it. In particular, from a Humanities perspective, the present system with its weighting of 5:1 for books as compared with the other 3 categories gives little encouragement to write the sustained scholarly book on which international scholarship ultimately judges quality in the Humanities. These are worth at least 10 journal articles.

The following are the chief items of Humanities and Creative Arts research output excluded from the 4-tier Composite Index. Entries in reference works are excluded. These, short or long, such as contributions to the Australian Dictionary of Biography or the Encyclopaedia Britannica , require a great depth of learning for, precisely, as small a number of words as is possible. Scholarly editions of texts are excluded too. So is the editing of published symposia. So is both the editing of a scholarly collection of essays as well as the authorship of an essay in the volume. So is the activity of editing a learned journal. So are items published by a University Department, regardless of whether they may have had as rigorous a refereeing process as provided by any commercial publisher. In several Humanities fields publications in avant-garde but not necessarily refereed journals are from time to time especially appropriate. These are summarily excluded too. So is any kind of creative writing -- novels, poetry, playwriting -- , and any performance in The Arts -- musical composition, painting, sculpture, dance, film, tape or CD recording. The system positively discourages writing for newspapers, weeklies or other such organs in order to reach a much wider public readership.

Consideration needs to be given to a peer review procedure of the kind that is now well honed in the United Kingdom. If that is not easily transferable, other new arrangements need to be instituted which do not manifestly under-represent the output of large sectors of the university research community. At the very least Universities have a responsibility to institute a far more sophisticated system for the judging of quality for the purposes of their own internal arrangements -- internal funding formulae, promotions, etc. -- than a blanket application of the national system. Some are already doing this. Once there is some experience of these developments, a far more acceptable national system could be constructed. So soon as this is in place, it would be highly appropriate to enlarge the component of the Research Quantum that is determined by research output very considerably.

The Review is aware of Professor Paul Bourke's Research Evaluation and Policy Project on 'Evaluating University Research: The British Assessment Exercise and Australian Practice' (May 1997), and believes the issues which it raises should be given very close consideration.

Recommendation 20
  • That, in view of the inadequacy of the present research data collection procedure to capture the broad range of research and the need for a radical enlargement of the element of the Research Quantum based upon it, Universities develop their own best practice in monitoring and rewarding the full range of research outcomes in each institution that are appropriate to their strategic purposes.

  • That, with a view to creating a substantially more appropriate data collection procedure for determining a significant proportion of the Research Quantum, the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Australian Research Council and Higher Education Council ensure through the Composite Index Working Party and in other fora that widespread discussion takes place of the issues raised by Professor Bourke's report and by this Review.

[The Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs; DEETYA; AVCC; HEC; ARC; Composite Index Working Party]

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Research and The Arts

The Visual and Performing Arts comprise approximately five per cent of all University staff and students, but on all current research measures 'underperform'. In particular, The Arts gain only 0.6 per cent of all ARC grants. There is no basis, however, for arguing that staff and students in this disciplinary area are any less productive than staff and students in other areas.

Current research schemes and measures often disregard creative work in The Arts, chiefly because of its lack of conformity to generally accepted research protocols, which are predicated on problem solving, lack of a written basis and the difficulty in assessing the huge diversity of potential outcomes.

Since the amalgamation of Universities and Colleges of Advanced Education, which brought many art colleges, dance schools and conservatoria within the National Unified System, no enduring national mechanism for the recognition and funding of creative-arts work, in which a majority of Arts staff are involved, has been developed, although many Universities have come up with ad hoc arrangements. The four revised (1997) proxy categories for measuring research output, for instance, do not include any non-written items.

An additional problem for research in The Arts is that most Arts practitioners working in Universities do not consider their artistic work as research. Neither, however, is that work acknowledged or funded as teaching. Yet such work is vital to the furtherance of The Arts within Universities and the community, and vital to the continuing role of tertiary Arts schools as crucibles of emerging artistic talent. In the absence of a third quantum, for creative-arts activity, there is need for recognition of a wide variety of individual and group creative-arts work as the equivalent of research, and for appropriate funding for that work within the Research Quantum, both nationally and within individual Universities. Such research-equivalent work should include exhibitions, individual works of visual art and design, compositions, choreographies, creative writing, music and dance performances and the growing body of inter-arts and multi-media creative work.

Recommendation 21
  • That creative work in The Arts be recognised by the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, the Australian Research Council and within individual Universities either as research or the equivalent of research, and be funded within research funding mechanisms on an equal footing with other disciplines.

  • That Australia Council grants, State Government and other Arts grants awarded on the basis of national competition be included in the list of approved 'competitive national grants'.

[DEETYA; HEC; ARC; Universities]

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ARC Large Grants and Fellowships Schemes

The ARC Large Grants and Fellowships schemes have underwritten distinguished and original work in the Humanities in this country, work which otherwise would not have been possible. Team research, field work, domestic and overseas archival research, and the use of new technology have expanded the intellectual range of Australian Humanities research within the last few decades.

Fellowships have made possible sustained, path-breaking books and research programs for a relatively small number of researchers which have reinforced the position of Australian scholarship in the front rank internationally. Fellowships have also given a small number of the most promising early career researchers the opportunity for postdoctoral training. The ARC's 4-tier Fellowships program is in practice the most important competitive means readily open to Humanities scholars for full-time research and writing now that funding for the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University has declined. (The proportion of Humanities research carried out in the Institute is in any case small and unrepresentative of the Humanities as a whole.) It is good to see, though, that many Australian Universities are now operating their own Fellowships programs, and that some of these have been awarded to Humanities researchers.

At the same time, the success rate for both the Large Grants and Fellowships schemes is exceptionally low, especially in the Humanities, where a score of over 90 per cent in recent years has been required to secure a Large Grant, and there is manifestly a great need for the expansion of this and the Fellowships program.

The combined resources of the Fellowships and Large Grants schemes have made possible work of the highest standards in a number of Humanities fields, where financial support is vital. Such work brings this country immense prestige and makes a vital contribution to essential knowledge of the human story. These two schemes are therefore of great importance to many in the Humanities and there are very few other funding sources to which Humanities researchers can turn.

However, statistics provided by the ARC itself reveal that the Humanities' share in the Large Grants program has declined considerably in recent years, without any known decline in the quality of Humanities research. By contrast, the Social Sciences' share has increased considerably. Given the manifest quality of Humanities research, we believe there is a strong case for a significant percentage increase in the Humanities share of Large Grants funds. We also ask the ARC to investigate whether its mechanisms for the allocation of funds between panels and sub-panels might not be more sensitive to the overall quality of the applications and the applicants rather than to the numbers of applications made.

Table 3.1: Total ARC Project Grants

Year

Number of Grants

$'000


All Fields

Hum's

Percent of Total

All Fields

Hum's

Percent of Total

1996

2 722

290

11

62 506

4 158

7

1992

2 106

288

14

50 785

4 198

8

1987

459

78

17

10 583

929

9

Note: 1996 data is by Field of Research. Data for other years is by Panel

Table 3.2: ARC Large Grants

Year

Number of Grants

$'000


All Fields

Hum's

Percent of Total

All Fields

Hum's

Percent of Total

1996

668

60

9

36 410

2 095

6

1992

694

74

11

35 089

2 312

7

As we have earlier been at pains to emphasise, Humanities academics need above all time in which to research, think and write. Numbers of them have sought to secure this through the teaching relief provisions of the Large Grant scheme, which are very much appreciated.

It needs to be underscored once more that the greater part of Humanities research needs to be carried out by the scholar who will eventually alone write up the findings. That cannot be done properly by others. As a consequence it may be that some of the Large Grants awarded in the Humanities in recent years will not produce the best possible outcomes for the money spent. In these cases funding would have been better spent on providing a scholar with the time to do the research and to write up the outcome, as well as a modest amount for research infrastructure.

In all these circumstances the Review believes that there is an especially strong case for the institution by the ARC of one-year and two-year Career Development Fellowships awarded competitively to mid-career academics to enable them to devote themselves to an approved research project without requiring them to resign their continuing positions. The scheme should be operated not by the ARC paying any salary to the appointee, but by the ARC providing the appointee's institution with salary and on-costs for the appointment of a Level B lecturer to undertake for the duration of the Fellowship the appointee's teaching work, whilst leaving the institution continuing to pay the overall costs of the appointee. The Review believes such Fellowships could be largely provided from within a rectified percentage for the Humanities of the ARC's Large Grant scheme. For some Humanities scholars it will be a more attractive proposition than an application for a Large Grant with teaching relief. Its cost to the ARC will be significantly less than it might otherwise be. It will provide opportunities for some new entrants to the profession to gain much needed teaching experience, and the ARC will be sharing the overall cost of the scheme with the institutions, which will not incur additional costs themselves. We should add that we see no reason why Career Development Fellows should not remain in their Departments, continuing to provide intellectual leadership and some research student supervision, even whilst spending most of their time on research and writing.

Recommendation 22
  • That the Australian Research Council rectify the significant decline in recent years in the percentage of its funding allocated for Humanities research within the Large Grants Program.

  • That the Australian Research Council maintain its Large Grants scheme, and continue its policy of providing for teaching relief within it.

  • That the Australian Research Council maintain and, if possible increase, its Australian Post-doctoral Research Fellowships, Australian Research Fellowships, Queen Elizabeth II Fellowships and Senior Research Fellowships schemes.
[ARC]

  • That the Australian Research Council introduce a scheme under its Large Grants scheme for one- and two-year Career Development Fellowships for mid-career academicsof the highest standing in the Humanities by providing funds to their institutions for a one- or two-year appointment of a Level B Lecturer in lieu.

[ARC; Universities]

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The ARC Small Grants Program

At the time of writing this Review, we have been aware that the ARC has commissioned a review of the Small Grant scheme, which we realise is about to be submitted. It is possible that our recommendations under this head will be consistent with those of the ARC's review. Whatever the case, we ask that our recommendations be considered on their own merit.

Small grants are of immense importance to a great many Humanities researchers. In many instances the demands of their individual research projects do not call for large sums of money, but they are often critically dependent upon some funds being made available to cover their essential expenditures. In view of the value-added component that these can secure, Small Grants are very well spent. The distribution of funding for them in relation to the amount institutions received in Large Grants has no logic to it, but the Review accepts that as a rough and ready system it serves well enough.

Nevertheless there is one general problem, and two periodic problems. As in the case of Large Grants there has been a damaging decline in recent years in the percentage of Small Grants going to the Humanities, though no decline that we have been able to detect in the quality and quantity of Humanities research projects costing below $20,000. We ask the ARC to investigate why the percentage allocated to Humanities has declined and urge Universities to ensure that Humanities researchers maintain an appropriate level of research funds from this scheme.

Table 3.3: Small Grants

Year

Number of Grants

$'000


All Fields

Hum's

Percent of Total

All Fields

Hum's

Percent of Total

1996

2 054

230

11

26 096

2 062

8

1992

1 412

214

15

15 696

1 886

12

Whilst the Review was pleased to find that many Universities allocate their Small Grants without allocating the funds made available for them in relation to the success of their component parts in securing Large Grants, it was dismayed to find that this quite inappropriate practice was followed in several Universities despite the explicit recommendation against it in the 1992 Small Grants Scheme Review Report. It was troubled, moreover, to find a more extensive tendency for Universities to employ Small Grants as top-up funds for Large Grants. We believe that this practice should not be at the expense of those, like many in the Humanities, whose basic funding needs will be met by a Small Grant alone.

Recommendation 23
  • That the Australian Research Council maintain and strengthen the Small Grants scheme.

  • That the Australian Research Council takes steps, in conjunction with Universities, to rectify the decline in Small Grants allocated to the Humanities.

  • That Universities allocate Small Grants on the basis of merit alone and without regard to the success of their component parts in procuring Large Grants.

  • That Universities not award Small Grants to top up Large Grants at the expense of those for whose research Small Grants are quite sufficient.

[ARC; Universities]

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Humanities Participation in other ARC Programs

It is of some significance that amongst the 20 Special Research Centres that have been funded to date by the ARC only one, associated with the highly successful and long-established Humanities Research Centre at the ANU, has been awarded to researchers in the Humanities. There is also to date only one Key Centre for Teaching and Research in a Humanities discipline, a situation that may in part reflect the difficulty for Humanities disciplines in gaining the external funding and support necessary for this program. The Humanities, as a discipline, are effectively excluded from Australian Cooperative Research Centres, administered by DIST.

The small representation of Humanities disciplines in the two ARC Centre programs (Special and Key) is, to say the least, curious since few fields are nowadays more pervaded by interdisciplinary concerns than the Humanities. A striking development indeed of the creation of the Unified National System has lain in the new directions and creativity brought to the Humanities from interdisciplinary work.

One critical point here, however, is that the present format of Special Research Centres and Key Centres of Teaching and Research does not ordinarily meet the needs of scholarship in the Humanities and it is often difficult for Humanities researchers to meet the current criteria for the establishment of Key Centres in particular.

There are other ARC programs too, including the Strategic Partnerships with Industry Research and Training Scheme, of University-industry research collaboration and the Australian Postgraduate Awards (Industry) Scheme, where to date Humanities applications have been small in number. In part this has been because many Humanities researchers have not been very adventurous in their applications, in part because of the difficulties they may often have in finding an appropriate industry partner. However, with institutional encouragement and a broad definition of 'industry' to include Federal and State government departments, museums, art galleries and so forth, some Humanities researchers should be well placed to gain funding from schemes whose general success rate at the moment is much higher than those of the Large Grants and Fellowships schemes.

It is of urgent importance that all this should be built upon and taken further. The ARC and the Universities (who select applications for Key and Special Centres to send forward to Canberra) should actively encourage Humanities researchers to put forward proposals for both Special and Key Centres and Humanities researchers should themselves become more flexible, where possible, in conceptualising their research to allow them to access these schemes.

Recommendation 24
  • That Universities and the Australian Research Council take active steps to encourage Humanities researchers to submit quality applications for Australian Research Council's Special Research Centres and Key Centres for Teaching and Research.
[Universities; PVCs Research; ARC]

  • That Humanities Deans, in conjunction with Universities and the Australian Research Council, encourage Humanities academics to apply to a wide range of funding programs, including the Australian Research Council's Strategic Partnerships with Industry Research and Training Scheme, and that Humanities academics themselves become more enterprising in finding funds for their research in non-traditional areas.
[Humanities researchers; Universities; PVCs Research; DASSH Deans; ARC]

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The Provision of Appropriate Statistics for the Humanities

The Review has sought to secure informative statistical data about its concerns, but despite the inclusion of 21 Figures in Volume 1, Chapter 2 of this report, one of its important conclusions is that the statistical basis for making precise judgments on a number of matters of importance for Humanities research and research training is unavailable at present in usable form. We encountered considerable difficulties in compiling statistics from the present DEETYA database that gave anything like the detailed information we would have thought essential in order to give as specific an account of the Disciplines and Area Studies nowadays encompassed in the Humanities.

We have been much concerned too about the manner in which the AVCC, DEETYA and the ARC regularly employ sets of statistical categories which distinguish extensively between all of the major Sciences, but then lump together into one single category all of the numerous fields covered by the overarching term 'the Humanities'. Such a system erroneously suggests that there is some kind of parity between the Humanities as a whole and each of these other disciplines considered independently. As a consequence an entirely misleading impression can be given of many critical disciplinary distinctions to the considerable detriment of the Humanities. The mismatch, moreover, between statistical categories used by the AVCC and the ARC and by DEETYA can often make it very difficult to correlate important data.

We understand that the ARC has been discussing with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and DEETYA a major revision of the ABS's Field of Research classifications, with a view to developing a common Field of Study/Research Classification and a common Socio-Economic Objective Classification. Representatives of the Academy of Humanities have held very fruitful discussions with officials of the ABS, and are confident that the forthcoming revision of the Australian Standard Research Classification (ASRC) will provide a more satisfactory classification of the Humanities than the current (1993) one.

It would now seem appropriate for all those involved to employ the newly revised ABS categories in all statistical calculations relating to higher education so that consistent conclusions may be drawn.

If for some reason there remain obstacles to the general adoption of the ABS categories, the AOU Group classification, if this continues to be employed, could be greatly improved by removing the minor 'General' categories, thereby forcing institutions to employ more detailed categories in their reporting.

Individual institutions need to be pressed not only to take greater care when reporting staff data to DEETYA, but to make maximum use of the possibilities offered by the disciplinary classification in use. That requires a proper understanding by all involved of the uses to which such data are ultimately put. That in turn may require a greater effort by DEETYA in educating institutional administrative staff about the value of maintaining accurate staff and student statistics.

Moreover, in view of the value to an understanding of several important trends in staff and student profiles etc which have been revealed by the preliminary statistical calculations which have been made in the course of this Review, it would seem important that some provision should be made to continue to monitor these further.

Recommendation 25
  • That, in compiling and presenting statistics, Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Australian Research Council, Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee and other bodies concerned with Higher Education henceforth use the ABS Australian Standard Research Classification (which is currently under revision).

  • That provision be made in the budget of the Academy of Humanities (and at their instance in that of the other three Academies) for a continuance of the statistical analysis of data related to the Humanities in Australia.

[DEETYA; HEC; AVCC; Universities; ARC; AAH]

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Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property comes in a variety of forms, including literary, scholarly and artistic works, computer software and patentable inventions. The first three are primarily applicable to Humanities scholars who attach great importance to holding copyright in their research publications. Any attempts by Universities or the Australian Government to assume the same rights to copyright in research publications as they might to patents are likely to be firmly resisted. Financial returns are small, and so money is not the issue as much as intellectual freedom. The extent to which such works are created as part of a scholar's employment needs, therefore, to be handled with considerable discretion. It is proper to acknowledge that, if there are significant financial returns, an employer is entitled to recover any funds it has contributed to the production of the work, e.g. by publication subsidy, funding for illustrations etc. What is critical is that Humanities scholars should continue to own control over the production, reproduction and revision of their work. The loss of copyright in their research publications by Australian scholars would bring this country into disrepute in the eyes of the international academic community, and gravely harm the standing of Australian scholarship.

There are at the same time unresolved questions for authors, publishers and users of research concerning sources of information on computer networks. As the law stands at present these cannot be copied for research and private study in the same way that paper-based sources can. Current technology now makes it possible for material to be read on screen and copied once a fee is paid by electronic transfer. We are conscious of the damage free copying has done to scholarly publishing and see the new technology as offering a solution which does justice to authors and publishers as well as continuing to offer the free reading of text which research libraries gave users before photocopying was invented. Since the copyright fees required are so small per item, the time has come for users of copyright material to accept their responsibilities to those whose labour and capital create the works we wish to use. Electronic publishing, where users can choose to down-load and convert the text to hard copy after paying an appropriate fee, may in the long term be the only economic means of publishing extended specialist scholarly texts.

Recommendation 26
  • That, while the rights of Universities to recover any production subsidies they have made when significant financial returns from intellectual property produced within them have accrued should be acknowledged, copyright in their research publications should remain in the hands of the producers.

  • That steps should be taken to enable information on computer networks to be freely available for copying for research and private study purposes.

[Universities; AVCC; ARC; CAUL]

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Publication in Humanities Disciplines

New technology, rising costs and cuts in library funding have changed scholarly publication fundamentally. Despite the worldwide increase in the numbers of scholarly publications because of the worldwide expansion of Humanities scholarship, it will be increasingly difficult for academic authors other than those who write for the general reader to publish those key outcomes of Humanities research, the monograph and the symposium. This prospect is particularly serious for younger scholars. It is doubly serious for scholars working on Australian topics, for whom there is little market overseas.

If extended texts are to remain important, as seems likely, Australian scholars and their institutions will have to promote the publication of small-print-run refereed books (in the way that many academic publishing houses are already doing) that would be sold within the academic community at cost. The time has come when institutions should be less hesitant about producing their own series of university published monographs and symposia, so long as -- and this is critically important -- a broad based editorial board with outside members takes full responsibility for their quality. Aside from employing its own judgements, this should adhere rigidly to a system of confidential outside referee reports, which, unless there are strong reasons to the contrary, are fully acted upon. They should commit themselves to the practice, moreover, of minuting the reasons fully whenever they do not follow a referee's advice.

If these conditions are publicised on the inside cover of the publication and firmly adhered to, there is no reason why the bona fides of the refereed publications that thereupon appear should not be accepted at large. To assist with the present difficult problems of securing good distribution for such items, and providing external testimony that these procedures have been followed, the Learned Academies could institute arrangements whereby they could grant their seal of approval for such publications, and then advertise on their own distinctive Web site that they had done so, and provide details of the address from where such items can be procured.

It needs at the same time to be recognised that upon occasion scholarly publishing of a high order particularly on Australian subjects warrants public subsidy just as much as high quality Australian fiction and film. Recently the Academy of Humanities has contributed to the publication of the third volume of The Charts and Coastal Views of Captain Cook's Voyages which has been far more extensively financed by the Hakluyt Society of London to the extent of £100 000, while UNESCO has lately published Professor Stephen Wurm's three volumes of The Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communications in the Pacific, Asia & the Americas whose publication costs amounted to around $50 000. Whilst all such subsidies should always be sought elsewhere, very occasionally there will be a case for these being secured in the national interest from public funds. On occasion too there may well be a potent case for subsidies to enable particularly significant works by Asian Humanities scholars that are not available in English to be translated and published.

In view of the rapid developments that are occurring in IT, it is of great importance that Humanities scholars should be keenly alert to advancing possibilities for publication on the Internet, and steps to that end need to be taken.

Recommendation 27
  • That under strictly defined procedures Universities expand their provision for small print-run publications of academic research.

  • That the Academy of the Humanities develop a procedure to grant its seal of approval as refereed publications to University publications in the Humanities that have been subject to a full refereeing process under the auspices of an editorial board with outside representatives, and advertise this, and the details concerning their availability, on the Net.

  • That the Academy of Humanities draw to the attention of the Government the increased need for subsidies to make possible the publication of high quality academic work on Australian subjects as for high quality work in the Creative Arts.

  • That Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs funds for Academy research projects be available in very special cases for a major research publication.

  • That the Academy of Humanities convene before long a National Scholarly Communications Forum on Digital Publication, and so far as possible maintain a watching brief in this area.

[Universities; AAH; DEETYA; HEC]

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Public Outreach

It is of increasing importance that the various fruits of Humanities research should reach the general public. As we have emphasised at the outset of this Report, Humanities research contributes very extensively to the well being of Australian society. A great deal of the expertise which is thus generated is made available along specialist lines (e.g. Linguistics into language teaching in schools). The essays in Volume 3 on the Humanities' contributions to public culture, to issues concerning Australian identity and heritage, to the critique of developments emanating from elsewhere, and to our understanding of the implications of our proximity to Asia illustrate some of the already very extensive ways in which research in the Humanities shape the considerations which Australians give to questions of major public importance.

There is, moreover, a relatively strong Australian tradition of Humanities and other scholars writing for newspapers on the basis of their particular expertise. They are frequently called upon by the electronic media too, and it is notable that when there is some striking episode that calls for informed comment, Area Studies scholars are extensively drawn upon by the media of all kinds. When, for example, there is a crisis in Papua New Guinea seasoned academic area specialists such as Ron May, Hank Nelson, James Griffin, Paul Dibb, Anthony Regan and others become the principal authoritative contributors to public understanding of the issues involved, while every new development in Cambodia calls for the insights of David Chandler of Monash University. Ahmad Shboul of the University of Sydney is a regularly consulted authority on Middle Eastern affairs, as is Amin Saikal of the Australian National University.

At the same time the review pages of many newspapers and journals to which Humanities scholars contribute extensively serve more generally to alert the interested public to the range of issues which Humanities research is raising. Literary and musical reviews in the quality papers are heavily contributed by Humanities academics. And in this connection there has been the specially welcome addition to such public knowledge thanks to the monthly publication of The Australian's Review of Books (in the tradition of its New York and London counterparts). As we have noted, it is all the more regrettable that no weight is given to all this very important activity in the current procedures for calculating the Research Quantum.

We urge, however, that more should be done to encourage the public outreach of the Humanities. This is one of the reasons why we recommend the establishment of Humanities Centres in each metropolitan city since we believe that these could play an especially valuable role in a whole variety of ways in giving wider publicity to the fruits of Humanities research, especially by scholars who are locally situated. The Review is aware that the Academy of the Humanities has plans to enhance the contacts between Humanities scholars and the media in the near future, and it is fully cognisant of the substantial efforts which all Universities now make on their own behalf in these matters.

Recommendation 28
  • That Universities further facilitate and provide incentives for the contributions that academics make to the public discussion of issues of importance.

  • That the Academy of Humanities take steps to extend the connections between Humanities scholars and the media.

[Universities; AAH]

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A National Humanities Policy and a National Humanities Council

The ASTEC Report of 1993 Bridging the Gap which started the process that led to the establishment of this Review more than once remarked that while 'Government is a major funder of research and shapes the institutions that research in the social sciences and the humanities' and that 'Government departments make explicit use of social science and humanities knowledge in formulating policies in many areas', nevertheless 'there is no identifiable location for policy about the organisation or funding of the research which is so extensively used in these areas. There is no social sciences and humanities equivalent to the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Australian Science and Technology Council (ASTEC), the Prime Minister's Science and Engineering Council (PMSEC), or the coordination Committee on Science and Technology'. Bridging the Gap said it did not believe it was necessary 'to set up a separate bureaucracy for the humanities and social sciences research effort', let alone create a separate ministry, but it did say that 'there is a need for a single coordinating and promotional body for social science and humanities research'.

Prior to the 1996 election the Presidents of the Academies of the Humanities and the Social Sciences issued a press statement quoting this recommendation about the need to establish 'a clearly identifiable location of responsibility for policy' in the Social Sciences and the Humanities and asked that it be given effect.

The Review believes that in principle the essential case for 'a single coordinating and promotional body for social science and humanities research' that would be the equivalent of ASTEC remains as urgent now as Bridging the Gap said it was in 1993. There are a number of respects in which the interests of the Social Sciences and the Humanities are at present marginalised, often unwittingly, and where they could make a much greater contribution to public policy than at present if some such body existed.

It is nevertheless a matter for consideration what such a body should be. There is a view in the Social Sciences that their interests would be best served by a deliberate expansion of the composition and role of ASTEC. It is very questionable whether such an extension would properly serve the interests of the Humanities. Many of the most important associates of the Humanities are, moreover, in the Arts, and, of critical importance, in Libraries, Museums, Art Galleries and Archives.

Here the American patterns warrant consideration. In the United States there is a 'Cultural Advisory Group' that brings together such bodies as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and a great many professional organisations in the Arts and Humanities. It has an enlarging profile. It lately wrote to President Clinton congratulating him on his commitment in his second term to the Arts. There is also 'The National Cultural Alliance'. In addition there is a 'President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities', which is now under the Honorary Chair of Hilary Rodham Clinton. This is a 'presidential advisory committee ... to stimulate private sector support and public-private partnerships for the arts and the humanities and to raise public awareness of the benefits of culture and society'. It issued a report in February 1997 which recommended that the President establish a 'Millennium Initiative' to help 'sustain our cultural legacy and harness the creativity of Americans for a new century of hope and promise'.

It is possible to conceive of a somewhat similar body in Australia being drawn variously from the Academy of the Humanities, the Australia Council, the Australia Foundation, Library, Museum, and Art Gallery organisations, the Council of Directors of Arts Centres etc. There would be no need for anything more than a minimal bureaucracy. It could perform very similar functions to those of the President's Committee, while providing the Government with advice on major items of public interest in these areas. In a number of our Recommendations, we have presupposed the existence of such a body, and given it the name of the Australian Council for Humanities and the Arts (ACHA).

Recommendation 29
  • That the Council of the Australian Academy of the Humanities hold discussions with the Academy of the Social Sciences, and with the Government and other interested parties with a view to establishing a collaborative body to advise on the development of the Humanities in Australia either in association with the Social Sciences or with The Arts or both.

[Federal Government; AAH; ASSA; DEETYA; DOCA]

References

D'Arms, John H. 1997, 'Funding Trends in the Humanities, 1970-1995', Alvin Kernan, What's Happened to the Humanities ? , Princeton University Press, Ch 2.


[1] Whereas the People...Civics and Citizenship Education Report of the Civics Expert Group (Canberra, AGPS, 1994).

[2] This Consortium appears not to extend to the Classical Languages, however, where recently two institutions, Melbourne and La Trobe Universities, have announced independent plans for future development.

[3] Table showing research expenditure in 6 countries (France, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the USA), first published in a 1987 ARC report entitled 'The Strategic Role of Academic Research', in which it was Table 4. The Table, which excludes all sources of funding other than direct government research grants, cannot and should not continue to be used to claim that Australia spends more on Humanities and Social Science research than the average of these 6 countries. Not only does it exclude non-government funds, but it also fails to compare the proportion of universities' operating grants that are earmarked for research. In Australia's case of c. 5 per cent this is much smaller than in the other countries compared.


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