Reinvigorating the Australian research funding system

Monday 25th August, 1-2pm
Reinvigorating the Australian research funding system

Abstract
Australia allocates $9 billion a year of taxpayers’ money for research, but how do we know if that money is being spent wisely? With the Australian Government threatening to reduce the amount of money allocated to research, it is time for researchers to take a more serious look at how to improve the research funding system.

Despite a barrage of criticism of the Australian research funding system, there is a lack of meaningful change in the system: the majority of researchers see the system as arcane, overly-bureaucratic and wildly inefficient. In many other areas of policy, including health, education and labour market policy, we subject such government expenditure to rigorous, systematic evaluation. However, evaluation of our research investments is almost non-existent. In this presentation, I review the problem and examine how the research funding system could be reinvigorated to provide better outcomes for researchers and provide the taxpayer with more confidence about the way their money is being spent.

Prof. Paul Jensen

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