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Animal Ethics Biosafety Human Research Ethics Research Integrity

(Australia) Australia must abolish law that allows politicians to veto research grants – Nature (Editorial | May 2022)

Posted by Dr Gary Allen in Research Integrity on June 6, 2022
Keywords: Australia, Institutional responsibilities, Peer review
A cartoon silhouette of a politician talking to a room full of people. Their shadow on the wall has a long pointed nose.

The upcoming Australian election is an opportunity for researchers to press all parties to reinstate the independence of research funding.

Government funding of scientific research walks a careful line between two extremes: one in which governments micromanage what gets funded down to the level of individual research projects, and another in which governments have no control over how public research monies are spent.

If you were told it was a country where politicians can overturn a peer review decision by a panel of scientific experts, perhaps you might think I was talking of a developing nation with a tinpot dictator.  Or perhaps you might think I was referring to the United States where polarised decision making has made every decision political.  No in fact I’m referring to Australia where politicians can overturn a peer review decision they do not like.  They not only have such power they have been using it.  This piece in Nature calls for a change in the law.  Science needs the freedom to pursue the topics the powerful find unpalatable.  Hopefully, the change in government will see this fixed.

That line, known as the Haldane principle, allows governments to shape the overall direction of research policy according to the specific needs of time and place, while delegating decision-making about individual project funding decisions to expert peer review. The line must be held if scientific research is to remain both independent of political interference and accountable to the population that funds it.

But not so in Australia, where the government has legal powers, under the Australian Research Council Act 2001, to override some of the council’s project funding decisions. There are now less than three weeks before voters go to the polls to elect a new federal government. In that time, scientists need to step up demands for all political parties to commit to changing this law so that researchers can operate without the looming threat of ministerial interference.

On four occasions since the Australian Research Council (ARC) was established in 2001 — three of them in the past five years — a government minister has intervened to veto a small number of ARC grants for individual research projects. These are projects that had been recommended for funding by independent committees of experts in the fields concerned.

Australia must abolish law that allows politicians to veto research grants
The upcoming Australian election is an opportunity for researchers to press all parties to reinstate the independence of research funding.

Related Reading

(Australia) Bill to remove ministerial veto of ARC grants rejected – ResearchProfessional News (Jenny Sinclair | March 2022)

(Australia) Don’t axe Australia’s research grant veto powers: Senate panel – Times Higher Education (John Ross | March 2022)

(Australia) Australian researchers push to end politicians’ power to veto grants – Nature (Bianca Nogrady | March 2022)

(Australia) Australian scientists join outcry over humanities research veto – Times Higher Education (Jack Grove | January 2022)

(Australia) Gaslighting the world: Coalition pressured its own scientists to save reef from ‘at risk’ label – Crikey (Kishor Napier-Raman | September 2021)

(Denmark) Danish researchers under attack ‘withdrawing from public debate’ – Times Higher Education (Ellie Bothwell | May 2021)

(Australia) Censored: Australian scientists say suppression of environment research is getting worse – Nature (Dyani Lewis | September 2020)

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