The Australian Academy of Science's submission to the Australia Research Council's (ARC) review of the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP) makes eight recommendations that would improve its effectiveness.
Amongst them, the submission makes the point that: "two years is too short for the proposed Initiate scheme and embedded fellowships and recommends the Initiate grants have a minimum duration of three years, ideally four."
Academy President, Professor Chennupati Jagadish, said shorter grants detract from research productivity and risk excessive administrative load, particularly impacting early- and mid-career researchers (EMCRs).
"Longer grants are necessary to foster groundbreaking research and attract skilled researchers," Professor Jagadish said.
The submission also recommends that the ARC change the design of the Lead and Mentor scheme to focus on talent attraction.
"The ARC should change the wider Lead and Mentor scheme's design to reflect the original intent of the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship's, which was to be a talent attraction scheme for Australia."
The Academy submission also calls on the ARC to explore how a new model for the NCGP can enhance international research collaboration. This includes incentivising overseas partner investigators' participation, providing opportunities for researcher exchange at overseas institutions and facilitating Australian researchers to access international funding schemes.
Academy President thanked the ARC for listening to the sector's concerns and endorsed the ARC's greater appetite for risk outlined in the proposed reforms.
"Any changes to the scheme should be considered in the context of broader transformation of Australia's R&D system including not adversely impact early and mid-career researchers," said Professor Jagadish.
Read the Academy's full list of eight recommendations and submission.
Read the Academy's EMCR Forum submission.
