Grant us a measure, but not yet

FEDERAL Research Minister Kim Carr has chastised critics of government plans to measure the quality of research, likening them to St Augustine and his famous prayer postponing chastity.

"There are some among us who evidently feel the same way about exposing Australian research to critical scrutiny. They say that's what they want but cavil at every concrete proposal to make it happen," Senator Carr says in an article for the HES defending the Excellence in Research for Australia venture.

Asked for an example of cavilling, he said: "People have complained that ERA will disadvantage multidisciplinary research because it classifies journals and outputs by discipline."

In April prominent statistician Peter Hall argued that the ERA requirement to pigeonhole research into no more than three subject codes could do damage to vital multidisciplinary work.

"There's concern, especially in the mathematical sciences, that multidisciplinary mathematical work in engineering, business and biology will fall between the cracks and won't be assessed well by ERA if the number of research codes is restricted too tightly," Professor Hall said.

But Senator Carr said criticism such as this "overlooks all the steps that have been put in place to ensure that the value of multidisciplinary research is recognised. For example, the Australian Research Council's research evaluation committees will consider how far work crosses disciplinary boundaries and bring inadditional expert reviewers from outside the core discipline where appropriate."

Senator Carr did not dismiss all criticism of the ERA as cavilling.

"I understand people's concern that ERA will tell us most about past performance; this is, after all, the nature of ex post facto evaluation.

"At the same time, I think the combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators, expert assessment, and peer review gives us a toolbox sensitive and precise enough to identify emerging trends and future opportunities."

16/07/2009