Comments to the ARC on the Review of the NCGP
On behalf of 60 China Studies scholars from 22 universities in Australia; the National President and Chair, Australia China Business Council; as well as the past and current Chair, Foundation for Australian Studies in China.
10 May 2024
Professor Christina Twomey ARC
Chief Research Officer
Australian Research Council
Dear Prof Twomey
Policy Review of the National Competitive Grants Program
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the review of the NCGP. These comments address three particular questions posed in the Policy Review of the National Competitive Grants Discussion Paper:
2. How can the NCGP further support and encourage: (p.9)
- high-calibre research that drives the advancement of knowledge?
- the utilisation, translation or commercialisation of research to deliver benefits to Australia’s society, economy, and community?
5. How can the NCGP best support collaboration between disciplines? (p.13)
‘There may be opportunities within the NCGP to remove possible disincentives for interdisciplinary proposals and to promote their equitable consideration during the review process.’
9. How should the NCGP be structured to best support and deliver on national research priorities, as they evolve over time? (p.21)
In March 2023 the Australian Academy of the Humanities (AAH) produced a report on Australia’s China Knowledge Capability: University teaching, research, and future needs that highlighted key challenges for Australia’s China knowledge into the future—both short term and long term. Several of the findings have direct relevance to the current NCGP review and point to a crisis in the production of core China research in the HCA and SBE fields (p. 50).
The report highlighted ‘a funding decline (number of projects and funding awarded) through Australia’s premier funding research agency which has been an important source of funding for humanities, arts and social sciences research on China’ (p.51) It shows that this decline has been steady for the past 12 years (p. 59). The report also noted that there has been no support of China-related research at scale, such as through the funding of Centres of Excellence (p. 60) that can support a multidisciplinary program of strategic, sovereign research capacity on China.
This trend runs counter to our national sovereign interests at a time when China is becoming increasingly more important to the Australian economy and also to our stability and security in the Asia-Pacific. In 2023 no ARC Discovery Grant was awarded to research on China. Moreover, collaboration with China-based researchers slumped to the ‘other’ category in 2023 after many years at fourth place. Our nation’s need for expert knowledge about China grows apace, and we hope that this review can go some way to supporting that demand. Attention to ensuring that research is conducted in Australian institutions about China is central to advancing our present and future national interests.
While there may be many reasons for the dramatic absence of Discovery Grants related to China, it is possible that there are structural issues that your committee could consider in its reforms of the grant programs. Researchers on core China topics are covered by two panels (HCA and SBE) and must combine disciplinary knowledge and expertise with knowledge and expertise of China, its history, society and cultures. Top quality research on China is inherently interdisciplinary. The absence of China knowledge in the ARC College of Experts means that applications to those two panels risk being assessed only in disciplinary frames and debates. The innovative aspects of their contents related to China are potentially overlooked in a largely Euro-American centred research culture. The benefits that accrue to the Australian nation from in-depth knowledge about China are lost in the process.
All Area Studies fields experience this problem but in the case of Asian Studies and China Studies there are additional difficulties that arise from the historical weight of the UK, Europe and USA in our university systems. In some parts of the world (notably USA, UK) research funding for Area Studies is now provided separately from and alongside the major disciplinary areas. The advancement of knowledge usually progresses regardless of national boundaries, even while the application of that knowledge sometimes may be subject under certain circumstances to national security considerations. Australia’s capacity to produce cutting edge research on China is currently at crisis point, precisely at a time when that knowledge is most sorely needed.
In Australia, during the 1990s the ARC convened a discrete Asian Studies panel to promote research on the region to good effect. Australia produced outstanding China scholarship that gained global recognition. Later the ARC supported research on the Asia-Pacific region by ensuring that both the HCA and SBE panels had at least one Asia-Pacific expert each among their membership and moreover that those two Asia-Pacific experts were in any one year not engaged in research on the same country.
China and its social, economic, technological, and political development are too important for Australia’s future to be allowed to inadvertently disappear from the ARC’s research agenda. We urge the current review to address this problem.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan Benney, Monash University, and Deputy Editor Asian Studies Review.
Minglu Chen, Director, Local China Project, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Jocelyn Chey, Chinese Studies, University of Sydney
Yingchi Chu, Media and Communication Studies, Murdoch University
Angela Cook, Chinese, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland
Christine Cunningham, Postgraduate Education and Research, School of Education, Edith Cowan University
Louise Edwards, Professor Emerita UNSW
Xiaoping Fang, Associate Professor Monash University
John Fitzgerald, Emeritus Professor, Swinburne University of Technology.
Courtney Fung, Associate Professor, Department of Security Studies & Criminology, Macquarie University
Jia Gao, Professor of Chinese Studies, Asia Institute, University of Melbourne Mobo Gao, Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Adelaide
Jane Golley, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy ANU. Qian Gong, Chinese, Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University
David S G Goodman, Director, China Studies Centre, and Professor of Chinese Politics, University of Sydney
Xin Gu, Director of Master of Cultural and Creative Industries, School of Media Film and Journalism, Monash University
Yingjie Guo, Deputy Director, China Studies Centre, and Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Sydney
Jing Han, Professor and Director, Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University
Baogang He, Alfred Deakin Professor and Personal Chair in International Relations, Deakin University
Kai He, Professor of International Relations, Griffith University
Hans Hendrischke, Professor of Chinese Economics and Business, Sydney Business School, University of Sydney
Ben Hillman, Director, China in the World Centre, ANU
Kevin Hobgood-Brown, Chair, Advisory Board, China Studies Centre, The University of Sydney
Diane Hu, Research Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, the University of Melbourne
Richard Hu, Professor, Canberra Business School, University of Canberra Catherine Ingram, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney Minerva Inwald, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney
Maggie Ying Jiang, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia
Wenying Jiang, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland.
Andrew Kennedy, Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Jon Eugene von Kowallis, Professor of Chinese Studies, UNSW; President, Australian Society for Asian Humanities
James Laurenceson, Professor and Director, Australia China Relations Institute, UTS Angela Lehmann, Chair, Foundation for Australian Studies in China
James Leibold, Professor, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University
Bingqin Li, Professor of Social Policy, UNSW
Delia Lin, Associate Professor, Asia Institute, the University of Melbourne.
Lu Liu, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney Kam Louie, Honorary Professor, UNSW.
Fran Martin, Professor of Cultural Studies, School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne,
Anne McLaren, Professor Emerita University of Melbourne Budiman Minasny, Professor of Soil Science, University of Sydney
Justin O’Connor Professor of Cultural Economy, University of South Australia David Olsson, National President and Chair, Australia China Business Council Jing Qi, Coordinator of Chinese Studies, RMIT University
Sarah Rogers, Associate Professor, Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, The
University of Melbourne
Anthony J. Spires, Associate Professor, Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, The University of Melbourne
Josh Stenberg, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Mark Strange, School of Culture, History, and Language, ANU
Wanning Sun, Deputy Director, Australia China Relations Institute, and Professor of Media and Communications, UTS
Yu Tao, University of Western Australia
Sue Trevaskes, Professor and Acting Director, Griffith University Centre for Social and Cultural Research
Mark Wang, President of the Chinese Studies Association of Australia, and Professor University of Melbourne
Christoph Nedopil Wang, Professor and Director, Griffith Asia Institute Pan Wang, Associate Professor, Chinese and Asian Studies, UNSW
Wilfred Yang Wang, Media and Communication Studies, the University of Melbourne
Zoe Ju-Han Wang, Convener of Master of Global Development, College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University
Anthony J Welch, Professor of Education, School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney
Jian Xu, Communication, Deakin University
Haiqing Yu, Professor of Media and Communication, RMIT University
Jian Zhang, Associate Dean Education, UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy, UNSW
Marina Yue Zhang Innovation Studies, Australia-China Relations Institute, UTS
Ying Zhang, Deputy Director, China Studies Centre, and Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney
Yi Zheng, Professor of Chinese Literature, Program of Chinese Studies, UNSW.