1. ARC Overview Water Services Association meeting 14 July 2015 Dr Fiona Cameron Executive Director, Biological Sciences

2. Outline Current Funding Landscape Assessment Outcomes Evaluation

3. 2014–15 Federal Budget (Approx. AU$415 billion) 2014-15 Federal (Treasury omitted)

4. 2014–15 Federal Budget (Approx. AU$415 billion) Australian Government support for science, research and innovation shown in red (Treasury omitted)

5. Commonwealth Investment in R&D 2014–15 ($m)

6. Focusing Government Investment Research Priorities The Australian Government has developed a set of Science and Research Priorities, they are: - soil and water - transport - cybersecurity - energy - resources - advanced manufacturing - environmental change - Health More information at www.science.gov.au

7. Commonwealth Investment in R&D 2014–15

8. National Competitive Grants Programme Discovery ProgrammesLinkage Programmes Laureate Fellowships Future Fellowships DECRA Discovery Projects Centres of Excellence SRIs ITRP Linkage Projects Other Fellowships Area of box represents $$ awarded over the period 2009–2014. N.B. - Centres of Excellence, SRIs, not awarded in every year. - ITRP & DECRA only funding since 2012 LIEF Other Linkage (incl. NICTA)

9. ARC NCGP funding by scheme 2006–2014

10. ARC NCGP funding* by Fields of Research 2002–2014 *All grants, excluding NICTA and some co-funded centres and SRIs where Field of Research was not nominated

11. FOR Network mapping… STEM disciplines highlighted Source data: ARC Grants Search

12. Outline (2) Current Funding Landscape Assessment Process Outcomes Evaluation

13. ARC Assessment Process Application Panel External Assessment Selection Meeting Outcomes

14. Proposal assessment—overview The peer review process is designed to be fair, thorough and transparent All proposals are assessed against the selection criteria, and in accordance with the weightings for that scheme Proposals are generally assigned to two types of assessors: –two College of Experts members (General assessors), and –at least two Detailed assessors ARC staff assess eligibility etc., but do not decide which proposals should be funded

15. Cross assignment between panels DP 2015 Assessing Interdisciplinary research

16. Detailed Assessment numbers— some examples Scheme Detailed assessments Proposals Average assessments per proposal DECRA 2015457813943.3 Discovery Projects 2015 12,17336893.3 Linkage Projects 201522947103.2 The ARC is grateful to a large number of extremely hard-working assessors who conduct the peer review process:

17. Safeguards Detailed Assessment Rejoinders ROPE Conflict of interest Ministerial sign-off

18. Outline (3) Current Funding Landscape Assessment Process Outcomes Evaluation

19. Histogram of Rank

20. ARC NCGP funding awarded by organisation (%) 2009–2014 RUN IRU ATN Go8 Unaligned

21. Higher Education Government Commercial Non-profit/other LP Linkages Australia 2011–14

22. Higher Education Water utility / related org Industry / other LP Linkages Water companies and related 2011–14

23. Outline (4) Current Funding Landscape Assessment Process Outcomes Evaluation

24. Excellence in research for Australia

25. Where is ERA up to? ERA 2015 8 Chairs Appointed 147 REC members appointed Over 1100 peer reviewers appointed Evaluation underway Results early December 2015 Post ERA 2015 Work on evaluation metrics for next round

26. Discussion/questions