MINUTES OF MEETING Meeting of the Research Australia University Roundtable Date: 16 March 2017 10:00am – 4.00pm Location: University of Sydney 1. Introductions Present: Professor Nick Fisk, University of NSW (Chair); Professor Helen Chenery, Bond University; Professor Mark Connor, Macquarie University; Professor Ross Coppel, Monash University; Professor Rachel Davey, University of Canberra; Professor John Finlay-Jones, Edith Cowan University; Professor Sandra Grace, Southern Cross University; Professor Janet Hiller, Swinburne University of Technology; Professor Rhondda Jones, James Cook University; Professor Kiaran Kirk, ANU; Professor Trish Livingston, Deakin University; Professor Fabienne MacKay, University of Melbourne; Ms Natalie Precians, Australian Catholic University; Professor Laurent Rivory, University of Sydney; Professor David Shum, Griffith University; Ms Nadia Levin, Research Australia; Ms Wendy McWilliam, Research Austrlaia; Mr Greg Mullins, Research Australia; Mr Chris Chapman, Research Australia Introductory Remarks: The Chair welcomed all attendees and thanked the University of Sydney (in Laurent’s absence) for providing a venue and the catering for the Roundtable. 2. Apologies and Minutes of Previous Meeting Apologies received and noted: Professor Jenny Beck, University of Wollongong; Professor Christine Bennett, University of Notre Dame Australia; Professor John Challis, University of Western Australia; Professor Dominic Geraghty, University of Tasmania; Professor Scott Holmes, Western Sydney University; Professor Christina Lee, University of Queensland; Professor David Mackey, University of Western Australia; Professor Ross McKinnon, Flinders University; Professor Patrick McNeil, Macquarie University; Professor Chris Moran, Curtin University; Professor Ian Olver, University of South Australia; Laureate Professor Rob Sanson-Fisher, University of Newcastle; Professor Liz Sullivan, University of Technology, Sydney; Dr Bryony Wakefield, University of Melbourne Minutes of the University Roundtable Meeting held on 25 August 2016 were accepted as circulated. All presentations are available from the Research Australia website here. (http://researchaustralia.org/events/university-roundtable/university-roundtable-document- archive) Research Australia Page 1 MINUTES of Meeting 3. Research Australia Strategy Research Australia CEO, Nadia Levin presented Research Australia’s new strategy to the Roundtable. The strategy covers the period from 2017 to 2021 and has three themes: data in research; embedding research in the health system; and smarter investment in health and medical research. Nadia made the point that while not alone in pursuing these three themes Research Australia was doing so from the unique positon of representing organisations engaged along the whole length of the research pipeline. The Strategy was generally well received with most feedback relating to the data theme, including a discussion of the difficulties of grappling with the challenge of storing the huge quantities of data being generated. The need to ensure the social sciences were included to support change in the health system to better embed and translate research was also highlighted. There was a discussion about the difficulties presented by the poor quality of data collected in many parts of the health system, and this extended to a discussion about the interaction between genomic data and health records when seeking to identify the genetic causes of certain conditions. A copy of the presentation is available on the Research Australia website. 4. Peer review and funding: regression to the mean Professor John Mattick AO, Executive Director, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research addressed the Roundtable on his concerns about the use of peer review in the NHMRC grant application process. He linked his concerns to the recent changes in demographics in academia and the research workforce, which have led to much higher numbers of grant applications, overwhelming the peer review system. One of the consequences has been that peer reviewers are more inexperienced and this has led to unreliable assessments. Professor Mattick also expressed the view that even when peer review works well it ‘optimises the orthodox’. His proposed solutions included grants that met the full cost of research and fewer grants of longer duration. He referred favourably to the model adopted by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research where they provide Foundation Grants of 7 years (5 years for new investigators), ‘providing the security to be brave’. He also favours the ranking methodology used by the EMBO, where all the reviewers independently rank the grants from A to E, enabling the focus to be on those where ratings vary considerably. There was some discussion as to whether the system was really as ‘broken’ as Professor Mattick portrayed it to be, without any firm conclusion. It was noted that the NHMRC Structural Review due to report shortly had as one its aims to address and streamline the current burden of submissions and peer review. Research Australia Page 2 MINUTES of Meeting 5. Focus for 2017: Universities and Research- Past, Present and Future At the previous Roundtable in November 2016 there was a discussion about possible topics and direction for 2017. One of the topics proposed was ‘the issue of indirect research costs and where/how universities fund research, particularly if pressure is put on their teaching revenue.’ Greg Mullins, Head of Policy, provided a presentation exploring some of the trends in funding for university research over the last two decades, with a focus on HMR. This included concluding that research has become a larger component of universities’ activity over the last two decades, that HMR has increased as a proportion of total research expenditure by universities, and that most of this expenditure is funded from universities’ own resources, including teaching revenue. A copy of the presentation is available on the Research Australia website. 6. F.A.I.R. Policy Statement One of the functions of the Research Australia University Roundtable is to provide advice to the Research Australia Board of Directors. In July 2016, under the auspices of the Universities Australia's Deputy Vice-Chancellors (Research) Committee, a working group of representatives of university, research, business and the not-for-profit sector, with observers from government bodies, drafted a national statement of principles aimed at opening up access to Australia’s research. The draft statement was sent for consultation across the Australian higher education sector as well as to relevant government agencies, peak bodies, and industry associations involved in research in Australia. High-level feedback was also sought from relevant international bodies working in open access. The resulting statement proposes a framework for this access that builds on principles already established for data: namely that all Australia’s research outputs should be F.A.I.R. (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). The Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (OASG) invited Research Australia to endorse the Policy Statement. The Roundtable was provided with a copy of the F.A.I.R. Policy and a background paper which asked it to consider recommending it to the Research Australia Board of Directors that Research Australia endorse the policy. The Policy was discussed at some length with a particular focus on some of the wording and the potential implications for researchers where he or she intends to publish further papers based on a particular dataset. Does the Policy require release of the full data before further papers have been published? The Roundtable’s conclusion was that, on balance, the wording of the policy provided sufficient safeguards for the researcher in this respect. The Roundtable resolved to recommend to the Research Australia Board of Directors that the F.A.I.R. Policy be endorsed, and that its reservations about the potential implications for researchers seeking to make several publications from research using the one dataset, while satisfied, should be brought to the attention of the Board. Research Australia Page 3 MINUTES of Meeting A copy of the F.A.I.R. Policy and the paper are available on the Research Australia website. 7. Peer review and publication: identifying fraud in research Professor Jenny Byrne is Head of the Children’s Cancer Research Unit in the Kids Research Institute at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, and Professor of Molecular Oncology within the Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Sydney. Recently Jenny has been involved in exposing fraudulent behaviour by researchers, evident in the publication of five very similar (and similarly flawed) papers. Jenny provided a presentation to the Roundtable outlining how she identified the fraud, the actions she has taken to have the articles retracted and her correspondence with the journals involved, and her mixed success so far. Jenny also provided some reflections on how significant a problem this is and its implications for both the practice of scientific research and the public’s trust in scientists. Lastly, Jenny outlined some new technologies which could assist in the identification of other fraudulent papers. A copy of the presentation is available on the Research Australia website. 8. CSIRO’s ON: Australia’s national innovation accelerator Dr Steve Brodie, ON Ecosystem Director, provided an overview of the ON Program. Initially an internal CSIRO program,