Review of Research Policy and Funding Arrangements for Higher
Education:
Issues Paper, August 2015
Response by the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL)
This response was prepared on behalf of CAUL by the CAUL Research Advisory Committee
and the CAUL Executive.
Contact the CAUL Office at caul@caul.edu.au or 02 6125 2990
16 September 2015
Submission
Introduction
The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) is pleased to have the opportunity to
provide comment on the issues and options raised in Review of Research Policy and
Funding Arrangements.
CAUL, as the peak leadership organisation for university libraries in Australia, seeks to
enhance the value and capacity of Australian university libraries and to influence
scholarship, learning, and information policies and practices relevant to Australian higher
education. Our members are the University Librarians or equivalent of institutions which
have representation on Universities Australia.
CAUL acknowledges the important contribution university libraries make towards research
innovation through the provision of expert advice and tailored services to researchers. The
contribution made by university libraries is critical to the success of Australia’s higher
education system, one of the chief components of an innovation system. A number of major
changes in research and innovation practice have increased the value that CAUL can bring,
including:

changes in research practices, with data being increasingly seen as a valuable output of
research;

the emergence of alternative approaches to discovery, dissemination and access to
research information;

a policy environment that advocates for the outputs of publicly funded research being
openly accessible;

the broader application and importance of contemporary information management skills
to research support and innovation.
University libraries are leaders of change within their institutions, especially with regard to
the effective adoption of new technologies to augment research practice as well as the
preservation, discoverability and access to research outputs.
CAUL values which are relevant to a national innovation system include:

collaboration within and across sectors;

commitment to resource sharing;

commitment to access to information, ideas and creative works without censorship;

respect for the intellectual and creative endeavours of others;

equitable access to services and resources;

innovation in the application of new technologies and service models;

excellence in operational and service delivery; and

openness, responsiveness and customer focus.
Further details about CAUL and its activities can be found at http://www.caul.edu.au/
2
Over the past few years the role of university libraries has expanded to provide
sophisticated services for research and innovation in higher education through:

provision of repositories to store, promote and preserve the digital assets and outputs of
universities;

management and, increasingly, creation of research resources such as datasets and
digital collections;

publication, especially electronic publication, of material based on research;

support for innovation in scholarly expression and communication;

services for measuring and increasing research impact;

provision of advice on data management policy and planning, metadata, standards and
persistent identifiers; and

transformation of services and physical facilities to support the development of students’
lifelong learning skills.

collaboration with Research Offices to deliver the HERDC and ERA reporting and audit
process.
Research Block Grants and Performance of the Research System
The “Review of Research Policy”, describes impediments and opportunities to address
Australia’s acknowledged problems in marrying university research activity and outcomes
with industry requirements. It considers a range of issues, including knowledge transfer
generally and the creation of incentives to encourage engagement between university
researchers and industry.
In its review of the metrics now used to determine the Research Block Grant [RBG], the
paper [at 2.3.5] asks if the process sufficiently incentivizes researchers and institutions to
engage with industry. The Review also asks [at 4.2.9] whether engagement between
universities and industry could be effectively measured, via engagement metrics, which
account for knowledge transfer activity, and by usage metrics, which measure knowledge
publishing and access.
Comment:
RBG is determined, in part, by the annual HERDC return [2.2.11]. In its earlier report,
“Vision for a Science Nation”1, the Government said that it would “develop a policy to ensure
that more publicly-funded research findings are shared openly and available to be used
commercially or in other ways that will bring the greatest benefit to Australians.” One way to
measure, encourage and reward the adoption of such a policy would be to extend HERDC
to report on the proportion of research outputs available to industry and the community
generally in this way. RBG could become an enabler of open access [OA] to researchthrough funding for improved infrastructure or funding targeted towards support for OA to
research outputs.
1
Vision for a Science Nation. Responding to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics:
Australia’s Future
https://consult.industry.gov.au/science-and-commercialisation-policy-division/vision-for-a-sciencenation
3
Relatedly, the paper also discusses [at 4.2.9 and 4.2.35] means by which engagement
between universities and business for knowledge transfer could be measured. It refers to
the potential of usage metrics for published outputs, including citations but also web usage
data. In this context, the paper cites the ATSE report “Research Engagement for Australia:
Measuring research engagement between universities and end users”2 which suggests the
“Number of research publications published in OA repository[ies]” as a useful measure.
Recommendation:
Consideration should be given to incentivizing industry engagement through the inclusion of
the OA status of the research outputs reported as part of the HERDC return. Consideration
could also be given to methods for measuring and rewarding engagement via usage
metrics. Such methods could, if validated, include the metrics proposed in the ATSE REA
report. Other emerging international measures of OA usage, such as those from IRUS-UK3
and CrossRef4, should be monitored and assessed for their utility in reliably and usefully
reporting access as measures of engagement by industry.
It would be important to avoid unnecessarily increasing the reporting burden on researchers
and institutions to meet this measurement need and therefore investing in relevant
infrastructure to allow for the automation of such reporting is vital. This would mean
encouraging the adoption of international metadata standards for identifying the OA status
of research outputs and putting in place systems to automate the capture and reporting of
this data into university research systems and repositories and then making this data easily
aggregated at a national level for analysis.
Such aggregation would require extending the capacity of the existing institutional repository
network in Australia – the primary means for identifying and making available funded
research outputs – to work more effectively, including the ability to exchange data within
and between national and international repository networks.
Support for the myriad forms of OA publishing should be expanded, including the
identification of the most cost-effective means of achieving OA within the existing publishing
system.
2
Research Engagement for Australia: Measuring research engagement between universities and end
users
https://www.atse.org.au/content/publications/reports/industry-innovation/research-engagement-foraustralia.aspx
3 IRUS-UK, "a Jisc-funded national aggregation service"
http://www.irus.mimas.ac.uk/
4 CrossRef."DOI Event Tracker Pilot"
http://crosstech.crossref.org/2015/03/crossrefs-doi-event-tracker-pilot.html
4