How the ARC can fix its fellowship red cards - Campus Morning Mail

"Last week our national funder, the Australian Research Council gave 32 fellowship applicants a red card for not sticking to a newly introduced rule. Here there was no yellow card, no time out, just the maximum penalty for an arguably minor transgression. The dismissal of their applications, totalling $22m, doesn’t send them off for the match or even a couple of games, it is for a whole year. Indeed given an average 15 per cent success rate and tight application limits, this could well be the end of the road for many a promising academic career.

Academia is renowned for passionate differences of opinion, so it is most unusual that a single procedural hiccough has united the whole sector. ARCgate has attracted scrutiny, both in the Senate and internationally. It is no coincidence that the red cards were all in the physical sciences, where this citing of preprints is not only common practice but failure to do so can be considered unethical.  Physicists have long known that referencing preprints gives others due credit and communicates cutting edge results quickly while under lengthy peer review. Most international bodies have followed suit, allowing, or even encouraging this. So too has the National Health & Medical Research Council, as COVID-19 taught us the importance of rapid communication.

It doesn’t help to dwell on how or why the rule was implemented, or its misalignment with modern publication culture. The important issue now is for the ARC to deal with this problem quickly...."