On Christmas Eve 2021, the pub-test folly struck again. The two of us found ourselves, angry and heartsore, resigning from the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) highly respected College of Experts in protest at the minister’s rejection of grant funding recommendations.
This was not a comment on the college, a laudable body of experienced research leaders committed to supporting the best and most worthwhile research. Nor on the ARC, whose dedicated, knowledgeable staff operate on a shoestring to maximise how much of the organisation’s limited funding is spent on research.
