Taxpayers have spent nearly $1 billion on university research projects including some which might be considered questionable — such as almost $1 million to determine the optimal length for on-the-job napping.
The Australian Research Council (ARC) handed out 1127 grants totaling $887 million in the 2024-2025 financial year.
Among them, the University of Melbourne was given $458,000 to explain gender inequality in opera — using the profession as a way of to examine gender inequality in freelance work contexts.
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Central Queensland University received $909,000 for the work napping project and the University of NSW received $1,293,000 to improve “environmental understanding” of tourists going whale watching.
Monash University was given $1,072,000 to explain and justify the moral significance of being human.
The University of Sydney was given $932,000 to use VR headsets and other mixed reality technology to reduce racism.
The ARC said all grants were rigorously peer-reviewed to ensure public investment supports “Australia’s economic, social, environmental and cultural benefit”.
But on Sunrise on Tuesday, The Daily Telegraph’s James Willis and Western Sydney Women CEO questioned some of the research — and whether the money might have been better spent elsewhere — when they spoke with host Nat Barr on Hot Topics.
“Well, there are a lot of other people who need that money and who are doing great work — for example, Franklin Women which is a social enterprise that supports women in the medical research field,” Rose said.
“We know how hard it is for women to secure funding and a good support network — that needs funding.
“I’ll give them some credit ... some things on that list I thought were OK.
“For example, understanding video games or gaming and how it can actually help the education system — I think that’s smart, that’s what children are using on their phones so how can we utilise that and put that into the education system?
“Analysing whale watching for tourists to see the impact — $1.2 million dollars just gone. What’s the purpose of that? We really need to focus on the core needs of society before we go on tangents.”
Willis was outraged, saying: “It just strikes me as a list where they almost, with all due respect, ran out of options and they had to give this money away ... you get money, you get money.
“There are OK things on this list but there are some things that, once they are studied, have the potential to be driven into public policy and sort of used in greater society and probably not for the best interests.
“There’s a lot of woke things, in my mind, on that list.
“The other thing as we know ... there are a lot of good researchers in Australia trying to attempt to cure cancer and other diseases.
“Every couple of years they get a lot of anxiety about their own funding and have to rebid for that.
“When we’re throwing this kind of money away, and then we’re sort of potentially missing out on more important things — I don’t think it’s a fair system.
‘There are some things on that list that are crazy, in my view.”
Rose agreed, saying: “When you have not-for-profits begging for money — and I see them every day and I’m trying to help them every day to secure funding — this is actually quite an insult especially during a cost-of-living crisis.”
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