Economists and the ARC Large Grants Scheme: A Brief Report

We examine awards to economics in recent years under the Australian Research Council (ARC) Large Grants Scheme and speculate briefly on the effects of the new National Competitive Grants Programme. The primary determinant of number of awards by panel is number of applications. While no ARC rule guarantees panels will preserve success-to-application ratios by discipline, this seems a good approximation for economics and many other Social Science panel disciplines, though limited evidence suggests economics assessors give somewhat lower scores. Economics ARC award rates per staff member resemble those in other social sciences but are significantly smaller than those in philosophy, history, biology and chemistry.