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This article is more than 1 year old

The federal education minister has restored funding to three vetoed Australian Research Council grants and unveiled details of the new “national interest test” to apply in future rounds.

In a statement Dan Tehan claimed the funding had been restored because the projects were “now markedly different”, but Labor argued they had simply been renamed.

In October Senate estimates revealed that Tehan’s predecessor, Simon Birmingham, had blocked $4m of grants to 11 projects, triggering widespread backlash from universities.

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In the current round of $380m of grants, announced on Tuesday, the government restored funding to:

Masculinity and social change in Australia (previously a history of men’s dress) from researchers at the Australian Catholic University;

Rioting and the literary archive from the University of New South Wales;

The art of cultural diplomacy (previously Louis XIV prints, medals and materials in the global exchange) from the Australian National University.

Labor’s industry and innovation spokesman, Kim Carr, said the fact funding had been restored with “minor changes to titles” showed the initial refusal was the result of “petty culture war games”.

The Universities Australia chief executive, Catriona Jackson, noted funds had been restored to three projects but said that “still leaves eight research grants that were rejected by senator Birmingham that remain unfunded by the ARC”.

Tehan also revealed details of the national interest test to be applied to future grant rounds, which had baffled the university sector because grants already must demonstrate the national benefit of research.

“Applicants will be asked to explain the extent to which the research contributes to Australia’s national interest through its potential to have economic, commercial, environmental, social or cultural benefits to the Australian community,” he said.

Where previously applicants were asked to state the “benefit and impact” of their research, they will now be required to provide a short 100- to 150-word statement in “plain English” against those criteria, he said.

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“This approach creates no additional burden to researchers in preparing their applications but requires them to specifically address the [national interest test] definition.”

Carr said the new details “have not allayed concerns about the test”.

“Under the Tehan test … researchers are no longer subject only to the scrutiny and judgment of their peers but also to that of politicians.”

Labor has committed to require the education minister to give reasons for blocking a grant but stopped short of committing to support a Greens bill to revoke the discretion to veto grants.

The Greens education spokeswoman, Mehreen Faruqi, said the national interest test was a “farcical proposal” because the government had invented a problem in order to solve. it.

“The minister makes a baseless claim that a ‘national research test’ will give confidence in research but the reality is that the research community has no confidence in a minister that plays such silly games,” she said.

“Narrow political agendas of the government of the day determining long-term research priorities is a dangerous road to go down.”