Do you support the move to mandate publicly funded researchers to publish their work freely online, and the broader open access movement?

In terms of publicly funded research, we are looking at ways in which we can have higher levels of access to research through public repositories at universities. I want to look through all of the implications of that - I'm obviously interested in the debate around open source IP. These are issues that do have quite far reaching consequences so we can't just rush in, but we do want to say we are open to the idea and we are interested in discussing it.

Despite a lot of time and money spent on it, you moved quickly to cancel the implementation of the Research Quality Framework (RQF). Why?

Because it was flawed, it was fundamentally flawed. It was badly designed, it had an emphasis on concepts that could not be identified in real terms, the bars were set too low, it was excessively expensive and it was effectively a major distraction to the work of universities. I want to look at ways that we can ensure we have good quality and that we are able to determine where the gaps are in our research program, so it's a strategic approach where we can ensure that we get advice about longer term strategic directions of our research program. Given that the ARC currently requires, by law, evaluations, I'm moving towards measures that streamline that approach. The real issues here is in terms of the humanities, the social sciences and the performing arts where there is not agreement about the form that evaluation should be, so I want to use the next year as a process of consultation to reach agreement. We must have a rigorous, transparent and internationally credible system of evaluation.

Are you going to continue with the previous Government's programs such as the Higher Education Endowment Fund and the Federation Fellowships?

The Federation Fellowships are an area where we need to consider the direction. We've announced a new set of fellowships ourselves, we've moved to double the number of PhD places - the APAs (Australian postgraduate awards) - because frankly our whole research training area does need a fundamental rebalancing. We've got an ageing workforce in terms of our academic and scientific community and we need to look at ways that we can revitalise and refresh our talent base. Those are questions that do mean we have to concentrate resources at the early and mid-career levels so the program emphasis will shift. Obviously the implementation is again an issue we will talk through with the people directly interested. I want to provide more opportunity for institutions to take responsibility for priority setting within their institutions and we are examining ways of doing that. We also want to examine ways we can have more of an international focus to our research training and obviously try to lift our performance in regards to indigenous researchers. There is a range of areas in which there needs to be significant reform. The fellowships we have announced will be worth on average $140,000 a year for four years with a $50,000 infrastructure support program. This is a new program, worth $175 million and it will be rolled out, as we will implement all our policy, after we have spoken to people about the best ways to achieve the policy outcomes.

Update:

Senator Carr gave a speech to a meeting of Universities Australia on March 12, offering a little more detail on his thoughts on compact funding, hubs and spokes. You can find it here.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, has announced a review of the higher education portfolio. Read her speech about the review here and a transcript of her interview with Kerry O'Brien on the 7.30 Report here.