Because we’re worth it: tracking value in arts-based research

‘We need to make sure that humanities and social sciences are considered to be no less important in building our future ... because in the end, if all of the scientific problems of life were ever solved, in an applied sense, the most important questions would remain unanswered.’

This was the Federal Education Minister Dr Brendan Nelson addressing the National Press Club on the 8 March. It wasn’t long before the quote was picked up and circulated amongst the membership of the newly minted Council of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences, a lobby group that aims to do for the HASS areas what FASTS has done for the sciences. ‘He likes us! He’s noticed us!’ was the subtext, which is better than being completely ignored as we were when the Minister was establishing national research priorities.

But HASS researchers are having to accept the pragmatic reality that the same tests for measuring quality in the sciences (collaborations and commercialisation) are going to be applied to non-science areas – and Dr Nelson has given half a million dollars to CHASS to help us along that path.

The problem has always been trying to calculate the value of HASS-based outputs. They aren’t always as tangible as science outputs, and their value is not always easily trackable. When such attempts are made it is interesting what turns up.

Frank Larkins, from the University of Melbourne’s Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, has tried to calculate the economic benefits of Australian bachelor and higher degrees.* He sees ‘value’ in two ways: the private value to the individual (the personal returns in terms of salary) and the social value, meaning the return to society of its investment in higher education.

His analysis demonstrates that while science and technology graduates derive higher personal benefits because of salary differentials, there are higher social benefits from Humanities and Social Science degrees. While the taxpayer can expect a 1.5 times return on the investment for a 4-year Science and Technology degree, the return on a three-year Humanities and Social Science degree is 2.4 times the investment.

The same is true at post-graduate level: the social rate of return is substantially greater for Humanities and Social Science research degrees, in the range of 7.2 - 6.2 per cent compared to 5.2 per cent for Science and Technology.

Larkin’s study is one example of the sort of approach which might reveal the true values, intrinsic and extrinsic, flowing on to society from the arts, humanities and social science areas. Any government which is serious about activating the full range of research strengths in this country will have to do two things: first, to conduct a detailed audit of the range of activities that constitute quality research in the HASS areas; and second, to identify and measure the range of immediate and long-term, tangible and flow-on benefits over and above those arising from a single or simple financial transaction.

* Larkins, F. 2001, ‘The Economic Benefits of Australian University Degrees: Bachelor and Research Higher Degrees’, Australian Economic Review, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 403-14. ¦

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR GAIL PHILLIPSDIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENTDIVISION OF ARTS