Wither Urban Research? Yes, You Read it Right First Time!

Is research on Australian cities in our universities reaching an end game? Such a conclusion might be easily drawn after reviewing the recent data on funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) in the broad area of built environment research (Field of Research 1200), in which Urban and Regional Planning sits (as well as Architecture and Building research). Data from the last decade of ARC funding outcomes reveals some startling trends which should make those of us who are involved in undertaking research on our cities sit bolt upright. Last year, the ARC was minded to fund just two Discovery or Linkage projects in the Field of Research area (FoR) 1200. Both of these were for Architecture (FoR 1201). None was funded in the codes more closely related to UPR readers’ interests, specifically FoR 1202 (Building) and especially FoR 1205 (Urban and Regional Planning) within which fields such as land-use and environmental planning, transport planning, housing markets, regional analysis and community planning are counted. Figure 1 illustrates the overall trend over the last three years. Admittedly, some urban research gets funded through other FoR areas, especially urban geography. Nevertheless, the ARC outcomes over the last three years in the FoR that directly relates to urban planning have been nothing short of catastrophic for research. If there was ever a time for urban researchers to be worried about their futures, it’s now. The situation is as stark as it could be. After a decade of modest increases, ARC funding for the built environment has been in free fall for the last three years after reaching a peak in 2010. How have we fared against all the other discipline areas? Table 1 tells another sorry story. In the last three years, Built Environment is placed firmly at the bottom of the list of Discovery grant recipients, just above Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences (which is likely to receive significant funding from other sources). Overall, Built Environment accounted for just 0.7 per cent of total funds allocated. While the overall trend in grants has been downwards (by an average of 21 per cent across all codes) following a shift in funding priorities by the ARC, the impact on FoR 1200, with a massive 78 per cent decline in grant numbers, has been to essentially wipe built environment research out. Only in Linkage grants do we see greater success, yet FoR 1200 managed to attract only 2.1 per cent of the funding overall. In ARC Discovery grants, FoR 1200 Built Environment projects had the second lowest average funding outcomes and, miserably, received the lowest average funding allocation per project of any two digit field.