Excellence in Research for Australia

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Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) is a research management initiative of the Australian Rudd Government being developed by the Australian Research Council (ARC).[1]

It replaces the Research Quality Framework that was developed by the Howard Government.[2]

In addition to the Higher Education Research Data Collection, which collects statistics about research in Australia, the ERA collected itemised data, with all research classified according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Field of Research (FOR) classification scheme.

Contents

[edit] Clusters

For the 2010 data collection, the Field of Research codes are distributed into the following eight clusters:

  1. Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences (PCE)
  2. Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA)
  3. Engineering and Environmental Sciences (EE)
  4. Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences (SBE)
  5. Mathematical, Information and Computing Sciences (MIC)
  6. Biological and Biotechnological Sciences (BB)
  7. Biomedical and Clinical Health Sciences (BCH)
  8. Public and Allied Health Sciences (PAH)

For the 2012 data collection, the clusters were changed. The SBE cluster was split into two new EHS and EC clusters, and the BCH and PAH clusters were merged to form a "Medical and Health Sciences" cluster. The Field of Research codes are distributed into the following eight clusters:

  1. Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences (PCE) - no changes
  2. Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA) - 1202 and 1204 added
  3. Engineering and Environmental Sciences (EE) - 1202 and 1204 removed; 1005-1099 added
  4. Education and Human Society (EHS)
  5. Economics and Commerce (EC)
  6. Mathematical, Information and Computing Sciences (MIC) - 1005-1099 removed
  7. Biological and Biotechnological Sciences (BB) - no changes
  8. Medical and Health Sciences (MHS) - combines clusters BCH and PAH, and 1004 and 17

[edit] Institutions

The following institutions are deemed eligible to submit data to the government as part of the ERA initiative.[citation needed]

[edit] Ratings

Following the ARC report The Australian newspaper compiled a list of rankings based on the ERA scores.[3] The following table lists the top 15 universities. The validity of these rankings is not supported by the ARC. The ARC specifically advised that it is not possible to add or average scores from the ERA report to derive overall rankings for institutions.[4]

C1-C8 refer to the clusters provided above.
University C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 Average Score
Australian National University 4.7 4.6 4 4 4.5 4 5 5 4.38
University of Melbourne 4.7 4.5 3.7 4.2 4.7 4 5 4 4.33
University of Queensland 4.3 4 5 4 3.7 4.3 5 4 4.17
University of New South Wales 4 4.2 3.7 4.2 4 4 5 3 4.04
University of Sydney 4 4.2 3.7 3.4 4 3 5 4 3.83
University of Western Australia 3.7 3.2 3.5 3.4 3.5 5 5 4 3.64
University of Adelaide 4.3 3.5 4 2.4 3 4.5 5 4 3.55
Monash University 4 3.7 5 3.2 2.7 3 5 2 3.45
Macquarie University 4.3 3 4 2.8 2.5 5 2 3 3.24
Queensland University of Technology 3.7 3 3.3 2.6 4 2 3 4 3.09
Griffith University 4 3 2.3 2.6 3 3.5 3 3 3
Melbourne College of Divinity 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3
University of Technology Sydney 3 3 2 3 3 4 2 3 2.95
University of Tasmania 4 2.8 3 1.8 3 3.5 3 2 2.81
University of Newcastle 3 3.4 3 1.6 2 3 3 3 2.71
University of Wollongong 3.7 3.4 3 1.6 2 3 3 3 2.71

[edit] Collections

In 2009, two trials were conducted for the clusters "Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences" (PCE) and "Humanities and Creative Arts" (HCA), and reports have been published using this data.[5]

In 2010, institutions were required to submit data for all eight clusters between June 1–18.

On 25 October 2010 the government announced that ERA data will be collected again in 2012.[6]

[edit] Journal lists

The ARC has compiled a list of journals that will be included in the annual review, and initially stated that these journals would be ranked using the following "four tiers of quality rating":[7]

A* (top 5%): "Virtually all papers they publish will be of a very high quality"
A (next 15%): "The majority of papers in a Tier A journal will be of very high quality"
B (next 30%): "Generally, in a Tier B journal, one would expect only a few papers of very high quality"
C (next 50%): Journals "that do not meet the criteria of higher tiers".

After the publication of its draft rankings, ERA introduced a form aimed at all scholars who wished to put a journal forward for the list. There were just three conditions for such a proposal: that the journal be "a scholarly, peer reviewed journal with an ISSN", that the person making the proposal state whether he/she was a member of the editorial board, and that the decision remain at ARC’s discretion. This consultation procedure led to a significant increase in the number of journals in the final list: for example, SSH journals went from 10,241 to 12,976.[8] The percentage distributions were not recalled and not adhered to in the final list which was released on 9 February 2010,[9] though the proportion of A* and A journals did not correlate directly with the performance of different disciplines.[10]

The ARC stipulated that Scopus will be the citation and bibliometrics provider for 2010.[11]

These journal rankings (A*, A, B, C) will not be used for the 2012 ERA process.[12]

[edit] Conference lists

The list of conference rankings was released in December 2009. Conferences have only a three level ranking scheme:[13] A, B, or C.

Conferences are only ranked within the following Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification Fields of Research:

08: Information and Computing Sciences
09: Engineering
10: Technology
12: Built Environment and Design

As with journal rankings, a prescribed distribution has not been mandated by the ARC. The Deakin ERA Journal Rankings Access website has been expanded and renamed the ERA Outlets Rankings Access website.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Kim Carr (15 July 2009). "New era in research will cut the red tape". The Australian. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/new-era-in-research-will-cut-the-red-tape/story-0-1225750118068. 
  2. ^ Kim Carr, In search of research excellence, 31 March 2008
  3. ^ Excellence in Research for Australia lays bare research myths
  4. ^ ERA 2010 Frequently Asked Questions
  5. ^ arc.gov.au/era/trial.htm
  6. ^ ERA 2012, ARC
  7. ^ ARC ERA Tiers
  8. ^ Pontille D., Torny D., "The controversial policies of journal ratings: evaluating social sciences and humanities", Research Evaluation, 19(5), 347-360, 2010
  9. ^ ARC ERA journal lists
  10. ^ Jill Rowbotham, "Journal rankings don't reflect performance ", The Australian, March 09, 2011
  11. ^ Margaret Sheil (23 November 2009). "Scopus announced as citation provider for ERA". Australian Research Council. http://www.arc.gov.au/media/releases/media_23Nov09.htm. 
  12. ^ ARC ERA Tiers ERA 2012 Journal List
  13. ^ ARC ERA Ranked Outlets

[edit] External links

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