News & Views item - december

First Overall Results of Restricted ERA Trials Publically Released. (December 2, 2009)

The Australian Research Council (ARC) has made available on a confidential basis individual reports analysing the research performance of the 39 participating universities against Australian and world benchmarks as assessed using the criteria proposed for the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA).

According to The Australian HES: "ARC chief executive Margaret Sheil said the new results showed that ERA could produce high-level data that allowed Australia's performance to be measured against international benchmarks. 'I am pleased with the performance of the institutions and their engagement in the process, because all the institutions participated voluntarily,' Professor Sheil said."

Just how productive or counterproductive it might be as regards the allocation of research funding is of course another issue, for as Guy Healy notes in the HES: "The ERA trial brings Australia into line with Britain, which has conducted a similar exercise aimed at boosting research funding during the longer term but which has been roundly criticised for being detrimental to science and engineering in the UK."

Just how meaningful are the tabulations shown below is at best moot because of the lack of defining what is meant by World Average and what proportions obtain which scores, i.e scores 1 through 5 (see definitions below).

And it would be of interest to see how Australia rates compared with say the average of the top 15 OECD nations.

PCE [Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences] Trial Evaluation

Thirty-nine institutions participated in the PCE trial. Evaluations were conducted at the two- and four-digit Field of Research (FoR) level, as defined by ANZSRC. Alongside the quantitative data submitted by each institution for each Unit of Evaluation, three stages of evaluation were undertaken by the REC.

These stages of evaluation took place from 1 June to 2 October 2009. They were:

Stage 1 = Preliminary evaluation of four-digit Units of Evaluation by REC members independently.

Stage 2 = Review and revision of evaluation of four-digit Units of Evaluation by REC members, taking account of other four-digit evaluations by REC co-members assigned to the same Units of Evaluation. Preliminary evaluation of two-digit Units of Evaluation by REC Members independently.

Stage 3 = Final meeting by PCE REC to provide final ratings and comments for all assessable Units of Evaluation at the two- and four-digit level.

Please note: More information about the evaluation processes can be found in the ERA 2010 Evaluation Guidelines.

Seventeen eminent researchers from the sector were appointed to the PCE REC by the ARC CEO in August 2009.