29 April 2009

Background brief

On 26 February 2008, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, the Hon. Senator Kim Carr, announced his plans for a new research quality and evaluation system. Media release

The ERA initiative has been undertaken by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and will "undertake evaluations of the research in Australian higher education institutions at a discipline level according to research quality and activity. Evaluations will assess research excellence using a combination of indicators and expert review." Indicators

In 2008 the development of the ERA initiative included a Consultation Paper to communicate with the sector, a consultation process to develop a research journal rankings system; a Pilot of the ERA IT (SEER) to test the ability of the system; and the formation of the Indicators Development Group (IDG) to consider, test and recommend appropriate indicators. Development 2008

Assessing research excellence

In 2010 the ERA process will evaluate research across eight discipline 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)

Cluster Two, Humanities and Creative Arts, and Cluster Four, Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences are of particular interest to the HASS sector and CHASS.

In identifying and developing appropriate indicators for each discipline the Australian Research Council considered that they must be: ERA Indicator Principles

1. Quantitative
2. Internationally recognised
3. Comparable to indicators used for other disciplines
4. Able to be used to identify excellence
5. Research Relevant
6. Repeatable and verifiable
7. Time bound

The ERA initiative will:

1. Utilise quantitative indicators to assess research quality
2. Convene a number of Research Evaluation Committees comprising experienced, internationally-recognised experts to undertake expert review of relevant disciplines
3. Where the number of quantitative indicators is insufficient to provide a reliable evaluation of research quality, will convene a peer review process of a sufficient selection of research outputs to converge on a judgement of quality.

Trial process

The Government is conducting a trial of the ERA process evaluating the Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA) and Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences (PCE) clusters. The trial is designed to ensure the robustness of the ERA Assessment process and will inform the full ERA process in 2010. Submissions for the PCE cluster will commence in June. Submissions for the Humanities and Creative Arts cluster will open in August 2009. Submission guidelines

Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA) journal list

The ARC has released the ERA Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA) journal lists. The lists are a result of consultations with the sector and rigorous review by leading researchers and the ARC. They are, however, only set for the trial period. For a later stage, the government has signalled its intentions to consider esteem factors as part of the evaluation. Journal list