Australia's research output is improving, says report

Volume 1 of the inaugural ‘State of Australian University Research 2015–16’ report, released by the Australian Research Council (ARC), presents the outcomes of the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2015 evaluations and details the quality of Australian university research benchmarked against world standards.

“ERA is a comprehensive assessment of university research, and throughout 2015 the ARC and university sector worked together to collate and evaluate the sector’s research activity,” said ARC CEO Professor Aidan Byrne.

“There were 2460 units of evaluation assessed in ERA 2015, with over 430,000 unique research outputs, and 67,000 researchers submitted by the 41 participating universities.”

Professor Byrne states that Australia’s research output is improving, with “outstanding performance” in many areas.

“Australia is performing very well in the fields of pure and applied mathematics; astronomical and space sciences; macromolecular and material chemistry; soil sciences; plant biology; engineering; medical and health sciences; law; and cultural, literary and historical studies, just to name a few,” he said.

“Identifying our national research strengths allows businesses and start-ups looking to partner with universities to be guided on where the areas of strength in our universities are, and who they can partner with to innovate and create new products.

“It also allows us to determine emerging strengths and areas where we can improve.”

The University of South Australia (UniSA) performed particularly well, with the university’s Centre for Cancer Biology (CCB) and aligned research in biochemistry and cell biology, clinical sciences and pharmacology, and pharmaceutical sciences all earning the highest possible ERA ratings. UniSA achieved research excellence that is “well above world standard” in 16 research fields — an eightfold improvement since the evaluation was last performed in 2012.

The University of Queensland (UQ) was another strong performer, with 95% of the university’s broad fields of research rated above (40%) or well above (55%) world standard. In addition, UQ topped the nation in five fields: environmental engineering, environmental biotechnology, industrial biotechnology, tourism and social work.

With three rounds of ERA now complete, the ARC has a dataset covering all Australian university research outputs, staffing and activity from 2003 to 2013, and research income and research application data from 2006 to 2013. This dataset will be critical for informing government research policy, university strategic planning and research collaboration and investments by industry.

‘State of Australian University Research 2015–16’ can be viewed at www.arc.gov.au/era-reports#ERA2015. A summary of the ERA results can be viewed at www.arc.gov.au/quick-facts-era-2015-outcomes.