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.
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For the 2010 data collection, the Field of Research codes are distributed into the following eight clusters:
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:
The following institutions are deemed eligible to submit data to the government as part of the ERA initiative.
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]
| 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 |
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]
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]
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]
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:
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.