• Centre for the Study of Higher Education and LH Martin Institute

20 July 2011The first Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) evaluation of disciplinary and institutional research quality in early 2011 established a comprehensive measure of research performance. The effect on institutions was immediate and electric, everywhere triggering strategies to lift ERA rankings.

This suggests that the effects of ERA are virtuous, driving improvement without additional funding. But are the incentives the right ones? How valid is ERA as a comprehensive measure of the international standing of Australian research? What are the flaws, and how could the process be improved? Will ERA create globally stronger research universities? Where do interdisciplinary research, and the contribution of research to innovation, fit into the ERA picture? And will the accelerated competition kick-started by ERA have solely benign effect—or will it generate a transfer market in researchers that creates concentration in some institutions at the expense of the across the board capacity Australia needs?

Speakers

Professor James McCluskey
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), University of Melbourne

Professor Linda Kristjanson
Vice-Chancellor and President, Swinburne University of Technology

Professor Frank Larkins (Chair)
School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne