Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Initiative Fact Sheet 

KEY POINTS

• The Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative is being developed by the Australian Research Council (ARC).
  
  
• The ERA initiative is aimed at evaluating excellence in all areas of research, including pure and applied as well as industry collaborations, within the Australian higher education sector.
  
  
• It is planned to undertake two pilot cluster evaluations in the second half of 2008–09. The initial evaluations will commence with the Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences research disciplines, and the second evaluation in the Humanities and Creative Arts.
  
  
• On 31 March 2008, the new ANZSRC was released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The ANZSRC replaced the 1998 Standard Research Classification and has been expanded by 40 per cent to enable greater accuracy in data collection and analysis, especially in emerging fields of research such as nanotechnology and climate change.
  
  
• The Minister for Innovations, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Carr, has said that the new ANZSRC will be a primary tool for defining disciplines and the make-up of discipline clusters in the ERA initiative.
  
  
• A Consultation Paper was released on 4 June 2008 as the first formal step in communicating with the sector about ERA. Submissions to the Consultation Paper closed on 30 June 2008 and the ARC received 103 submissions.
  
  
• The sector's contribution to this consultation process was essential to help ERA achieves its primary goal of identifying the strengths in Australia’s higher education sector.
  
  
• On 12 June 2008, the ARC launched a consultation process on journal rankings for ERA. The ARC sought feedback from the sector to assist with the development of research journal rankings.
  
  
• The Indicators Development Group (IDG) was established in August 2008 to provide advice to the ARC across a range of discipline-specific indicators for ERA.
  
  
• To help the IDG provide advice on Cluster Two disciplines, two sub-groups were also established in August—one for the Creative Arts and the other for the Humanities.
  
  
• In preparation for a trial of Cluster One, the ARC consulted eminent researchers in the PCE disciplines at a workshop in Brisbane, in October 2008.
  
  
• A Pilot of the ERA IT began on 1 October 2008 and concluded on 14 November 2008. The Pilot was confined to the Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences Discipline Cluster (Cluster 1). 

FACTS AND FIGURES

• The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator the Hon Kim Carr, announced the ERA initiative on 26 February 2008; this followed his decision to cancel the former Government’s Research Quality Framework (RQF) on 21 December 2007.
  
  
• The ARC assumed responsibility for ERA following the transfer of the previous RQF from the former Department of Education, Science and Training on 6 March 2008.  The ARC is developing the ERA initiative, in consultation with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and with advice from DIISR.
  
  
• ERA was highlighted in the Prime Minister’s First 100 days report card.