Excellence in Research in Australia 2010, 2012, and 2015: The Rising of the Curate's Soufflé?

Abstract

Objective: The Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) data collections completed in 2010, 2012, and 2015 were developed by the Australian Research Council to identify the quality of research produced by the broad range of Australian tertiary education institutions. In each evaluation, the quality of research produced by the institutions was rated on a 5-point scale ranging from "well above world standard" to "well below world standard" within each field of research (FoR). The FoRs relevant to psychology include codes 1701 (Psychology), 1702 (Cognitive Sciences), and 17 (Psychology and Other Cognitive Sciences), a combination of the aforementioned codes.Method: This analysis examined and compared the ratings of the 41 Australian universities across the years 2010, 2012, and 2015 for the psychology codes (i.e., 17, 1701, and 1702), as well as examining the combined means for all three data collections. The universities were also compared according to institution type (i.e., Group of 8, the Australian Innovative Research Universities, the Australian University Technology Network, and the Regional Universities Network across years. The final analysis compared other codes relevant to psychology across the years 2010, 2012, and 2015. Results: Results of the analyses revealed an overall improvement in research ratings by the universities, with most improving or at least holding their ground. Conclusion: It is still concerning that almost 40% of the institutions did not meet the benchmark of at or above world standard. Some of the issues associated with the ERA data collections are discussed, and suggestions are made for improving this process.

Excellence in research in Australia: the souffle keeps on rising

“…Overall examination of the data showed that a number of AOUs have undergone changes in ranking (i.e., as indicated by performance on 17, then 1701, 1702, and 1799 as ranked in that order of selection; see Table ) from the 2015 to 2018 data collection. The serially based ranking of the scoring criteria was the same as that used in the previous studies (Crowe & Samartgis, ; Crowe & Watt, ), as it was considered that each measured a unique, although correlated, aspect of the ratings of the respective Universities. Thus, a 17 score of 5, a 1701 score of 5 and a 1702 score of 4, for example, was considered to demonstrate greater strength and diversity of ratings than was a score of 5 on both 17 and 1,701 alone, thus, culminating in a higher ranking.…”

“…This analysis was undertaken to update the findings of the two previous studies (Crowe & Samartgis, ; Crowe & Watt, ) which examined the ERA data in psychology from 2010 to 2012 and from 2012 to 2015. The analysis of all four ERA exercises indicates that: Journal articles are the principal area of production with a number of journal articles in psychology doubling from 2010 to 2018. There has been a stepwise increase in research income, commercialisation income, and staffing numbers across the four data collections. For code 17 in 2010, 34% of the institutions were rated at or above world standard.…”

“…This article provides an update on two previous papers on the performance of the psychology discipline as measured by the ERA data collection (Crowe & Samartgis, ; Crowe & Watt, ). The aim of the article was to assess the health of the research enterprise in psychology as measured by each of 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2018 ERA data collections as well attempting to synthesise the rankings over all of the data collections and to attempt to ascertain any trends and lessons from these data which might assist institutions in the re‐evaluation of their research and marketing practices.…”

President's Award for Significant Contributions to Psychology

“…Third, are the results of a project designed to gauge the quality of the nation's research effort called the Excellence in Research for Australia assessment (ERA) initiated by the Australian Research Council (ARC). Dealing with the 2 years 2010 and 2012, the conclusion insofar as psychology was concerned was that is was “like the Curate's egg…good in parts” (Crowe & Samartgis, ), followed by a modest improvement by 2015 (Crowe & Witt, ).…”

Australian Psychologist

“…In the article by Crowe and Watt (2016), the ratings of 41 -Australian universities across the years 2010, 2012, and 2015 were evaluated for the psychology codes used as part of the Excellence in Research in Australia (ERA) data collections. Overall, performance was maintained or improved across the targeted years; although as Crowe and Watt highlight, it is of concern that 39% of the institutions included in the analyses failed to meet the benchmark of world standards.…”