Aidan Byrne, CEO of the Australian Research Council, will launch the results of the 2012 Excellence in Research for Australia in Melbourne this morning. It reveals that the majority of universities have taken a strategic view, with the best throwing their considerable weight behind research across the board and smaller regional universities showing higher levels of concentration.
Melbourne University is the best performer, according to an analysis by The Australian, followed by Sydney second, with Australian National University and the University Queensland tying third.
Southern Cross University is the surprise package in 2012 having invested heavily in a few areas to excel in and divested itself of much baggage.Our analysis shows that based on the quality of research it produces, Southern Cross jumped from near the bottom of the pile in the inaugural 2010 audit, to tenth this year.
But while Melbourne was judged on research across all 22 broad subject areas, SCU had research assessed in only nine.
The audit reveals that the majority of institutions remain comprehensive, conducting research across a broad range of subject areas. But smaller regional universities, such as SCU and Central Queensland University, appear to have been extremely strategic with their limited resources and focused on a very small number of research areas.
Across the board, there was a lot of movement in which subject, or four-digit areas, universities have been audited on. There are literally hundreds of instances of no-shows – or subject categories in which universities appeared in 2010 but not 2012. While it may partly be explained in research outputs not meeting this year's somewhat higher minimum thresholds, other institutions would have put their research into other areas in the hope of getting better results.
The number of new entrants at four-digit level that received a 5 rating must bear testament to that. The audit awards ratings from 5 to 1, with five the highest, or well above world standard, research.
If the government’s aim is to concentrate areas of high quality research, its mission is in the process of being accomplished, although not entirely.
The arts, humanities and social sciences are once again the losers in ERA 2012, with large numbers of universities not having enough research to be assessed across a wide range of subject areas.
Under the topic area of studies in human society, for example, there was not enough research output to be rated in a total of 40 topic (or four-digit) areas, while only two non-starters in 2010 entered the realm.
While one less university, ANU, submitted research for education, the others tended to be more concentrated in their offerings with 24 fewer subject entries.
And while there is a smattering of 1 and 2 scores in the sciences and applied sciences, the low rankings are once again clustered in the arts and social sciences.
The exercise proves once again that Australia is world-beating in medical and earth sciences and extremely strong in environmental science – an emerging area of research strength with 10 new subject entries and four institutions that weren’t in the 2010 audit.
Information and computing sciences also proved to be the new fad, with 11 institutions submitting research in 66 subject areas that weren’t there in 2010.
But the poorest research performance appears to be in commerce, management, tourism and business services, with just a smattering of 4s and 5s, and the bulk 1s and 2s.