Universities team up on Research Quality Framework trial
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Professor Jim Piper |
Postgraduate researchers at Macquarie University are ready to tackle the Federal Government's Research Quality Framework (RQF) according to results of a recent trial.
Macquarie and Newcastle University joined forces on a five-month-long, $500,000 RQF trial in order to identify their institutions' strengths and weaknesses prior to next year.
The Government's RQF - which will commence with the submission of portfolios in April 2008 - will not only provide research benchmarking of Australia's higher education system, it will also introduce a new way of allocating research funding within the system.
In preparation for this major overhaul, Macquarie and Newcastle agreed to collaborate on a comprehensive trial RQF. Over 1000 active researchers from the two universities had portfolios of their work peer-assessed by around 90 external assessors of international standard.
"Overall, both universities' research was rated very highly," said Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Macquarie University, Professor Jim Piper. "For example, 35 per cent of our researchers were rated in the top 25 per cent international bracket, and 65 per cent of our researchers were rated in the top 40 per cent - that's very pleasing to see.
"But it's when you look at the trial results in finer detail that it shows its real value - this has given us an excellent understanding of our current individual research strengths as well as areas that need further work."
Piper's counterpart at the University of Newcastle, Professor Barney Glover, said that the trial not only established an international benchmark for the universities' research, but also provided data to enable the monitoring of future improvement in research performance.
"It has helped us prepare our academic and support staff, provided useful feedback to individuals, and informed the process of forming research groupings prior to next year's RQF proper," he said. "Importantly, it has also highlighted the complementary research strengths of the two institutions, and we'll be keen to explore these in coming years."
But Glover warned that the trial also highlighted a number of difficulties for administrators.
"We deliberately assessed individual performance rather than group performance - as the Australian Government will do - and did not attempt to measure social impact," Glover said.
The universities are keen to collaborate with the Government on what they have learned from the trial, and plan to undertake a subsequent exercise relating to context statements and (economic/community) impact with other members of the Innovative Research Universities Australia group later in the year.
For further information on the Research Quality Framework visit www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/policies_issues_reviews/key_issues/research_quality_framework/