Rating scale for Excellence in Research for Australia to be recalibrated, with Indigenous studies incorporated as a field in its own right

Experts will be enlisted to recalibrate Australia’s research assessment exercise, and Indigenous studies will be evaluated as a stand-alone field, following a review of Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) and the Engagement and Impact (EI) assessment.

The Australian Research Council (ARC) has vowed to implement all 22 recommendations of the review, including changes to boost the meaningfulness of ERA’s “world standard” rating – a benchmark met or exceeded by 90 per cent of Australian research in the most recent assessment in 2018.

The reviewers’ report cites Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development data and Times Higher Education World University Rankings results as evidence of Australian research’s rising quality since ERA was introduced in 2010. But the improvement has occurred alongside a “rapid increase in the number of publications generated worldwide”, the report concedes.

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