The ABDC made a submission to the Australian Research Council (ARC) review of Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) and the Engagement and Impact Assessment (EI).

Key points:

• As the paramount external research validation exercise in Australia, ERA has substantial impact on internal research investment decisions made by universities.

• There remains concern about the net benefits of ERA relative to the effort that individual universities put into data collection and submission processes.

• Citation analysis alone is no substitute for peer review of the quality of scholarship. Rather, that objective citation metrics could play a supplementary role in informing the overall quality rating, alongside the traditional peer review method.

• EI has had a broadly positive impact in accounting for breadth of valuable research outside of the STEM disciplines that is not adequately captured by the ERA evaluation.

To read the submission in full, please click here.