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The ERA is the Australian Government’s research evaluation exercise for universities, with the acronym derived from “Excellence in Research for Australia”. The ERA replaces the former Howard government’s proposed RQF.
The ERA is complex, and the best advice is to get information straight from the official website.
However, for the benefit of casual readers:
- The ERA will evaluate Australian universities on a rolling pattern: two discipline groups a year
- There are eight discipline groups. The groups are defined by the classification codes of research outputs (Field of Research) in the ANZSRC classification scheme.
- The first two to be evaluated in 2010 are PCE (Physical, Chemical & Earthg Sciences) and HCA (Humanities and the Creative Arts). There is a 2009 pilot to test the software and the process.
- All academics in the discipline group in each university will be part of the evaluation (in other words no selective groups).
- Where possible the evaluation will be informed by metrics derived from the research outputs (publications). These metrics will comprise citation counts and a ranked journal list. In some disciplines these will be supplemented, for example by conference publication metrics.
- In PCE, the metrics will suffice for the panel assessments. No peer evalaution will be performed.
- In HCA, no metrics will be used. Instead the panels will do peer evaluation and review a sample of the publications listed, and repositories will need to provide access to these publications (Research Output Data Asset = RODA). This is the sole involvement of repositories in ERA — to serve as RODA sources.