Excellence in research in Australia: the souffle keeps on rising

Objective The Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) data collections completed in 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2018 were developed by the Australian Research Council (ARC) to measure the quality of the research produced by the broad range of Australian tertiary education institutions. Method This analysis compared the ratings of the 41 Australian universities across the years 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2018 for the psychology codes (i.e., 17, 1701, 1702, and 1799), as well as examining the combined means for all four data collections and compared these across institutions. The universities were also compared according to institution type (i.e., Group of 8 (Go8), the Australian Innovative Research Universities (IRU), the Australian University Technology Network (ATN), the Regional Universities Network (RUN), and the un-aligned Universities across years. The final analysis examined the performance of the institutions on the engagement and impact assessment (EI) and compared this with the data for the research publications. The universities were also compared with international benchmarks as gathered from the international ratings agencies. Results Results of the analyses revealed an overall improvement in research ratings by the universities, with most improving across all four data collections. The performance improved significantly in the 2018 data collection in comparison to each of the three previous data collections. Conclusion It is now the case that 78% of AOUs are performing at or above world standard in psychology according to the ARC's definition of world standard, an outstanding result and double the level seen in 2010. Some of the issues associated with the ERA data collections are discussed, and suggestions are made for improving this process.