Excellence in Research for Australia

Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) is an initiative of the Federal Government. ERA is a research quality and evaluation system developed by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in conjunction with the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR).

The ERA initiative aims to provide a transparent system to assess research quality, utilising a combination of metrics focused on researchers, research outputs, research income, esteem and applied measures. The information is reviewed at the national level by evaluation committees comprising experienced, internationally-recognised experts.

The University of Adelaide submission in July 2010 was one of the largest compliance documents ever submitted by the University, with 380,000 lines of XML code, capturing 15,280 research outputs, including 11,311 journal articles in 3366 outlets, and approximately $380M in research income. We will be assessed in 21 of the 22 two-digit Field of Research (FOR) codes, and in 75 of the 157 four-digit FOR codes. In this regard, the assessment will be reported on the basis of disciplinary clusters, not on individual researchers.

The first ERA results were made available in early 2011, and provide a comprehensive and verifiable snapshot of our research groups and outputs. Although this is be a retrospective picture of our performance (2003-08), it serves to indicate our areas of research strength.

A “report card” has been delivered to each university in which discipline areas are rated on a scale of 1 to 5. A rating of 3 is to be interpreted as “world class”, while a rating of 5 can be thought of as an academic “gold medal”. Ratings apply to academic areas, not university departments or schools.

Read more about the University of Adelaide's ERA outcomes.

University of Adelaide ERA Website

All the information for staff, including contact details for the team behind ERA at the University of Adelaide.

ARC ERA Website

Central and official source of information including:

• Media releases
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Information about the overall context and application of the indicator approach
• Citation supplier
• Copies of presentations given by the ARC
• Liaison officers within each institution
• ARC contacts