Media Releases 2005

11 May 2005

A model Research Quality Framework

The Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee today released its statement Enhancing Australia’s core research capacity – developing a Research Quality Framework.

AVCC President Professor Di Yerbury said the AVCC statement incorporated a preliminary model of how Vice-Chancellors believe the Research Quality Framework (RQF) should work.

“An effective Research Quality Framework will demonstrate the value to Australia’s future from further investment – from both public and private sources – in research and innovation,” Professor Yerbury said.

“The AVCC is confident the RQF will reinforce the value of Australian research to the community, to business and industry, to the environment and to the nation. It will also provide the basis for future investment in research, targeted at research of high quality and high impact carried out across the national innovation system – in universities and research agencies.

“The AVCC supports the development of a Research Quality Framework to assess the excellence of research in Australia, and makes a strong argument to the Government for the need to boost its investment in research block funds. This is necessary for its successful implementation.”

The AVCC model for the RQF is predicated on the Framework being used to distribute an enhanced research block funding program. The preliminary model has four components:

1. the elements of the RQF assessment: should include assessment of research quality, research impact, and research training outcomes. The model leaves open the option of including strategic planning as a further element to be assessed;
2. the level of assessment, reporting and funding: the basic level of assessment should be of research groupings determined by the university with outcomes reported for each of those groups; and funding then allocated to the universities for each to allocate internally according to its own priorities;
3. Expert Panels: should include expert reviewers from Australia and overseas with knowledge of a relevant discipline or academic field, and expert reviewers, including members of business and the community able to assess the broad impact of research; and
4. the link between assessment and funding: this would involve each expert panel producing a rating for each research group against the relevant assessment elements. The AVCC model proposes that ratings made by the Expert Panels should be used to determine funding consistent with the level of assessment.

The AVCC statement has been submitted to the Government’s Expert Advisory Group on the Research Quality Framework, which is chaired by Sir Gareth Roberts.

“The AVCC looks forward to the coming National Stakeholder Forum on 2 June 2005 where the AVCC model and other proposals will be discussed and refined,” Professor Yerbury said.

The AVCC Statement is available from here

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