ATSE welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Australian Research Council’s consultation on the methodology used for the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) and Engagement and Impact (EI) assessments.
ATSE has also contributed to the previous ERA EI review in 2020 (Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, 2020) and, more recently, the consultation on the inclusion of preprints in ERA (Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, 2022).
This submission puts forward a suggestion for a more granular ranking scale and endorses the use of the two new citation metrics as advanced in the consultation paper. This submission also considers broader issues regarding the definition of “world standard”, improving end-user engagement with higher education research, and the future purpose of ERA.
Recommendation 1: Adopt a new ERA rating scale in which current levels 1 – 4 are retained, and current level 5 is split into two levels, the higher of which is defined as the top 10% of institutions.
Recommendation 2: Use the new citation metrics HPI and RCI to support implementation of the new rating scale.
