Move Towards World-Significant Research
[ Research Review 0307 ]
Under Melbourne’s Growing Esteem strategy the University will invest more in areas of strong performance and potential, where there is scope for significant contribution and the greatest impact. This new focus has coincided with the Federal Government’s Research Quality Framework (RQF) exercise – an initiative designed to assess the quality and impact of research in Australia as a basis for allocating a proportion of future infrastructure funding.
Research and Research Training Quality Taskforce
As a means of implementing Growing Esteem and preparing for the RQF, a Research and Research Training Quality (RRTQ) Taskforce was established early in 2006 to investigate and make recommendations to improve the quality and impact of University research and research training. The RRTQ Taskforce was also charged with responding to the 2005 Australian Universities Quality Agency recommendation that the University refine its research priorities. The Taskforce Report, delivered late in 2006, offers a comprehensive review of research performance at Melbourne by department and discipline. In carrying out its assessment, the RRTQ Taskforce audited departments utilising two sets of benchmarking studies which collectively employed both quality and impact research indicators, mediated for size.
Overall the results were most encouraging with more than 90 per cent of the University’s departments or disciplines ranked in the top three in the nation, and within that group around half being the disciplinary leader.
Nonetheless, the RRTQ Taskforce report identified some important weaknesses in research performance. Various areas for improvement identified by the Taskforce will be addressed by Faculty Improvement Plans for ongoing implementation from 2007.
The findings of the Taskforce have provided the University with a clearer understanding of future research priorities. Measurement of research activity at the University will be enhanced through new faculty and staff-level specific research-active definitions.
Potential new research areas for additional investment have been identified.
Citations
As part of its focus on the citation profile of the University, the RRTQ Taskforce benchmarked various research publications for both quality and impact. In June high-achieving research staff led a workshop emphasising the increasing importance of citations as a research indicator and the need to enhance the publication and citation profile of the University.
A subsequent workshop focussed on publication strategies for early career researchers.
In addition, in a move to make Melbourne research more readily accessible, the RRTQ Taskforce recommended that the University of Melbourne Eprint Repository (UMER), an open access publishing tool, be upgraded and expanded. UMER is already well established but is being converted to DigiTool for management of the digital resources. UMER will provide ready global access to the University’s research output. A 118 per cent growth in the number of items added to the Repository was achieved in 2006 with the repository now housing 1533 publications. Over the year there was an 82 per cent increase in usage of UMER, with the highest usage from the United States.
Research Infrastructure
World-significant research is facilitated by internationally competitive research infrastructure.
Particular emphasis was placed in 2006 on development of comprehensive electronic research information databases through Themis Research, the research component of Themis – the University integrated information management system – and through more sophisticated e-research capabilities.
Of particular significance, the Themis Researcher Profile module was developed, enabling the University research community to profile their research with all relevant information stored in a central location, providing easy access and management from a single repository. The Themis Research Profile (www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au) provides an invaluable resource in the identification of staff with specific expertise and linkages, creating enhanced opportunities for academic staff to form multidisciplinary, collaborative research relationships and improving exposure to media, sponsors, potential Research Higher Degree students and other external stakeholders.
2006 also saw the development and implementation of all other core Themis Research Modules, namely, Grants, Contracts and Consultancies (Submissions, Proposals and Agreements), Human Ethics, Animal Ethics and Publications, with the latter three modules also available for use by RHD students.
E-research developments include:
• at the national level:
– as part of the DEST funded project Australian Partnerships for Sustainable Repositories, the audit by the Information Services division of 11 data-intensive research communities from diverse disciplines at the University. The audit outcomes highlighted important information about general sustainability issues of research data management policies and practices at the University and will be used to establish plans for 2007 and beyond, and
– the bringing together of national experts for a facilitated series of workshops on the issue of research data management (ownership, re-use, curation and custodianship) for the Platforms for Collaboration Working Group of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). The deliberations of these workshops will inform the distribution of more than $70 million of NCRIS funding for further development of national collaborative research infrastructure over the coming years.
• At the state level, involvement in a successful bid for Stage 1 ($4.75 million) of the Victorian e‑Research Strategic Initiative – a new ($10 million) State Government initiative to accelerate Victoria’s e‑research capability in order to facilitate collaboration and cross-disciplinary research efforts using advanced information and communication technology.
Research infrastructure at the University was boosted with the opening of the National Information Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) Victoria Research Laboratory (VRL). NICTA is a collaborative government-funded research initiative in ICT to which the University is a significant contributor with a commitment of $37 million in a total investment of $137 million. The primary research areas being explored by the University in the VRL include network information processing, network technologies and sensor networks.
Other major investments in research infrastructure were made through the NCRIS, Bio21 Institute, Australian Synchrotron Project, Victorian and Australian Partnerships in Advanced Computing, University Square and a number of specialised research centres.
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