Impact of ERA research assessment on university behaviour and their staff

Abstract

In early 2012, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) undertook research into the effects of the ERA upon university staff involved in research. This was an exploratory, multi-method study conducted between April and September 2012 that included a national survey of 39 senior research administrators, eight focus groups at four institutions, eleven recorded and non-recorded interviews at five institutions, and a Workshop in Melbourne that involved 35 Early Career Researchers.The study acknowledges that institutional behaviour around research performance is changing, but in ways that take autonomy away from researchers, that rewards managerialism, and thus that undermines the public interest, on the basis that the public interest is understood as delivering Australian society public benefit through a world-class, sustainable and diverse research sector. In particular, the primary concern that the NTEU has with the ERA is its susceptibility to misuse by institutions through poor research management practices, and the risk posed to the intergity of the ‘research fabric’ through attacks on intellectual freedo