Research/Australia
From Wikiversity
In order for higher education providers in Australia to receive federal government funding for research they must report on research activity defined as follows.
Contents |
[edit] Research
For the purposes of these specifications, research comprises:
- creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications
- any activity classified as research which is characterised by originality; it should have investigation as a primary objective and should have the potential to produce results that are sufficiently general for humanity's stock of knowledge (theoretical and/or practical) to be recognisably increased. Most higher education research work would qualify as research
- pure basic research, strategic basic research, applied research and experimental development.
Activities that support research and meet this definition of research include:
- provision of professional, technical, administrative or clerical support and/or assistance to staff directly engaged in research
- management of staff who are either directly engaged in research or are providing professional, technical or clerical support or assistance to those staff
- activities of students undertaking postgraduate research courses
- development of postgraduate research courses
- supervision of students undertaking postgraduate research courses.
Activities that do not support research must be excluded, such as:
- preparation for teaching
- scientific and technical information services
- general purpose or routine data collection
- standardisation and routine testing
- feasibility studies (except into research and experimental development projects)
- specialised routine medical care
- commercial, legal and administrative aspects of patenting, copyright or licensing activities
- routine computer programming, systems work or software maintenance (research and experimental development into applications software, new programming languages and new operating systems would normally meet the definition of research).
[edit] Publication categories
There are four publication categories counted in the 2009 HERDC Research Publications Return:
- Books
- Book Chapters
- Journal Articles
- Conference Publications.
Each category has a set of defined criteria which must be met for a research publication to be included. The 2009 HERDC Research Publications Return must report only research publications which are books, book chapters, journal articles and/or conference publications which meet the definition of research, are within the specifications of the reference year and are characterised by:
- substantial scholarly activity, as evidenced by discussion of the relevant literature, an awareness of the history and antecedents of work described, and provided in a format which allows a reader to trace sources of the work, including through citations and footnotes
- originality (i.e. not a compilation of existing works)
- veracity/validity through a peer validation process or by satisfying the commercial publisher processes
- increasing the stock of knowledge
- being in a form that enables dissemination of knowledge.
