Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Quality of Research) Determination 2021

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency hereby makes the following determination of matters relating to the quality of research, under section 59A of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 (the Act).

Dated:  25 June 2021

Dated:   12 July 2021    

The Hon Alan Tudge

Minister for Education and Youth

Contents

1  Name

2  Commencement

3  Authority

4  Definitions

5  Matters relating to the quality of research

1  Name

  This instrument is the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Quality of Research) Determination 2021.

2  Commencement

 (1) Each provision of this instrument specified in column 1 of the table commences, or is taken to have commenced, in accordance with column 2 of the table. Any other statement in column 2 has effect according to its terms.

Note: This table relates only to the provisions of this instrument as originally made. It will not be amended to deal with any later amendments of this instrument.

 (2) Any information in column 3 of the table is not part of this instrument. Information may be inserted in this column, or information in it may be edited, in any published version of this instrument.

3  Authority

  This instrument is made under section 59A of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011.

4  Definitions

Note: A number of expressions used in this instrument are defined in definitions section of the Act, including the following:

(a) regulated entity.

  In this instrument:

Act means the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011.

Excellence in Research for Australia means the national research evaluation framework, developed and administered by the Australian Research Council.

Engagement and Impact Assessment means the assessment of university researchers and their engagement with the end-users of research and their translation into economic, social, environmental, cultural and other impacts.

5  Matters relating to the quality of research

TEQSA must have regard to the following matters relating to the quality of research at a regulated entity for the purposes of section 59A of the Act:

(a)   results from Excellence in Research for Australia and the Engagement and Impact Assessment or any successor evaluations in Australia, and from comparable national and international research assessment exercises;

(b)   the volume of citations, and the quality of the publications in which the research output appeared;

(c)   whether research outputs have been peer reviewed and, where peer review has occurred, the nature of the peer review process;

(d)    outcomes from the prevailing practices for the measurement of research quality in a particular discipline;

(e)   the regulated entity’s governance framework for research including:

(i)            its policy framework for research; 

(ii)            its financial support for the pursuit of research;

(iii)            whether and how the governance framework for research is implemented.

(f)   the extent to which there is a research community at the regulated entity, including:

1. the number of researchers at the regulated entity and the proportion of time spent by those researchers on research at the regulated entity;
2. the relationship between individual researchers and the regulated entity;
3. the extent to which researchers are engaged in the research community at the regulated entity, and with their discipline in the national or international research community where relevant;
4. the extent to which research at the regulated entity is current or recent; and
5. the supervisory and study environment for research activity at the regulated entity; and

(g)    the success of the regulated entity in competitive research grant rounds and in obtaining other direct funding for research.