Government research data put UQ in nation's top two

The University of Queensland is now officially one of Australia's top two universities for research.

The University has moved from fourth place nationally in 1995, 1996 and 1997 to second in 1998 in the provisional allocation of research quantum funding, the Federal Government's annual allocation based on research performance.

Nationally, the University of Queensland achieved funding of $22.611 million, after the University of Melbourne with $26.833 million.

This success represents an increase of $2 million for the University of Queensland from $20.6 million in 1995, compared with an increase of approximately $200,000 for the University of Melbourne over the same period.

The provisional allocations also show clear leadership by UQ in Queensland.

The University of Queensland received 65 percent of the total allocation to the State of $34.732 million, six times the allocation to the nearest competitor.
University Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay said the University was a quality research institution performing outstandingly in research across a diverse number of disciplinary strengths.

He said while the University had been successful across the board in research quantum components, it was particularly pleasing that its most outstanding strength was in a key measure - competitive scheme for industry and other research funding - where it had topped the nation.

The research quantum is the research component of university operating grants allocated by the Federal Government on a performance basis to support research not directly linked to teaching and research training.

Since 1995 the research quantum has been allocated on the basis of a composite research index that measures institutions' research performance.

The index measures both research input and research output measures. Input includes national competitive grants funding; other public sector research funding; and industry and other research funding.

Output includes numbers of research and scholarly publications across an agreed set of categories; and the number of higher research completions.

Different weightings are assigned to each composite index component.

In provisional research quantum funding alloctions, the University of Queensland was one of only four institutions to exceed $20 million. In Queensland, it received almost two-thirds of the $34.732 million for the State.

According to figures contained in the Higher Education Funding Report for the 1998-2000 Triennium released by the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, universities to exceed $20 million as part of the total $219.4 million research quantum available for 1998 were:

- the University of Melbourne $26.833 million;
- the University of Queensland $22.611 million;
- the University of New South Wales $22.586 million;
- the University of Sydney $20.912 million.

Between them, the four universities attracted almost $93 million or 42 percent of the total amount available for 1998.

Institutions receiving the next six highest amounts were: Monash University ($16.692 million), the University of Western Australia ($14.471 million), the University of Adelaide ($14.2 million), Australian National University ($6.48 million), Flinders University of South Australia ($6.213 million) and University of Newcastle ($6.431 million).

The pre-print copy of the Higher Education Funding Report for the 1998-2000 Triennium is at the DEETYA Web site: http://www.deetya.gov.au/divisions/hed/highered/otherpub/fund98.pdf

For more information, contact University Director, Research Services, Jan Massey (telephone 07 3365 3640).

jlatest reserach quantum