Issues to be explored
Some concerns have been raised by the sector that in evaluating and reporting research quality by discipline, ERA is discouraging interdisciplinary research.
Q3.31
ERA adequately captures and evaluates interdisciplinary research. Strongly agree; Agree; Neither agree nor disagree; Disagree; Strongly disagree. Please explain your answer. a. If you disagreed with the previous statement, how could interdisciplinary research best be accommodated? Please describe.
3.3.10 ERA and Indigenous research ERA has not evaluated Indigenous or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research separately from other disciplines. This is because Indigenous research was classified in the ANZSRC 2008 at the most granular level (six-digit Field of Research—see Section 3.3.1) and so was not evaluated separately in ERA. 12 For example, the ANZSRC 2008 Field of Research 1 30301 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education was evaluated within the specific discipline, 1303 Specialist Studies in Education and, in turn, within the broad discipline of 13 Education . The same applied to other areas of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research including health, environment, language and culture.
Issues to be explored
The ANZSRC 2020 includes a new broad discipline for Indigenous Studies that includes separate specific disciplines for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Māori, Pacific Peoples and other Indigenous research. According to the current ERA methodology, these disciplines would be evaluated at a university where the low-volume threshold is met. The ARC is investigating the best way to evaluate the new Indigenous Studies broad and specific disciplines in ERA, including whether universities will be able to meet the low-volume thresholds, and whether citation analysis or peer review is the best method for a particular discipline or set of disciplines. If there is insufficient volume in certain disciplines, it may be more feasible to combine them into one or two units of evaluation.
In ANZSRC 2020 Indigenous Studies is defined as research that significantly:
• relates to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Māori, Pacific, and other Indigenous peoples, nations, communities, languages, places, cultures or knowledges and/or • incorporates or utilises Indigenous methodologies/ways of knowing, theories, practice and/or is undertaken with or by these peoples, nations or communities. Note—as Indigenous Studies is a new classification in ANZSRC 2020, the ARC is unable to provide detailed modelling at this time regarding volume. We note that universities may also be unable to undertake their own modelling at this time. Stakeholders are invited to provide general comments regarding the evaluation of Indigenous studies; however, the ARC will need to undertake further data analysis and consultation prior to making a decision on any changes.
12 With the exception of 1802 Māori Law
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