The Australian Research Council (ARC) this week released the submission documents for the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2015. The 2015 guidelines are very similar to the 2012 guidelines with only a few significant changes.
The first change is that there is now a requirement to submit more data not directly related to the evaluation. For example institutions are now required to submit data on staff gender; which publications are available in open access; and, information on the time and cost associated with submitting the ERA data for the institution. The problem with requesting these sorts of data is that each new requirement costs an institution time and money to collect and report. This means an increased cost to the whole sector for information that is not actually going to be used for the evaluation process - it is just for information.
A second change is that institutions are now able to write to the ARC regarding staff on less than 0.4 FTE contracts and argue a case for their inclusion (and the inclusion of their publications). This is a good move as it reduces the negative impact on fractional staff - a cohort that includes more female academics than male - thus shifting towards a more equitable process (although still not ideal). I wrote about why I thought there was a gender equity issue here:
Institutions will be required to submit their ERA 2015 data in early 2015.
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