The Australian Research Council (ARC) today announced the
full membership of the Research Evaluation Committee (REC) for the Excellence
in Research for Australia (ERA) 2015 initiative.
There are 149 members in total spread across 8 discipline clusters. The majority of membership is drawn from Australian
universities (142) with a small number from international institutions (7). The discipline
cluster with the highest number of members was Humanities and Creative Arts
(23) followed by Medical and Health Sciences (22), see Table 1.Table 1. REC membership by discipline cluster
Cluster
|
REC members
|
Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA)
|
23
|
Medical and Health Sciences (MHS)
|
22
|
Education and Human Society (EHS)
|
20
|
Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences (PCE)
|
18
|
Biological and Biotechnological Sciences (BB)
|
17
|
Engineering and Environmental Sciences (EE)
|
17
|
Economics and Commerce (EC)
|
16
|
Mathematical, Information and Computing Sciences (MIC)
|
16
|
Total
|
149
|
The gender balance is uneven with only 28 percent of the membership being female and 72 percent male. Of the 8 chairs of the panels there are 2 females and 6 males.
Table 2. REC membership by gender
Gender
|
REC members
|
%
|
Female
|
42
|
28%
|
Male
|
107
|
72%
|
Total
|
149
|
100%
|
Table 3 shows the breakdown of membership by gender and by discipline with the best ratio of male to female members being in Education and Human Society (EHS) and Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA) and the worst ratio being in Mathematical, Information and Computing Science (MIC) and Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences (PCE).
Table 3. REC membership by gender and discipline
|
Discipline
|
Female
|
Male
|
Total
|
|
EHS
|
9
|
11
|
20
|
|
HCA
|
8
|
15
|
23
|
|
MHS
|
6
|
16
|
22
|
|
EC
|
4
|
12
|
16
|
|
BB
|
4
|
13
|
17
|
|
EE
|
4
|
13
|
17
|
|
PCE
|
4
|
14
|
18
|
|
MIC
|
3
|
13
|
16
|
|
Total
|
42
|
107
|
149
|
The eastern states made up around 72 percent of the total membership with the highest number coming from NSW (54), Victoria (35) and Queensland (17).
Table 3. REC membership by State
|
State
|
REC members
|
|
NSW
|
53
|
|
Vic
|
35
|
|
Qld
|
17
|
|
WA
|
15
|
|
SA
|
12
|
|
ACT
|
8
|
|
Intl
|
7
|
|
Multi
|
1
|
|
Tas
|
1
|
|
Total
|
149
|
The Group of Eight universities had a major representation in
the membership with 70 members (48%). University of Newcastle (9) and Macquarie
University (7) were well represented in the membership for universities outside
of the Go8.
Table 4. REC membership by university|
University
|
REC members
|
|
The University of Sydney
|
11
|
|
The University of Western Australia
|
11
|
|
The University of Melbourne
|
11
|
|
The University of New South Wales
|
10
|
|
Monash University
|
9
|
|
The University of Newcastle
|
9
|
|
Macquarie University
|
7
|
|
The University of Queensland
|
7
|
|
The University of Adelaide
|
6
|
|
University of Wollongong
|
5
|
|
Swinburne University of Technology
|
5
|
|
The Australian National University
|
5
|
|
University of Technology, Sydney
|
4
|
|
Flinders University
|
4
|
|
University of Western Sydney
|
4
|
|
RMIT University
|
4
|
|
Griffith University
|
4
|
|
University of Canberra
|
3
|
|
Curtin University of Technology
|
3
|
|
James Cook University
|
2
|
|
The University of New England
|
2
|
|
Deakin University
|
2
|
|
University of South Australia
|
2
|
|
Royal Holloway, University of London
|
2
|
|
Queensland University of Technology
|
2
|
|
La Trobe University
|
2
|
|
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH Germany
|
1
|
|
Edith Cowan University
|
1
|
|
Bond University
|
1
|
|
Victoria University
|
1
|
|
University of Edinburgh
|
1
|
|
The University of Waikato
|
1
|
|
University of Tasmania
|
1
|
|
Australian Catholic University
|
1
|
|
Federation University Australia
|
1
|
|
Tilburg, The Netherlands
|
1
|
|
Imperial College London
|
1
|
|
Southern Cross University
|
1
|
|
The University of the Sunshine Coast
|
1
|
|
Total
|
149
|
