Feedback on Academic Performance Standards for 2016-2018

The continued improvement in the international rankings of Monash University and FMNHS is due in no small part to the attention paid to the quality of our academic staff. Policies such as academic strengthening and talent enhancement have emphasised research quality and performance. Research standards in the Faculty are reviewed on a biennial basis and we are due to announce new ones at the beginning of the academic year in 2016.

Accordingly, I and staff in my office have reviewed current standards and developed new ones as starting points for discussion and review by heads of academic units. You will recall that there are 6 discipline streams that cover the breadth of research in the faculty:-

Laboratory-based research

Clinical research

Public health research

Nursing and allied health research

Psychology research

Social and educational research

In the attached document, there is both a Minimum and Aspirational target for each performance measure. ​The proposed new targets are shown in red (and will be the same as the current targets where no change is recommended), while the current targets are shown in black (inside parentheses) where applicable.

As Heads it may be that there are two or three disciplines present in your Unit and if so, I would ask you to review all relevant disciplines and provide your comments on the proposed standards. 

General comments on the new standards

Research outputs

Weighted publication points - This has been dropped from the standard. Because of the increasing prevalence of multi-author and multi-disciplinary teams in many disciplines, this measure appeared to act as a disincentive to collaborate appropriately. 

ERA A/A* Publications - This has been dropped and replaced with a top quartile measure of journal quality. A score is given for the percentage of publications published in the top 25% of discipline specific journals. Where a journal may appear in several disciplines then appearance in the top 25% of journals for any field is viewed as satisfying this standard. 

Income

The faculty recognises the increasing difficulty of obtaining Category 1 funding with the freezing of ARC and NHMRC funding. Accordingly, targets for some of the disciplines such as laboratory-based, clinical, public health and psychology have been kept at the previous level. The two other disciplines which had extremely low target levels have had some increases reflecting the need for an improving standard of performance in these disciplines.

HDR targets

​​Given that the total number of HDR students has not increased for the faculty as a whole, there have been only minor adjustments to these targets​ for most disciplines. 

Possible other measures

There are some other measures that have been suggested as useful measures of quality, impact and performance. In particular, citation numbers and completion rates have been suggested and I am interested in how these could possibly be used. The problem as I see it is that our performance measures are used to assess recent performance (last 1-3 years typically) but citations relate back to articles published some years ago and completion rates relate to students recruited 4 or more years previously. If you have suggestions please let me know. 

Request for f​eedback

Different heads may approach this in different ways, reviewing with small working groups in your discipline or in staff meetings. I would be interested in your feedback by 14 December 2015 at the latest.

Senior Deputy Dean and Director of Research Professor Ross Coppel is happy to discuss in the interim by phone (99029147​) or in person.