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Rudd Government cancels Research Quality Framework

Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, today announced that the Rudd Government will cease implementation of the Research Quality Framework (RQF).

The RQF was developed by the Howard Government in an attempt to measure the quality and impact of research conducted in Australian universities.

Senator Carr said cancellation of the RQF was because it is fundamentally flawed.

"The RQF is poorly designed, administratively expensive and relies on an ‘impact’ measure that is unverifiable and ill-defined," he said.

Senator Carr said the Rudd Government is committed to a new streamlined, internationally-recognised, research quality assurance process using metrics or other agreed quality measures appropriate to each research discipline.

"The Rudd Government will work hand in hand with researchers, and their institutions, to develop a robust approach to research quality assurance that is internationally recognised to be of the highest quality.

"This approach will take advantage of the existing work that has been done on metrics development but also make sure that robust quality measures are developed for the humanities, creative arts, and the social sciences," he said.

Senator Carr confirmed that the 2008 funding for the RQF project (approximately $15.6 million) under the Australian Scheme for Higher Education Repositories (ASHER) Program and the Implementation Assistance Program (IAP) will still be received by universities.

"I want to implement a less cumbersome and less costly process that still provides the Australian Government and taxpayers with an efficient and transparent process. A process that ensures valuable research dollars are allocated to the university sector using internationally verifiable measures," Senator Carr said.

The Rudd Government will announce early next year a timeline for implementing its new approach to research quality assurance, as well as the process for consulting with the sector on appropriate quality measures.

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