Purpose of this site

To assist authors and contributors in the Australian Higher Education sector to find appropriate Fields of Research codes to tag each of their research outputs with, for ERA — fast!

ERA and Fields of Research

Preparations for the Australian Research Council's (ARC's) Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2023 submission have commenced.

Background

ERA assessment time is one of rigorous scrutiny of the research outputs comprising a university's body of work, including:

• Traditional and non-traditional types;
• Those published (or made publicly available) within period 2016-2021 inclusive;
• Works meeting the ARC's definition of research;

— plus a range of other requirements, depending on the type of work. Research income is also included in the assessment, but the reference period is only the latter three years.

The staff of a university eligible to participate are limited by the ERA 2023 census date, 31 March 2022. Only staff with a current employment contract at the university on the specified date, along with their research outputs and income are deemed to be eligible.

Eligible staff at Australian Higher Education institutions with one or more research outputs fitting the above description may have a critical role to play.

Critical tasks for authors

1. Ensure the metadata for each of your works published in years 2016-2021 has been entered (by you, or by one of your institution's publications officers) and appears in your institution's research administration system;
   
   
2. Furnish the evidence required to substantiate the work – usually a pdf of the work itself – ensure pdfs are stored in a suitable location e.g. a university repository;
   
   
3. Next – integral to your university's ERA submission – is the tagging of each of your research outputs with between 1-3 fields of research* codes that best embody the content of the work – the information is typically entered into your institution's research administration system against each and every research output – an author of the work is by far the best-placed to action, because he or she is closest to the research.
   
   

* ANZSRC Fields of Research (FoR) codes specified by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Specifics around selecting and entering FoR codes

1. FoR codes should be assigned at the six-digit level by an author by-lined or ascribed to a work to provide the clarity necessary for determining the most appropriate four-digit assignments in the final ERA submission. They also permit enhanced reporting capability over four-digit encodings. Reiterating, it is crucial that FoR codes accurately reflect the field(s) of research embodied in the content of the work.
   
   
2. A rule of thumb is for the first author (from your institution appearing in a work's by-line) to do the tagging, however in some disciplines where the senior author is by-lined after others on a work, the senior author may instead tag the work.
   
   
3. Each FoR code used to tag a research output is required to be accompanied by a percentage weighting.
   
   
4. The smallest percentage weighting able to be applied to a work is 20%.
   
   
5. The ERA Submission Journal List for the relevant assessment period specifies up to three FoRs at the four-digit level for each journal, which does inform entry of FoR codes against research outputs.
   
   
6. Entry of FoR codes against research outputs is not bound to the FoR codes listed against the journal. To paraphrase the "reassignment exception" (described in past ERA Submission Guidelines), a FoR code representative of a work's research – that does not have as basis one of the four-digit FoR codes recorded against the journal in the ERA Submission Journal List – may be recorded against the research output at 66% or greater.
   
   
7. The percentages applied to a work's FoR codes must tally to 100.
   
   

Disclaimer: The above information provided in good faith should not be relied upon for any purpose, as it contains inaccuracies and omissions. Please be sure to read and understand official ERA submission guidelines, technical specifications and other relevant documentation for the current assessment period.