The quality of research at Charles Darwin University has again been recognised, through the Federal Government’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative in 2012.
ERA 2012 is the second comprehensive review of research at Australian universities and the results show that there has been an improvement in research quality across Australia since the last assessment in 2010. In this context it is an endorsement of CDU’s research strength that CDU was ranked at or above world average on 71 per cent (10 of 14) of the research disciplines for which it was assessed.
The pinnacle of achievement was CDU’ s research in Clinical Science, conducted primarily through the Menzies School of Health Research, which received the highest possible score of five out of five, ranking the discipline’s performance as outstanding, and well above world standard.
Ecological Applications, Environmental Science and Management and Medical Microbiology received scores of four, a ranking which places these research disciplines above the world standard.
An additional six fields of research were ranked at three, indicating performance at world standard.
CDU Vice-Chancellor Professor Barney Glover said the overall result was a great endorsement of what outstanding results can be achieved from a small research intensive regional university.
“These results confirm CDU’s strengths in Health Science and Environmental Sciences, along with the productivity of the university’s researchers and the high quality and impact of their work,” Professor Glover said.
“CDU researchers collaborate across disciplines to develop strong research teams to tackle the complex research problems faced in the Northern Territory and its close neighbours of Timor Leste and Indonesia.
“We also place a high priority on research collaboration with universities and industry partners both in Australia and internationally.”
ERA outcomes are included as a key measure of research performance in the Government’s Compacts with universities.
This endorsement of CDU’s teaching and research follows on from CDU’s positioning among the world’s top 400 universities, for the second year in the prestigious Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2012. This ranking places the university in the top two per cent of the world’s universities.