USQ research meets world standards

USQ research has been rated as world-class by an independent review panel

Research at USQ has been rated as world-class by an independent review panel that assessed the University's research outcomes in a nationwide study.

Undertaken by the Australian Research Council (ARC), the study, which is the first of its kind ever undertaken, mapped the areas of research carried out by Australian universities over a six-year period from 2003.

On a national level, the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) study determined USQ as performing world-class research in the four clusters of agriculture and veterinary sciences, mathematical sciences, physical sciences, and accounting and auditing.

USQ Vice Chancellor and President, Professor Bill Lovegrove, said the University had done exceptionally well in comparison to many of the regional and distance education institutions, and in certain areas compared well with metropolitan universities that usually captured the majority of Australia’s competitive research funding.

'Being in one of Australia’s largest agricultural regions, a lot of our emphasis has been in assisting the farming community with water management issues, crop disease controls and improving soil and general environmental sustainability,' Professor Lovegrove said.

'We have one of the world’s leading researchers in climatology and the work that is being done through the Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments assists in creating thriving regional economies around the globe based on world-leading practices and the management of natural resources.'

Professor Lovegrove said during the past few years USQ had been making a concerted effort to increase and expand its research efforts.

'It’s always difficult for regional universities to attract the big research dollars that the more established institutions receive, but to see that USQ is on par with world research outputs in a number of niche areas is very pleasing.'

Professor Lovegrove said because of USQ’s efforts to promote its research strengths and attract high quality staff, the University had also been rated as meeting the national standard for research outputs in 10 other research groups, including medical and health sciences, education, law, business, and in creative arts, language, communication and cultural studies.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Graham Baker, who oversees USQ’s research efforts, said the ERA results were welcome, as they showed the University’s strategy to build world-class research in a number of niche areas was proving successful.

He said apart from the world-class rankings given to the University’s niche research, the University’s mainstream disciplines such as Engineering, Science and Psychology continued to underpin the excellent research outcomes achieved by USQ’s ratings in the national study.

Professor Baker said the areas of scale and focus around sustainable natural resources and agriculture, modern technologies and sustainable business have been recognised through the ERA outcomes.

'The ERA ratings demonstrate that the University has developed a number of key strengths that are now being highlighted by the quality and relevance of our research work,' he said.

The ratings are based on the pioneering Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) report, which assessed research activity and quality in 41 higher education institutions.

Contact Details:
Dr Aidan Burke, Director Corporate Communications,  +61 7 4631 2313, 0412647004