The Distribution of Research Performance Across Australian Universities, 1992-2003, and Its Implications for Higher Education Funding Models

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Type Of Work

• Scholarly edition

Abstract

• We contribute to the debate on research performance by

  comparing the distribution of research inputs and outputs across

  Australian universities during 1992-2003. We have calculated annual

  Gini coefficients for various performance measures and Lorenz curves

  for the final year of the study. Various findings are evident.

  Research-input measures have remained relatively unevenly distributed

  across universities. Output measures were more evenly distributed

  and this exhibited a gradual and rather consistent decline through

  time, supporting the view that the research output is being generated

  gradually more equally across Australia’s universities. Excluding

  the "Group of Eight" (Go8) universities, results in a more even

  distribution of performance. However, in 2003 this group took the

  lion’s share of research inputs but produced a smaller share of outputs.

  Our findings are relevant to current funding policy discussion.

UOW Authors

•   O'Brien, Martin
•   Ville, Simon

Publication Date

• 2005

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