HERDC and Research Block Funding

The Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) and information relating to student data are sent to the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research each year by all Australian universities. This data forms the basis for calculating the distribution of the research block grants, as well as providing high-level performance data about each university.

• The Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC)
• Higher Education Block Funding
• 2008 Block Grant Distribution
• Changes in Block Grant Returns
• What about the Future?
• Useful Links
  • Appendix A: Definition of Research
  • Appendix B: Eligible Expenditure Against 2007 Block Grants (RIBG, IGS and RTS
• How to Calculate RIBG (PDF Presentation)

The Higher Education Research Data Collection

At the end of June each year, Australian Universities report to the Commonwealth on their research income and research publications for the previous calendar year.

Income
Research income is divided into four categories:

Category 1: Australian Competitive Research Grants
Category 2:Other Government Income
Category 3:Industry, International and Other Income
Category 4: CRC Income

All income reported must conform to the detailed specifications published each year. Broadly speaking, the income must have been provided for activities which meet the DEST definition of research (see Appendix A) and have been receipted in the previous calendar year (i.e. the 30 June 2008 return refers to income received in 2008).
The finance collection is done in Finance and Business Services and Chris Clery will be doing the next collection. The process is:

1. Extract income data from the ledger
2. Analyse the data by fund attribute/composite code and income code
3. Collate and categorise all the eligible research income data using the codes and referring to the original file in borderline cases and consulting with the Research office where necessary.
4. Summarise the data and produce a spreadsheet for checking by each budget unit
5. Argue with the budget units over the results
6. Have everything ready for the auditors by mid-June
7. Submit the return to DEEWR at the end of June

Step 2 is of the utmost importance for anyone involved in the administration of external research funding. If the correct coding is used for the scheme at the time it is set-up in ARIES is requested and contracts are drawn up so that the activities being undertaken are clearly documented as research, the HERDC collection is much easier and the ANU runs far less risk of mis-reporting or under-reporting.
As the HERDC is audited, the documentation of the contract will ideally be of a clarity and simplicity that will make is easy for the auditors to accept.

Publications
There are four categories of publications currently collected for the HERDC:

A1 Books
B1 Book Chapters
C1 Journal Articles
E1 Conference papers

As with research income, DEEWR publishes detailed specifications DEEWR for what can and cannot be included. Briefly, all publications must be the first publication of results etc relating to a piece of work which meets the DEEWR definition of research. Books must be published by a commercial publisher, as defined by DEST while journal articles and conference papers must be refereed.

The final return to DEST is in the form of a publications score for each category. The score for each item is based on:

• the proportion of authors who are from ANU; and
• a weighting according to the type of publication (Books =5, all others =1)

The validation and co-ordination of the 2008 collection of 2007 data will be done by Margaret and Alanah in the Research Office. The process is:

1. Enter details of publications and research outputs into ARIES. This is done by Departmental Administrators in the local areas, attaching a PDF of the publication to the database record wherever possible.
2. Send cover sheets, copies of articles not available as PDFs etc to the Research Office.
3. Validate data entry and publication eligibility (Research Office)
4. Summarise the data and produce a spreadsheet for checking by each budget unit
5. Argue with the budget units over the results
6. Do the final calculations
7. Submit the return to DEST at the end of June

The Publications Collection is not audited every year. By May each year we hope to be informed as to whether or not we will be audited. The last audit was done in 2002 on the 2001 collection.

Higher Education Block Funding

Each year, Australian Universities receive three Block Grants from the Commonwealth for research:

• Research infrastructure Block Grants
• Institutional Grants Scheme
• Research Training Scheme

These grants are based on a series of formulae relating to the universities’ relative research performance. Each grant has particular conditions relating to how they can be spent (see Appendix B). The grants are all calculated in a similar way but with different parameters. RIBG is the simplest, with each institutions share of the total pool depending on their share of Australian Competitive Research Grant income REPORTED in the previous two HERDC returns.

IGS and RTS have similar formulae but with more inputs:

IGS 2008

• 10% of total IGS distributed according to average publications 2005/2006
• 60% of total IGS distributed according to average total research income 2005/2006
• 30% of IGS distributed according to weighted RTS HDR load for 2006 (weighted high-cost/low-cost)

RTS 2008

• 75% of total funding distributed according to previous year’s outcomes
• ~25% of total funding distributed as follows:
  • 10% distributed according to average publications 2005/2006
  • 40% distributed according to average total research income 2005/2006
  • 50% distributed according to average weighted 2005/6 HDR completions(weighted both high-cost/low-cost and PhD/Masters)

2008 Block Grant Distribution

RIBG: 70% distributed as earned
ANU received $0.23 per $ of Australian Competitive Grants Register Income, averaged over 2005/6.
Schools, Faculties and Centres received $0.16 per $ of Australian Competitive Grants Register Income, averaged over 2005/6.

IGS: 80% distributed as earned
ANU Received:

• $0.09 per $ of research income averaged over 2005/6.
• $688 per publication point averaged over 2005/6.
• $1220 per 2006 WEFTSU

Schools, Faculties and Centres received:

• $0.07 per $ of research income averaged over 2005/6.
• $550 per publication point averaged over 2005/6.
• $976 per 2006 target WEFTSU

RTS: ANU received a total of $30,824,261 RTS funding for 2008. $1 million was allocated to the scholarships budget rather than to specific budget units. The rest, $29,824,261 was distributed to budget units according to their weighted average RTS load (EFTSL) for 2006 and 2007:

• $20,000 (the value of an APA stipend) per EFTSL for low-cost
• $32,243 per EFTSL (determined from remainder of available income) for high-cost
• Archaeology was coded as high-cost for this calculation.

Changes in Block Grant Returns - an example using Research Income

The Research office is often asked to calculate what the RIBG or IGS payment is likely to be for a particular grant or for an area of the ANU. The further into the future we have to look, the more uncertain the result. The table and chart below show RIBG and IGS returns to the ANU since 2002.

The long-term average is close to steady state at 2002 values, the average for the last three years is a 10% drop in returns each year.
The reason for the drop in returns is that there is a fix pool of money for distribution each year, but the amount reported by the universities can vary. As the amount reported grows, the return per dollar reported falls.

What about the Future?

The RQF as proposed by the Howard Government has been abolished by the Rudd Government which will undertake a new round of consultation to develop a new proposal for evaluating research quality. The new system is know as the ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia) and will be run through the Australian Research Council. There is also a broader proposal being developed to fund universities through individual agreements or “compacts” which will be designed to encourage universities to develop excellence in their areas of specialisation. The funding impacts of these initiatives and how they will relate to existing funding mechanisms are not yet know. The first year’s funding likely to be affected is 2010.

Useful Links

• DEEWR Higher Education Research Data Collection