The Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand today welcomed the Government and the ARC’s decision to remove the journal rankings (A*, A, B, C) in the ERA assessment exercise.
AIRAANZ President Dr Rae Cooper said this morning.
‘Research in industrial relations is vital to productivity, innovation and employee voice at work.’
Dr Cooper said
‘We hope that these changes will be associated with the development of broader indicators of research quality and impact’
‘It is vital that the important contribution made by scholars working in applied research, on issues of significant national importance, is recognised in research assessments’
Dr Cooper said:
‘After having surveyed the membership of AIRAANZ, the professional association of scholars in industrial relations, we were troubled by the evidence of misuse of journal rankings across most campuses’.
Dr Cooper said:
‘Our survey of members indicated that practices in universities were being driven by ARC ERA journal rankings. Our members reported significant negative effects on industrial relations researchers’ career development, promotion prospects and internal funding’.
Dr Cooper said:
‘Our members reported that this would be detrimental to both scholarship and practice in the field.’
Dr Cooper said
We welcome Minister Carr’s recognition that the ERA rankings have been 'deployed inappropriately' and were promoting 'undesirable behaviour in the management of research.'
Based on the results of the AIRAANZ survey, the organisation made submissions to the ARC ERA review process. As well as the narrow framework for judging ‘quality’, the submissions highlighted the relatively poor status of IR journals in the ERA 2010 rankings.
AIRAANZ President Dr Rae Cooper is available for comment rae.cooper@sydney.edu.au
To access a copy of the survey go to www.airaanz.org