Research Diversification of Australian Universities and its Relationship with Citation-based Performance and Ranking
Alireza Abbasi1, Hamid R Jamali1★★ Corresponding author
- 1School of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra, AUSTRALIA.
- 2School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, AUSTRALIA.
CORRESPONDENCE
Hamid R Jamali
School of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra, AUSTRALIA.
Received: 12-02-2020; Revised: 18-06-2020; Accepted: 02-07-2020.
Volume 9, Issue 3 · pp. 236–244 · PUBLISHED · DOI: 10.5530/jscires.9.3.31
ABSTRACT
This research aims to investigate whether universities should go for greater diversity in their research or specialise and concentrate their research and try to only excel in a few fields. To answer this question, we assess the association between universi ties’ research diversification, measured by breadth and depth and their impact and ranking. Universities’ diversification is measured based on the disciplinary ratings of universities in Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA 2018). Research output and citation impact data from In Cites database were used for the analysis. Breadth is measured by the ratio of the fields in which a university is active to the total number of fields. Depth is related to the ratings a university has received for its research fields. The results show a significant positive relationship between both university diversi fication indicators developed in this study and most of the university citation-based performance metrics and research ranking measures. In other words, universities which are active in more disciplines and are rated highly in ERA in terms of their research activity in those disciplines are more likely to have better citation impacts and rankings. Most universities appeared to be either in the high-breadth high-depth zone (including all Group of Eight universities) or in the low-breadth low-depth zone (mainly regional universities).
KEYWORDS
REFERENCES
As publishedShowing references and in-text citations exactly as published.
Cite this article
SELECT FORMAT
Abbasi, A., & Jamali, H. R. (). Research Diversification of Australian Universities and its Relationship with Citation-based Performance and Ranking. Journal of Scientometric Research, 9(3), 236–244. https://doi.org/10.5530/jscires.9.3.31