SCIENCE POLICY
Project aims
This project seeks to provide Australia with an effective means of benchmarking research performance in emerging areas of science and technology. Benchmarks of this type will provide a baseline against which the outcomes from subsequent public sector investments in research can be assessed, particularly in the context of national research priorities. They will also help to identify areas of weakness in research performance that may require attention by government.
The project has the following primary objectives:
- to adapt the benchmarking methodology developed in the United States by the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPUP) to suit the Australian context;
- to pilot this adapted methodology by examining Australian research performance in nanotechnology;
- on the basis of the findings from the pilot exercise define a benchmarking methodology for general use by government departments and agencies in assessing research performance in emerging areas of science and technology.
This pilot project will also allow the following secondary objectives to be met:
- to assist the ARC in assessing Australia's current and future research performance in one of its National Research Priority goals – Frontier Technologies;
- to generate useful information for use across Federal and state/territory government departments and agencies, higher education and the business sector, on the current performance of Australian nanotechnology research;
- to identify possible weaknesses in Australian nanotechnology research activity that could prevent Australia from benefiting from this key emerging area of science and technology research;
- to assess the effectiveness of the links between Australian nanotechnology research groups and overseas research groups.
