ACDE Report on Educational Funding Research Trends released

The Australian Educational Research Funding Trends Report can now be downloaded at Final Report – Review of Category 1 Grants Project.

The report presents a stocktake and review of Category 1 grants1 in educational research in Australia from 2009-2017.

The focus of the review centred on the Field of Research (FoR) codes, which are most successful in terms of securing Category 1 grants in educational research, the amount of funding provided, common themes and gaps and the extent of transdisciplinary and collaborative research in education.

The stocktake and review revealed the following significant findings:

• The Australian Research Council is the principal funding source for Category 1 educational

research projects in Australia;

• 130313 (Teacher Education and Professional Development of Educators) is the most

successful Field of Research code at the six-digit level and 1303 (Specialist Studies in

Education) at the four-digit level. However, there has been a downward trend since 2015

in success (in obtaining Category 1 funding) across all education and closely related

education Fields of Research codes;

• The Group of Eight (Go8) Universities are the dominant administering universities of

Category 1 funding in educational research. The Regional Universities Network has

performed particularly poorly revealing a substantial gap between metropolitan and

regional universities;

• Connections with Australia’s national research and science priorities and global

megatrends are weak, identifying a significant gap in educational research in Australia;

• There is a significant correlation between an academic’s gender (as the lead chief

investigator or project leader) and their university grouping in obtaining Category 1

funding in education. Male academics at Go8 universities have the most success, whereas

women who either work at Go8 universities or have no university grouping are less

successful in obtaining and leading Category 1 grants. Again, this signals a significant

metropolitan-regional divide; and

• Nearly one-third of all projects had no partners, which, given the new emphasis on

university and industry-focused research is a concern for educational research in

Australia. The results revealed the Victorian Department of Education and Training as the

leading non-university partner across all projects, demonstrating a significant

commitment of the Victorian Government towards educational research in Australia.

 

The Report data can be accessed here.