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Research Evidence for Grants and Promotion

A 'how to' guide on information and tools for capturing evidence of, and describing, research outputs.

Introduction

The activity of measuring and describing the quality and impact of academic research is increasingly important in Australia and around the world.

Applications for grant funding or career advancement may require an indication of both the quantity of your research output and of the quality of your research. It may be necessary to use analysis tools, such as SciVal, InCites or Altmetric Explorer to produce a spectrum of evidence of the reach of your research, your collaboration, and how it may be benchmarked.

To ensure the evidence you are gathering is accurate your author profiles need to be up-to-date. This is because the data from analysis tools depends on other sources, for example, SciVal data is extracted from the Scopus database. For more information on author profiles consult the library guide: Research Profiles and ORCID iDs.

The purpose of this guide is to:

  • Provide information on tools that may be used to capture evidence of research outputs
  • Outline the steps to identify these metrics, and
  • Provide example statements that explain the metrics in the context of your research.

Metrics and your discipline

Not all metrics will be relevant for telling the story of your research – it will depend on your discipline and research outputs. For example:

  • Journal articles are the primary output for many disciplines
  • Monographs and book chapters are particularly important for many disciplines within the humanities and social sciences
  • Conference contributions are important for computer scientists and engineers
  • Artworks, artefacts, and practice-based outputs are likely to play an important role in arts-based disciplines
  • Other outputs might include audio-visual recordings, technical drawings, patents, website content, software, exhibitions, working papers, research reports, policy documents, etc.

For more information on particular metrics consult the library guides: Research metrics and Altmetrics.

Open Research

The principles of Open Research are important in recognising more than bibliometrics in research evidence. A story in University World News explains that "The Netherlands will officially stop using the so-called ‘impact factor’ in all its hiring and promotions and judge its researchers by their commitment to open science, teamwork, public engagement, and data sharing."

For more information on Open Research consult the library guide: Open Research.