Excellence in Innovation for Australia

A consortium of Australian universities is assessing the value of research with the "Excellence in Innovation for Australia" (EIA). This is by the Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN) and the Group of Eight Universities (Go8 includes the ANU). Essentially this is a marketing exercise to give case studies in plain English (which a business person or politician could understand) of how university research has helped Australian industry and the community. The topics selected for initial case studies are:

1. Defence
2. Economic Development
3. Society
4. Environment

The Australian project is modeled on the UK REF Impact Pilot Study (November 2010). Australian universities have until the end of of August, 2012 to submit case studies, with panel considering submissions by the end of October. There is no date set for the results to be published and the slow pace of the work is at odds with the objective of showing universities to be of practical use. A more real world approach would have been for the universities to publish their case studies and then invite industry, as well as academic, to comment on them and then vote which are the best.