Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Feature

How impact factors changed medical publishing—and science

BMJ 2007; 334 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39142.454086.AD (Published 15 March 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;334:561

Rapid Response:

Australia to use indices for research quality

The Australian Government will begin the Research Quality Framework
(RQF) assessment process in 2008, which will affect funding for
Universities from 2009. A proportion of the assessment will be based on
citation indices. The Quality Metrics Working Group recommended that
bibliometrics, citation data, grant income data and tiered ranking of
discipline-specific research outputs be used in the RQF assessment process
to assist rating research quality.

Whilst impact factors will not contribute solely to funding outcomes,
and particular fields of research will be examined using different
methods, it remains clear that impact factors will play a role in the
distribution of funds within the higher education sector in Australia in
the future.

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

21 March 2007
Peter J Woolf
Senior Research Officer
School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Population Health Building, Herston, 4006