HDR End-user Engagement Reporting
The Australian Government Department of Education and Training (DET) has introduced new HDR indicators to be collected from 2018 under the Higher Education Data Collection program. The aim of the new data requirement is to improve monitoring of the research training system and to support new research block grant funding arrangements in response to the Australian Council Of Learned Academies (ACOLA) Review of Australia's Research Training System. The University has to report every time a Higher Degree by Research student engages with an industry or is supervised by someone from an industry or is funded by someone from an industry.
Research end‑user is defined as an individual, community or organisation external to academia that will directly use or directly benefit from the output, outcome or results of your research. This could be in Australia or overseas, and includes businesses, governments, non‑governmental organisations, communities and community organisations.
Examples of research end-users includes Australian Institute of Sport; Commonwealth Bank; Medicines Sans Frontiers; The Canberra Hospital; The Guardian; Woods Bagot Architecture; Australian Conservation Foundation; Uniting Care; KPMG; Department of Agriculture, ACT Health, ACT Academy of Sport, Pharmaceutical companies, Advocacy groups etc.
The reporting for HDR end-user engagement has five components:
- Research internship with a research end‑user
- Joint supervision by a research end‑user
- Jointly funded or fully funded by a research end-user
- Formal training on industry engagement
- Other commercialisation and engagement activities
Specific exclusions of research end‑user are:
- Other higher education providers
- Organisations that are affiliates, controlled entities or subsidiaries (such as Medical Research Institutes) of a higher education provider
- Equivalents (international or domestic) of the above exclusion.
Definitions and Examples of the components:
Research internship is defined as a temporary position with a research end‑user where a student has undertaken research and development (R&D) related to their higher degree by research (HDR). A research internship must be for a period of at least 30 days, can be either paid or unpaid, and can form part of the enrolment or be undertaken during an HDR period of suspension. | |
| Examples | Reporting |
A student is undertaking a research internship or placement with a research end-user organisation and the period is greater than or equal to 30 days, where the student is attending 5 days a week. | This engagement will be reported as internship. |
A student participated in an entrepreneurship or business incubator (where candidate is provided resources and coaching to develop a new product or service) greater than or equal to 30 calendar days in total. | This engagement will be reported as internship. |
Student is undertaking a research internship with multiple research end-users, but the period is not continuous 30 days with one provider. | This engagement will be reported as other commercialisation or engagement activities. This type of engagement must be reported under the “Other Commercialisation” section. |
| Student is undertaking a research internship with multiple research end-users where the student is attending 31 days for one internship and 14.5 days for the other. | The engagement for the 31 attendance days will be reported as internship. The engagement for 14.5 attendance days must be reported under the “Other Commercialisation” section. |
Jointly supervised by a research end–user is defined as an HDR student that has at least two HDR supervisors, with at least one supervisor from a research end‑user organisation. The supervision arrangements must be endorsed by the HDR student's university and the research end‑user supervisor must be actively engaged in the supervision of the student (i.e. formally approved to be on the student’s supervisory panel by the University). Research end-user is any individual from industry partners, including private, government, not-for-profit or community groups. This excludes staff in affiliated research institutes, adjuncts of the university or university staff who also work for an end-user partner.
| |
| Examples | Reporting |
One of the supervisors on a student’s supervisory panel is based at the end-user organisation and is actively involved in the student’s research project. | This engagement will be reported as jointly supervised by a research end-user. |
| An advisor from a research end-user organisation student has provided guidance and considerable input into the student’s research but the advisor is not listed on the student’s supervisory panel. | This engagement will not be reported as jointly supervised by a research end-user. |
A member of the student’s supervisory panel works for a research end-user organisation that benefits from the student’s research project. | This engagement will be reported as jointly supervised by a research end-user. |
| A student publishes research findings with an industry/external co-author who is also the student’s supervisor. | This engagement will be reported as jointly supervised by a research end-user. |
Jointly funded or fully funded by a research end–user is where a research end‑user contributes financially to the cost of an HDR student's course of study or to other costs borne by the student during their study (such as providing a stipend scholarship for general living costs). The arrangement must be awarded specifically in relation to the HDR student rather than to the University for a research project that a student may be involved with. 'Direct to the student' includes stipends, living costs, travel allowances, equipment, PD, materials, equipment (directly for their use). Funders that engage in the research outcomes of the project are in scope. For example, a philanthropist that funds the student to improve water quality, with the intention of investing in the solution. Funders that do not directly engage in the outcomes (e.g. NHMRC, ARC) are not in scope. | |
| Examples | Reporting |
A student receives a stipend scholarship from an industry (research end-user) for the entire period of their course. The stipend was awarded to the student by the University following an internal merit-based selection by members of the University. The industry was not involved in selecting the student. E.g. Australia Awards, ARC or NHMRC funded scholarship. | This engagement does not meet the reporting requirement. |
| A student receives a stipend scholarship, travel or other allowance from a philanthropist or not for profit organisations, who intend to translate the research findings. | This engagement is reported as funded by a research end-user. |
A student receives a stipend scholarship, travel or other allowance from a philanthropist or not for profit organisations, who do not have a direct interest in translating the research findings. E.g. Deepwater Scholarship, Weeden Scholarship. | This engagement does not meet the reporting requirement. |
| A student is employed full-time (salary) by a research end-user and his research project is related to his employment. He completes his research for his project outside of work hours, at approximately 1 day per week. | This engagement is reported as internship (more than 30 days total over the reporting period) and not reported as funded by research end-user. You must report this in the Internship section. |
| A student is employed full-time (salary) by a research end-user and his research project is related to his employment. He spends approximately two days per week of his employment researching for his project and there is an intended benefit to the employer from the research outputs. | This engagement reported as a funded internship (more than 30 days total over the reporting period). You must enter this in the Internship section and indicate it was funded. |
| A student has completed research project work in collaboration with the University of Sydney, for 2 weeks. It was unpaid. | This engagement is not reported because Higher Education Providers (HEPs) are excluded as research end-users. |
A student receives a stipend scholarship, which includes a top-up and travel allowance funded by a Medical Research Institute affiliated with the University. | This engagement is not reported because Higher Education Providers (HEPs) are excluded as research end-users. |
| A student received a stipend scholarship and tuition fee sponsorship from their home government where they are bonded to work for them post-completion | This engagement is reported as funded by a research end-user. |
A student receives a bursary from CSIRO. | This engagement is reported as funded by a research end-user. |
Formal training on end‑user engagement is defined as any formal training recognised by the University that focusses on preparing a student for work with a research end‑user. This includes training on, for example, intellectual property, management/leadership, collaboration, entrepreneurship, and research commercialisation. Training can be administered by a research end‑user organisation or by a Higher Education Provider..
| Examples | Reporting | ||
| A student participated in workshop on engaging with communities that was administered by a research end-user organisation. | This engagement is reported as formal training. | ||
| A student participated in an entrepreneurship/ pitch competition where formal coaching was provided as part of the competition. | This engagement is reported as formal training and other commercialisation and engagement activity. This engagement must be entered in both sections. | ||
A student participated a training workshop on Intellectual Property offered by the University of Canberra. | This engagement is reported as formal training. | ||
| Student attended a training workshop provided by University of Melbourne and paid for by University of Canberra. | This engagement is reported as non-funded formal training. | ||
| Student attends a training workshop provided by University of Melbourne and paid for by a research end-user organisation. | This engagement is reported as fully funded formal training. | ||
Other commercialisation and engagement activities is defined as an arrangement with a research end‑user that enables experiential learning related to the student's HDR. This includes practicums or performances, R&D consultancy work, R&D commercialisation work, entrepreneurship, community engagement/outreach, and research extension work either with or for a research end‑user. An arrangement with an end-user can be broadly interpreted as any experience or activity relevant to candidature which involves or provides benefit to a research end-user. These activities can be paid or unpaid, and no minimum amount of learning days applies. The activities exclude research internships unless they are shorter than 30 days and exclude joint funding arrangements.
| |
| Examples | Reporting |
A student conducts some fieldwork of several days which will benefit the research end-user from the output or the results of the research. | This engagement will be reported as other commercialisation and engagement activities. |
A student is undertaking a research internship or short-term work placement with a research end-user and the period is less than 30 days. | This engagement will be reported as other commercialisation or engagement activities. |
A student participated in an entrepreneurship/ pitch competition where formal coaching was provided as part of the competition. | This engagement will be reported as other commercialisation and engagement activity and formal training (for the training component). You must enter this engagement in both sections. |
A student participated in an entrepreneurship/ innovation competition sponsored by end-users. | This engagement will be reported as other commercialisation and engagement activity. |
A student has a paid employment with a research end-user that allows research related to the student’s project to be undertaken outside of paid work hours. | This engagement will be reported as other commercialisation and engagement activities. If the research work outside of work hours is more than 30 days in total it must be reported as an internship. |
A student undertook a short-term consultancy related to the HDR research project. | This engagement will be reported as other commercialisation and engagement activities. |
| A student presented their project / results to a community forum or industry audience or disseminated their research work in public forum (e.g. blogs, newsletters, social media, the Conversation, media interviews) | This engagement will be reported as other commercialisation and engagement activities. |
A student undertook community consultations/interviews for the research project. | This engagement does not meet the reporting requirements. |