Purpose
The PBRF[1] contributes to the success of the Tertiary Education Strategy by supporting its goals of encouraging an integrated, specialised tertiary education sector and developing Māori and Pacific research capability.
The PBRF is designed to:
- increase the average quality of research
- ensure that research continues to support degree and postgraduate teaching
- ensure that funding is available for postgraduate students and new researchers
- improve the quality of public information on research output
- prevent undue concentration of funding that would undermine research support for all degrees or prevent access to the system by new researchers
- underpin the existing research strengths in the tertiary education sector.
The PBRF is governed by the following principles:
- Comprehensiveness: the PBRF should appropriately measure the quality of the full range of original investigative activity that occurs within the sector, regardless of its type, form, or place of output.
- Respect for academic traditions: the PBRF should operate in a manner that is consistent with academic freedom and institutional autonomy.
- Consistency: evaluations of quality made through the PBRF should be consistent across the different subject areas and in the calibration of quality ratings against international standards of excellence.
- Continuity: changes to the PBRF process should only be made where they can bring demonstrable improvements that outweigh the cost of implementing them.
- Differentiation: the PBRF should allow stakeholders and the government to differentiate between providers and their units on the basis of their relative quality.
- Credibility: the methodology, format and processes employed in the PBRF must be credible to those being assessed.
- Efficiency: administrative and compliance costs should be kept to the minimum consistent with a robust and credible process.
- Transparency: decisions and decision-making processes must be explained openly, except where there is a need to preserve confidentiality and privacy.
- Complementarity: the PBRF should be integrated with new and existing policies and quality assurance systems for degrees and degree providers.
- Cultural inclusiveness: the PBRF should reflect the bicultural nature of New Zealand and the special role and status of the Treaty of Waitangi (te Tiriti o Waitangi), and should appropriately reflect and include the full diversity of New Zealand’s population.