Outstanding result for Waikato’s Faculty of Education

11 April 2013

Outstanding result for University of Waikato’s Faculty of Education

More than half the research-active academic staff in Waikato University’s Faculty of Education are rated in the top two categories by the government in its 2012 quality evaluation for performance-based research funding (PBRF).

Dean Professor Roger Moltzen says the PBRF results place the Faculty second in schools or faculties of education across New Zealand. “We are the second largest faculty in the country; this is an outstanding performance to have so many world-class researchers concentrated in one place.”

He says it’s particularly pleasing to see the University of Waikato Faculty of Education has the second highest number of ‘A’ researchers in the country, at 11. ‘A’ researchers are defined as world-class, and ‘B’ researchers are recognised for producing research of national and international significance.

Professor Moltzen says the Faculty is also second in the country for the number of B researchers and the number of new and emerging researchers. “This is an impressive result for our Faculty and I am very proud of our staff. Students coming to the University of Waikato Faculty of Education can be assured of being taught by the very best of staff.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Roy Crawford says over the past decade the number of ‘A’ and ‘B’ researchers as a proportion of all academic staff across the university has risen from a third to more than a half at 54%.

“Ninety per cent of the University’s academic staff are research-active,” Professor Crawford says. “Students can be confident that classes at Waikato University are underpinned by internationally-benchmarked, research-informed teaching, and in particular our postgraduate students have direct access to top national and international researchers,” he says.

“We put ourselves on the line publicly to say that nearly half of our PBRF-eligible staff would achieve ‘A’ or ‘B’ scores,” says Professor Crawford, “and we have more than achieved that goal. This is strong evidence that we are building for the future.”

He says the PBRF research quality evaluation has two purposes:
• To ensure the University’s teaching is “research-informed” as its charter requires, and
• To determine how the TEC (Tertiary Education Commission) distributes the PBRF contestable funding pool.

The PBRF is managed by the TEC and the size of the PBRF funding pool is determined by the Government in its annual Budget. In Budget 2012, the Government announced the PBRF pool would be boosted by $100 million over four years to bring the fund to $300 million per annum in 2016.

Waikato University currently receives about $15 million in annual PBRF funding, of which $9 million is generated by the quality evaluation of its research.

Read more information about the University of Waikato’s PBRF results.

ENDS

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