About Postgraduate Research

You will need a rough idea of your research project and at least one confirmed supervisor to apply for a postgraduate research degree at an Australian university. However, you will usually have a few months after commencing your degree to refine your research topic and it is not unusual for project plans to change significantly during this period.

Generally you will have at least some idea of the area in which you wish to do research and perhaps a pool of preferred universities based on reputation, location, expertise and other personal and professional factors.

You will need to go to a university’s own website to find information on what fields of research and supervisor expertise are available there. Some universities offer search engines allowing you to search for staff by field of expertise. For other universities, you may be best to go directly to the relevant faculty page. Eight universities have developed a search engine called ‘Australia’s Knowledge Gateway’ allowing you to search for people with specific expertise but you will only find experts based at those universities.

One source of information about the quality of research at Australian universities is the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) exercise. ERA evaluates the quality of research at Australian universities, by discipline.

Expert review committees undertake ERA evaluations. Drawing on a range of metrics and peer-review data as well as their own disciplinary expertise, the committees assign a quality rating to each discipline within each Australian university. These ratings are subsequently published in a national report.

ERA uses a five-point rating scale that describes the performance of a discipline at a university in relation to world standards.

ERA is administered by the Australian Research Council. The first round of ERA took place in 2010 and the second round was completed in 2012.

If you would like to know more about ERA, or its methodology, or to read the ERA 2012 National Report, please visit the Australian Research Council (link opens new window) website.

To find out about the research quality of your subject, open up the broad discipline groups below and download the PDF. Alternatively, you can search for the ERA 2012 rating of individual disciplines at the Australian Research Council’s Field of Research List (link opens new window).

To view or print a PDF (Portable Document Format) file, you need to have the Adobe Reader^® installed on your computer. You can download a free copy of Adobe Reader^® from the Adobe (link opens new window) website.

You can search for information on research student and scholarship numbers for each university by broad field of education.

This information gives you an indication of the quantity of postgraduate research studies being undertaken at each university. Specifically, you will find:

• the number of students doing masters and doctorate (PhD) degrees by research
• the number of Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) scholarships awarded to masters and doctorate (PhD) students
• the number of International Postgraduate Research Scholarships (IPRS) awarded to masters and doctorate (PhD) students.

Search for research student and scholarship numbers

You can also read about universities’ goals, strategies and priorities for supporting research students in their mission-based compacts (link opens new window). Mission-based compacts describe the mission of each higher education institution and its ambitions for research, research training, innovation, and teaching and learning. Each compact sets out the institution’s plans and priorities for supporting these activities and its performance targets. Specifically the research training information is found in section 7.2 of a compact.

Funding and resources are very important considerations for prospective research students. Universities, government, philanthropic organisations, industry groups, and a range of private businesses offer scholarships and financial assistance to support research students. You may be eligible for personal financial support and/or project funding.

Funding and resource considerations will vary depending on your personal needs and the nature of your research, but may include:

• Your living expenses
• All project costs, resources, equipment, consumables, travel or field work. (Are these covered and provided by the university?)
• Workspace (e.g. Will you have a desk? Will your workspace/s be dedicated or shared?)
• IT resources, telephone and internet access, printing and publication services etc.
• Library materials, journal access etc.
• Student support services (including availability of and access to career advice, counselling, legal services, child care, health services etc.)

The funding and resources available to you may affect your choice of university, so discuss these with prospective supervisors.

There are numerous employment opportunities for research graduates in both research and non-research roles. Post-study research graduates work in a wide range of organisations across universities, government funded research agencies such as CSIRO, medical research institutes, private companies and other organisations. These include positions in museums, galleries, libraries, herbaria, zoos, not-for-profit groups, private practice, industry groups, political parties and the research and development sections of large companies.

Occupations and sectors in which research graduates are employed are diversifying and only about half of all research graduates are employed in a traditional academic role in a higher education institution. The remainder are dispersed across a wide range of public and private industry employment sectors as employers recognise and value the analytic, research, problem solving and teamwork skills that a research graduate brings to a workplace. A research degree does not limit a graduate to one career path or one field of study, a research career can take you down many pathways.

Read about the real career pathways of 39 researchers (link opens new window).

The Australian Government is keen to support Australia’s research workforce and in 2011 launched a research workforce strategy. For more information see the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (link opens new window) website.

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