The distribution of research performance across Australian universities, 1992-2003, and its implications for higher education funding models

We contribute to the debate on research performance by comparing the distribution of research inputs and outputs across Australian universities during 1992-2003. We have calculated annual Gini coefficients for various performance measures and Lorenz curves for the final year of the study. Various findings are evident. Research-input measures have remained relatively unevenly distributed across universities. Output measures were more evenly distributed and this exhibited a gradual and rather consistent decline through time, supporting the view that the research output is being generated gradually more equally across Australia’s universities. Excluding the “Group of Eight” (Go8) universities, results in a more even distribution of performance. However, in 2003 this group took the lion’s share of research inputs but produced a smaller share of outputs. Our findings are relevant to current funding policy discussion.