SRE: Sustainable Research Excellence
In the 2009-10 Budget, the Commonwealth Government introduced an important new research block grant scheme known as the Sustainable Research Excellence (SRE) initiative, to address the gap in funding for the indirect costs of university research.
Over the four years 2009-10 to 2012-13, $510 million will be provided under the SRE program to support universities in meeting the indirect costs of their Australian Competitive Grant (ACG) research, predominantly through funding bodies such as ARC and NH&MRC.
What researchers need to do
Again in 2011, researchers at Sydney, along with all other Australian universities, are required to complete the 2011 SRE time use survey as part of the SRE initiative.
The Government has set a minimum survey response rate of 67% of the survey group and we will only achieve such a high response rate if all eligible staff participate.
The purpose of the surveys is to determine for each university, the average proportion of total time spent by staff on Australian Competitive Grant funded research. This will be used in the formula to allocate SRE funding.
Who should complete the survey
The surveys is not limited to ACG holders but should be completed by every paid employees of the University who are:
- academic staff with a designation ‘Teaching and Research’ or ‘Research Only’; and
- professional/general staff for whom undertaking research forms a material part of their employment, as opposed to supporting research undertaken by others
More information about eligibility.
When the surveys will take place
The SRE survey period will open on Monday 11 July and close on Sunday 7 August.
This means that in order to meet the deadline for the first survey, all participating staff will need to have commenced the survey by no later than Monday 25th July 2011.
Please confirm your participation in the survey by responding to the invitation and instructions that will be sent to you on 11 July.
The invitation contains a unique link to your survey. Please do not forward this email on as the link is only valid for your survey responses.