Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) is an assessment system administered by the Australian Research Council (ARC) that evaluates the quality of research conducted at Australian universities.
ERA is a comprehensive quality evaluation of all research produced in Australian universities against national and international benchmarks. The ratings are determined and moderated by committees of distinguished researchers, drawn from Australia and overseas. The unit of evaluation is broadly defined as the Field of Research (FoR) within an institution based on the Australia and New Zealand Standard Classification (ANZSRC).
ERA is based on expert review informed by a range of indicators. The indicators used in ERA include a range of metrics such as citation profiles, which are common to disciplines in the natural sciences, and peer review of a sample of research outputs which is more broadly common in the humanities and social sciences.