Similar exercises, different consequences: An examination of tourism research in national research assessment frameworks

Abstract

This paper examines the status quo of tourism research as embodied in the Excellence of Research in Australia (ERA) 2010 report and the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008 report in the UK. It was found that while the two national research assessment exercises, ERA in Australia and RAE in the UK, share similar purpose, rating scale and indicators, and review and evaluation process, the tourism research profiles in the two exercises are significantly different. As indicated in the two national research assessment reports, tourism research in Australia is more visible and enjoys a much higher profile than that in the UK. Such a stark contrast is mainly due to the structure, or the metric frames used in the two exercises. However, when applying an alternative measure to compare contributions of Australian tourism researchers to three leading tourism journals with those of UK tourism researchers, no significant differences could be found.