In 2015, new Edith Cowan VC Steve Chapman announced the university would lift its research profile by buying-in senior talent (CMM August 12 2015). The target was 20 professorial research fellows and yesterday ECU got there. Aged-care researcher Beverley O’Connell joins Edith Cowan U, from University of Manitoba.

So how are the 20 going – yes, it’s too soon for everybody to have engaged and had an impact and yes rankings are all flawed – but it’s still a new ERA for ECU.

In 2015 the university had three disciplines above or well above world standard on Excellence in Research For Australia’s two-digit subject codes. In 2018 this doubled to six out of the 12 broad areas university staff work in.