Frank Larkins analysis of the apparent poor performance of humanities research in Excellence for Research in Australia (CMM yesterday) set historians worrying

ERA ’18 was not great for history departments. Overall 13 out of 28 unis were rated above, or well above world standard last year for the broad history and archaeology discipline code, down from 17 in 2015. Three universities rated above world standard in’15 actually went down a grade last year.

This perplexes the profession, learned readers suggest some heads of department expected to rise up the rankings on the basis of a good run of publications or investing in prolific and prestigious people (a very science-strategy). But it did not happen.

So, what’s the problem? Some suggest malice among peer reviewers, but hopefully the Australian Research Council’s ERA team would notice that. In any case, the decline is too wide for it to be a case of an individual disliking one department. Others wonder if there was an increase in ok output in fashionable fields in which Australian departments are not strong. Perhaps, but that be a flaw in the ARC’s peer review system itself.

Whatever the reason, historians want to know what, if anything, went wrong. For university managements keen to maximise research ranking return on investment, history looked a bad bet in ERA ’18.