Summary

Key Findings

• The analysis in the report showed that the relative academic impact of university research varies considerably, both between and within broad subject areas, between 1981 and 2005. Overall, university research in 'health' achieved the highest research impact, compared with the world average in that subject area, over the period. This was followed by research in 'medicine and public health'.

• Several broad subject areas exhibited quite large variation in research impact over time, with areas with smaller numbers of publications, such as 'business and economics', being especially prone to significant variation.

• Analysis of the academic impact of research at the narrow subject area level for the period 2001-2005 showed that in several narrow subject areas, the research by New Zealand universities had an impact above the world average. At the university sector level, the top three narrow subject areas were 'geological/petroleum/mining engineering', 'language and linguistics' and 'optics and acoustics'.