New Zealand's Tertiary Education Research is one of six reports to be published this year in the Profile & Trends 2015 series.

The reports to be published in 2016 will contain data on tertiary education trends and changes for the year ended December 2015, unless otherwise stated.  The other five reports are:

• New Zealand's Annual Tertiary Education Enrolments
• Tertiary Education Outcomes and Qualification Completions
• New Zealand's Workplace-based Learners
• Tertiary Education Sector and Student Support, and
• New Zealand's Tertiary Education System.

Most of the statistics in New Zealand's Tertiary Education Research are derived from returns provided by government-funded tertiary education organisations to the Ministry of Education and to the Tertiary Education Commission.  The bibliometric measures used in this report are produced by the Ministry of Education using data from Thomson Reuters.  A list of figures is included at the end of the report.

The report begins with the trend in doctoral enrolments and describes the characteristics of doctoral students.  The first chapter also includes university doctoral enrolments and completions per academic staff member.  The information on the academic impact of research and collaborations at universities includes comparisons with Australian universities.  Chapter 2 covers information on the research funding of tertiary education organisations, including research contract income at universities, along with research expenditure at universities.

This year's Profile & Trends series represents the 18th annual survey of the tertiary education system to be published by the Ministry of Education.