Tertiary research
Research performance and research funding in the New Zealand tertiary education system.
The following section summarises the key trends in the research performance of the tertiary education system. The funding of research at tertiary education organisations is also summarised.
What does the data show about research performance?
Doctoral degree enrolments
This data shows the number of students enrolling in doctoral degrees. Doctoral degrees include Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees and other professional doctorates (such as a Doctor of Education) but excludes higher doctorates (higher doctorates are awarded to researchers for independent work of special excellence which is completed before the person applies for the degree).
The data shows that:
- The number of students enrolled in doctoral degrees increased by 1.1 percent in 2023, to reach 10,205. This is 1.8 percent lower than in 2019 and 15 percent higher than in 2014. In 2023, the number of international doctoral degree students increased by 2.8 percent, compared with a decrease of 0.1 percent for domestic students.
- In 2006, government policy was changed so that international PhD students were charged domestic fees. This has contributed to a significant increase in enrolments at the doctoral degree level by international students. In 2023, international students made up 43 percent of all doctoral degree enrolments compared with 14 percent in 2005.
Figure 1: Doctoral degree enrolments
- Between 2022 and 2023, the number of women enrolled in doctoral degrees increased by 2.8 percent, while the number of men decreased by 1.1 percent. The proportion of enrolments by women has continued to increase over time. In 2023, 57 percent of doctoral enrolments were by women, compared with 52 percent in 2014.
- The number of Māori and Pacific peoples enrolled in doctoral degrees has remained at historical highs in 2023.
- In 2023, the number of domestic Māori students enrolled in doctoral degrees increased by 3.1 percent to reach 830. In 2023, 14 percent of domestic doctoral degree enrolments were by Māori, compared with 9.7 percent in 2014 and 6.5 percent in 2004.
- The number of Pacific Peoples enrolled in doctoral degrees increased by 7.6 percent between 2022 and 2023 to reach 355. In 2023, 6.1 percent of domestic doctoral degree enrolments were by Pacific Peoples, compared with 3.5 percent in 2014 and 2.1 percent in 2004.
- The number of university doctoral degree students per academic full-time equivalent staff member was 1.74 in 2023, a slight increase on 1.69 in 2022. This figure was 1.52 in 2014, with the increase since then mainly a result of higher enrolments by international students.
Doctoral degree completions
This data looks at the number of students completing doctoral degrees. Doctoral degrees include Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees and other professional doctorates (such as a Doctor of Education) but excludes higher doctorates. Because of the long-term nature of these qualifications the data can sometimes be lumpy and show considerable variation between years.
The data shows that:
- The number of students completing doctoral degrees decreased by 5.1 percent in 2023 to reach 1,480. The number of domestic doctoral degree completions increased by 1.5 percent in 2023, while the number of international completions decreased by 10 percent. The decrease in international completions reflects the impact of a downturn in enrolments during the COVID pandemic. In 2023, 54 percent of completions were by international students.
- Between 2022 and 2023, the decrease in doctoral degree completions was 0.6 percent for women while the number of men completing doctoral degrees decreased by 10 percent. In 2023, 55 percent of completions were by women.
- In terms of domestic students, in 2023 the number of Māori completing doctoral degrees was 85, up from 80 in 2022. The number of Pacific Peoples completing a doctoral degree was 25, the same as in 2022.
- The number of doctoral completions per academic was 0.25 in 2023, down from 0.27 the previous year.
Figure 2: Doctoral degree completions
Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) Quality Evaluation results
The PBRF Quality Evaluations assess the quality of research produced by participating tertiary education organisations via peer review. These assessments currently take place every six years, the latest of these took place in 2018. The results showed that in the universities:
- The peer reviewed quality of research at New Zealand universities has been increasing over time. For example, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff awarded an ‘A’ quality category (expected to contain evidence of research outputs of a world class standard) in the 2018 PBRF Quality Evaluation was 1,159, compared with 831 in 2012 and 597 in 2006.
Bibliometric performance of New Zealand universities
The bibliometric data presented here uses articles and reviews published in indexed academic journals to look at the volume of research output by New Zealand universities, the rates of citation of this research, and rates of collaboration. Please refer to the Technical notes below for more information on the bibliometric measures and the caveats that apply to this form of data.
The bibliometric data showed that:
- Rates of citation of research from the New Zealand universities have generally been rising over time compared with the world average. The Category Normalised Citation Impact (CNCI) measure was 1.34 in the 2016-20 five-year period, compared with 0.99 in the 2000-04 five-year period. A value of greater than 1 for the CNCI means that the average rate of citation of university research is above the world average and vice versa.
- After generally rising during the 1980s and early 1990s, the CNCI for New Zealand universities stabilised during the rest of the 1990s and early 2000s. This was followed by a period of improvement in the CNCI between 2003-07 and 2012-16 which narrowed the gap between the New Zealand and Australian universities. Between 2010-14 and 2012-16, the CNCI for New Zealand universities was slightly higher than for Australian universities, partly on the back of a number of highly-cited papers in the physics area. In recent time periods the CNCI for New Zealand universities has dropped below the CNCI for Australian universities as the highly-cited papers are no longer included in the more recent five-year windows.
- Research by New Zealand universities represented 0.52 percent of world indexed journal articles and reviews in 2016-20. After increasing from 0.39 percent in 2001-05 to reach 0.50 percent in 2012-16, the share of output has now stabilised at 0.52 percent. This compares with Australian universities, where their share of world indexed output has continued to rise. In 2016-20, the share of world output by Australian universities was 3.9 percent, compared with 3.6 percent in 2012-2016.
- The percentage of articles and reviews from New Zealand universities with a domestic collaboration[1] have been relatively constant over the years, with a range between 10 percent and 14 percent. In 2016-2020 the value was 13 percent. The percentage of articles and reviews from Australian universities with domestic collaborations increased over the years to reach 24 percent in 2010-14 before decreasing to reach 21 percent in 2016-20. The percentage of articles and reviews produced by New Zealand universities that had international collaboration[2] has increased from 46 percent in 2001-05 to 65 percent in 2016-20. Australian universities have a lower percentage compared to New Zealand, with international collaboration increasing from 39 percent in 2001-05 to 61 percent in 2016-20.
Figure 3: Relative academic impact (CNCI) of New Zealand and Australian universities
Note: A CNCI > 1 means the average rate of citation is above the world average.
Source: Clarivate
What does the data show about research funding?
Vote Tertiary Education funding for research and research-based teaching
This funding includes money distributed via the PBRF, Centres of Research Excellence fund and Wānanga Capability Fund. The data shows that:
- Total funding for research and research-based teaching was $371 million in 2023, the same as in 2022. This funding was dominated by the PBRF, which at $315 million represented 85 percent of funding in 2023.
- Due to increases in the size of the PBRF and Centres of Research Excellence fund over time, Vote Tertiary Education research funding is now 20 percent higher than in 2014.
- Universities continue to dominate the funding distributed via the PBRF. In 2023, 96.5 percent of PBRF funding was allocated to the universities, 2.7 percent to Te Pūkenga, 0.4 percent to wānanga and 0.5 percent to PTEs. The share of PBRF funding allocated to universities was 97.2 percent in 2014
Figure 4: Vote Tertiary Education funding for research and research-based teaching
University external research contract income
This data shows the external research income (ERI) earned by universities. There are two sources for this information: the PBRF external research income measure (reported annually) and the Research and Development Survey (collected bi-annually). The data showed that:
- The value of PBRF ERI earned by universities reached $759 million in 2023. On an inflation-adjusted basis, and also adjusting for the number of academic and research staff, ERI per full-time equivalent researcher increased by 8.3 percent in 2023 and was 6.6 percent higher than in 2019.
- Data from the Research and Development Survey shows that the Government was the largest source of funding for universities. In 2021, around 75 percent of funding was sourced from Government. Funding via Government research purchase agencies (Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, Health Research Council and the Royal Society) was the largest component of this category, with 50 percent of contract funding coming from this source in 2021.
Research and development expenditure
The Research and Development Survey also provides information on research and development expenditure by New Zealand universities. The data showed that:
- University expenditure on research and development increased in the universities from $1,202 million in 2019 to $1,254 million in 2021. As a percentage of GDP this expenditure decreased slightly from 0.37 percent in 2019 to 0.35 percent in 2021.
- Universities had a much higher proportion of expenditure on Basic research than the overall research sector in New Zealand. In 2021, 43 percent was on Basic research, compared with 20 percent for the overall sector. At the same time, the proportion of expenditure on Applied research has increased from 7 percent to 14 percent.
- Expenditure on Health research continues to represent the largest proportion of university research and development expenditure. In 2021, 23 percent of expenditure was in this area followed by Environment (12 percent).
Research performanceUpdated: November 2024
Statistics relating to the nature and amount of research undertaken in tertiary education.
- Research performance [MS Excel 65kB]
Research financingUpdated: November 2024
Statistics relating to financing research undertaken in tertiary education.
- Research financing [MS Excel 90kB]
Technical notes
- The bibliometric data here is limited to articles and reviews in Clarivate's Essential Science Indicators (ESI) dataset.
- While citations have become an increasingly common measure of research performance, there are reservations about their use and the results presented in this analysis need to be considered in the light of these caveats. Some of the most important (but by no means all) caveats are:
- The coverage of the social sciences and humanities in the Clarivate database is not as extensive as coverage of the natural and medical sciences. In addition, publishing conventions in disciplines such as the humanities and social sciences may favour research outputs such as books and book chapters rather than in journals.
- The Clarivate database is mostly made up of English language journals based in North America and Europe. As such, research in New Zealand journals that may be of a high impact may be excluded from the Clarivate database. In New Zealand, this may be a greater problem for applied fields of research and for research in the social sciences, where the research may be more focused on local problems and hence more likely to appear in local journals.
- Some of the citations may in fact refer to the source article in a negative way, meaning that some citations reflect a low opinion of the quality of the research. However, it is estimated that only around 7 percent of citations are negative.
- The CNCI is an average figure. Therefore, one or two highly cited papers can skew the relative academic impact figure upwards. This is especially a problem in cases where the number of papers is small. The CNCI data used here is not fractional in nature (each author is assigned the same number of citations) which can mean articles with a very high number of authors and citations can skew the value when the number of papers is relatively small.
- The small size of the New Zealand university sector, relative to other countries, can pose a problem in terms of the smaller number of publications the citation data is based on. The smaller the number of publications, the less stable the data can be.
- The five-year CNCI trend data are produced comparing all documents in this time window, normalising for document type and category/journal.
Footnotes
- Papers with at least a second author from within the same country
- Papers with at least a second author from another country