Introduction

Fields of Research (FoR) Codes

For the purposes of ERA, disciplines are defined as two- and four-digit Fields of Research (FoRs) codes as identified in the Australia and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC) 2008 released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics New Zealand. The ANZSRC provides 22 two-digit FoR codes, 157 four-digit FoR codes, and an extensive range of six-digit codes.

The FoR codes as used in ERA 2015 are listed in Appendix 2. ERA undertakes evaluation at both the two- and four-digit FoR code level. Institutions submitted data to ERA at the four-digit level and these were aggregated to form the two- and four-digit Units of Evaluation (UoEs).

The two-digit FoR code is the highest level of the ANZSRC hierarchy; it relates to a broad discipline field, for example, Physical Sciences (02) or History and Archaeology (21). A two-digit FoR code consists of a collection of related four-digit FoR codes.

The four-digit FoR code is the second level of the ANZSRC hierarchy and relates to a specific discipline field of a two-digit FoR code. For example, Astronomical and Space Sciences (0201) or Archaeology (2101).