<p> 1</p><p>MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY</p><p>HIGHER DEGREE RESEARCH COMMITTEE Report of HDRC Meeting 7 August 2009</p><p>Membership, Committee Business and Reports</p><p>Professor Piper welcomed new members Dr Jennifer Cornish from the Faculty of Human Sciences, and Professor Elizabeth More from MGSM.</p><p>Two reports were presented at this meeting. Associate Professor Anna Reid briefed members on the status of the cross cultural supervision project being conducted in collaboration with the University of Newcastle and the University of Queensland. The project outcome includes a set of ten videos that describe different scenarios relating to international candidates - three of them specifically address issues such as cultural differences, expectations and group dynamics. The material has already been incorporated into the supervisor training program and can be downloaded from YouTube. It is able to be used as part of Faculty HDR Commencement Programs.</p><p>Associate Professor Ruth Neumann reported on an analysis of the employment destinations of MQ doctoral graduates. The project utilised the Graduate Destination Survey data for the period 2000-2007 and found that in comparison to the University of Adelaide, the main focus of the profile comparison, and also nationally Macquarie doctoral graduates tend to be older, are less likely to be employed in the government sector, are more likely to be employed in the education sector and are more likely to be graduates in the humanities and social sciences. The comparatively lower proportion of science graduates in this group was noted with concern in the report. </p><p>Strategy and Policy</p><p>Prof Piper reported on recent developments regarding Compacts, and the associated Sustainable Research Excellence (SRE), Joint Research Engagement, Transparent Costing and Collaborative Research Networks. He noted that for the SRE, a three- tiered approach will be adopted based on: (1) competitive grant, (2) direct cost in terms of cents per dollar and (3) quality indicator. An index will be derived from these three factors</p><p>In responding to the enquiries from Faculties, Professor Hooper indicated that Executive Deans have discretion in defining staff as research active for the purposes of the Supervisor Register. The University’s definition of research active indicated that exceptional circumstances were allowed: examples given were early career researchers and staff on maternity leave. These examples were not meant to be exclusive. He added that Executive Deans might need to consider that in approving such exceptional cases they set performance targets for subsequent years. </p><p>The Chair confirmed the need for a continuing focus on HDR completions from now until the end of September. </p><p>Prof Jordan tabled a paper on “Preferred International Partners” for joint PhD projects. It is apparent that many researchers are unaware of the University’s list of such partners which is available at http://www.international.mq.edu.au/research/partner. </p>