Follow the money? How Australian universities replicate national performance-based funding mechanisms

Recent studies exploring universities’ internal adaptations to national performance-based research funding (PBRF) systems have found evidence for isomorphism as well as for variation in institutional response. Yet there remains a lack of investigation focusing on national PBRF settings which appear to be particularly conducive to isomorphism. Addressing the resulting lacuna, this article investigates the extent to which Australian universities replicate national PBRF indicators in their individual-level performance management frameworks for academic staff. Drawing on data from 33 Australian universities (of 39 eligible institutions), and taking into consideration the differences in these universities’ level of research intensity, this article finds that universities overwhelmingly replicate the major national PBRF indicators internally. If variation was evident, then mostly in the form of minor modifications to these indicators, not in the choice of indicators per se. Analysis of the Australian case thus demonstrates strong vertical alignment between national and institutional research governance mechanisms as well as considerable convergence in the formal organization and governance of research activities at Australian universities.