School Manager Update

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue62 1–31 May 2025

Last month we completed the arduous 2024 HERDC return review process.

HERDC stands for Higher Education Research Data Collection and is used to report a higher education provider’s (HEP) prior year research income performance to the government. The government then, in part, uses this data to allocate the Research Block Grant (RBG) payment to the HEPs, with the intention that it is used to fund activities and expenses not directly funded by research grants such as: infrastructure, utilities, administration etc.   

In 2024, RSAA's HERDC income was 14.7M which is highest on record!
Congratulations to everyone for their hard work.

In 2023 the figure was 10M with a recent average of about 8.6M.

A reminder that the HERDC income can be volatile, varying substantially year to year. Often times during a multiyear grant, funding can be received up front, resulting in a high HERDC contribution in the first year and less in the later years.

For example, in 2022 the total figure for the year was only 5.9M. Although even when taking 2022 into account, the average for the last 3 years has been 10.2M which is above average!

This is a particularly good result factoring in that ASTRO 3D has ended and is not included in the 2024 figures. The increase is led by income from the various iLaunch initiatives, Moon to Mars, GMT LTAO, MAVIS and Subaru Ultimate.

Click here for a breakdown of the performance over the last few years. 

Historically within ANU, the School’s HERDC performance was a key driver in the recurrent income allocation, however unfortunately this is not currently the case. Let’s wait and see if there are any future developments in this space. 

Talk Soon,
Mat

Image: Outreach Domes sunset. Credit Mat Malzacher.