Research

James Cook University's vision is to be one of the world’s leading tropical research universities. This vision is driven by the University’s unique tropical location, particularly its close proximity to the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics rainforest. Australia is the only developed country with significant tropical regions and tropical Australia presents a range of research challenges of global and national importance. These focus on such issues as biodiversity, sustainable management of tropical ecosystems, global warming, tropical agriculture, tropical health care in remote communities and cultural diversity. In addition, tropical Australia offers research training opportunities of unparalleled relevance to other countries in the tropics, including countries in the ASEAN region, the Indian subcontinent, Oceania and Central America.

About Research at JCU:
Research Centres, Areas of Research Strength, CRCs, Research in the Schools

A New ERA for Australian Research Quality Assessment
The government has launched the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative as a measure of the achievements of researchers in publicly funded higher education institutions. This initiative aims to show how Australian university researchers stack up, not just against each other, but against the best in the world. ERA should help identify not only the strengths in our national research effort, but also the gaps, and will help to fill them.

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation), Professor Norman Palmer, has responsibility for the management of research at JCU. He is supported by the following offices and committees: