2024 HERDC specifications released: Key updates & audit requirements
12/03/2025
The final Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) specifications for the collection of 2024 data have been released. It’s a great outcome to have further clarification on the treatment of Shared Income to Non-Higher Education Providers.
The main changes between the 2023 specifications and 2024 specifications are as follows:
- Reorganisation of sections: The ‘HERDC specifications – updates to note’ section was moved to the beginning of the document, and the ‘Introduction’ was shifted to the second section to enhance the document’s flow.
- Clarification on data usage: A minor amendment was made to specify that preliminary HERDC data may be shared with Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia (KCA) to assist with its Survey of Commercialisation Outcomes from Public Research (SCOPR) data collection, validation, and reporting processes.
- Materials required: The table detailing required materials was reworded and repositioned within the document for better comprehension.
- Inclusions and exclusions on income return:: Section 4.2.1(a) was restructured into parts (a) and (b) to provide clearer guidance on non-Commonwealth Government top-ups.
- Subsidiaries and affiliates: Clarifications were made regarding the eligibility of subsidiaries and affiliates as research end-users for the Research Training Program (RTP) industry internship weighting.
- Shared income: An example was expanded to demonstrate the treatment of shared income with non-Higher Education Providers (non-HEP) organizations that are neither affiliates nor subsidiaries. Example: If HEP A receives a grant of $50,000 and allocates $20,000 to HEP B and $5,000 to a non-HEP organization that is not an affiliate or subsidiary, HEP A should report only the remaining $25,000 as its R&D income. HEP B would report the $20,000 it received, while the $5,000 allocated to the non-HEP organization is not reportable by either HEP.
- Sub-category 3.8 International Government (Other): Grants from the US National Institutes of Health were removed as an example in this sub-category.
- References to the department: Updates were made to clarify that references to the department pertain to the Australian Government Department of Education.
Each HEP must arrange for an audit of the Category 1, 2, 3 and 4 R&D income in their respective R&D income return and provide the department with a Special Purpose Audit Report under the Auditing and Assurance Standard Board (AASB) Auditing Standard ASA800, which clearly certifies that the R&D income recorded is correct. The audit report is due 30 June 2025.
How SW can help
With a dedicated education group, we specialise in performing HERDC audits for HEPS. If you are looking for an experience team to perform your HERDC audit, please reach out to Christine Krause and Matthew Paull.
We will be at ARMS 2025 Melbourne Conference– looking forward to connecting and sharing insights from the HERDC 2024 audits.
