Editorial‪.‬

Recent changes within the New Zealand tertiary sector around the introduction of a performance-based system for funding research in degree-granting institutions have the potential to adversely affect both nursing scholarship and nursing education. The concept of a performance-based research fund (PBRF) to reward and encourage excellence in research and to ensure research continues to support degree and postgraduate teaching is a positive one. However measuring quality in a comparative way across a diverse range of disciplines requires strategies and measuring tools that are broad enough to recognise the unique differences and contribution of each discipline. I argue that in its current form the PBRF system is narrow and unbalanced in some aspects and that as a result nursing, along with other emerging disciplines, is being disadvantaged. The background to PBRF began with changes to the Education Act in 1989 which established a new Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) along with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). One of the aims of the Act was a more seamless tertiary sector, and to achieve this Polytechnics were given the right to award degrees as approved by NZQA. This authority had previously only belonged to the country's (then) seven universities. From 1992 nursing in New Zealand progressively adopted degree programmes to lead to registration. Entry to the profession is now only by degree.