BIS, metrics and non-selective QR allocation

Eve, Martin Paul (2015) BIS, metrics and non-selective QR allocation. Wonkhe ,

Abstract

The Government’s recent Green Paper made no bones about the fact that it thinks that REF is too expensive. Fuelled by academic discontent with REF, the paper clearly seeks to co-opt academic protest in order to shape future exercises towards metrics-based approaches. However, there’s a snag for the government. The recent influential report on research metrics by James Wilsdon clearly stated that there is no measure at the moment that can adequately capture the research landscape. This is obvious to anyone who works in a university. The current regime of peer review-based national research assessment, however flawed and expensive, both carries the confidence of universities and provokes a number of positive management behaviours (also alluded to in the Green Paper, though selectively, and only in a negative sense). As such, while it is straightforward to imagine ways to translate flawed evaluation procedures into mechanistic funding allocation systems, it can’t be done by flicking a switch. The devastating damage to the UK HE research sector would be widespread and intolerable. Given the above, it’s interesting that BIS/HEFCE recently advertised the public sector tender contract: UK SBS BLOJEU CR150082HEFCE Provision Of Citation Indicators.

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