Archive
From politics to science to critical thought – ‘we need philosophy’
Philosophy is justified by longer term impact and not the shorter “research impact” of the current climate, according to a conference report in the THES March 31. Matthew Reisz reports:
At a time when the concept of research impact and other “intellectually bogus managerial and administrative ideas” are increasingly ubiquitous within higher education, it is urgent that we ask “why should philosophy exist as an academic subject?”.
Pressure on academics to generate alternative income for universities
A new post in the Higher Education Network:
Quality teaching and research could suffer as higher education institutes demand money making skills from academics.
[…] According to the UCU, academics are turning to business as an alternative source of income because they are failing to get research money – which has traditionally been their core source of funding.
Tom Sutcliffe: When did the Big Society turn into Big Brother?
Following on from the Observer’s article at the weekend, Tom Sutcliffe wades in with some heavy words in The Independent, 29 March 2011:
We may not quite be back in the days of Nazi Germany. The rhetorical suggestion that we are was one of the more extravagant reactions to a report at the weekend that the Arts and Humanities Research Council would be requiring fund-seeking academics to study the Big Society as a priority, as part of a deal with the Government over its continued funding. Others who were outraged drew their analogies from the opposite end of the political spectrum, warning of Soviet-style control of academic research and the death of intellectual freedom.
UPDATE 30 March: In the New Statesman an article on Don’t play politics with academic freedom.
and an excellent analysis of the demoralisation in HE today, Divided and Ruled.
University of Bath impact pages
University of Bath is having to draw up advice and to plan workshops, as many other Universities, just to develop their research so that it has ‘impact’. They have as a result built up a useful collection of pages for Research Impact Gateway.
Academic fury over order to study the big society
Daniel Boffey in The Observer, Sunday 27 March 2011:
Academics will study the “big society” as a priority, following a deal with the government to secure funding from cuts.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) will spend a “significant” amount of its funding on the prime minister’s vision for the country, after a government “clarification” of the Haldane principle – a convention that for 90 years has protected the right of academics to decide where research funds should be spent. […]
Brian Cox comments ambiguously on impact
The Guardian’s live Q&A with Professor Brian Cox (media don) included a question on the dangers of commercialization over research for its own sake. His response is helpful, if perhaps giving too much credit to impact:
I am very concerned about the pressure we are putting on basic, curiosity driven science by the ever-increasing need to fill in boxes about the potential ‘impact’ of the research. This argument is of course that serendipity has often played a key role in the most transformative and useful discoveries – from penicillin to the transistor. There is a balance to be struck, however. Taxpayer funded researchers must always be aware that they don’t simply have a license to play around – its valuable to be asked to consider the potential impacts of your research; the problems arise when impact is over-weighted.
Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Award 2011
The University of Bristol’s Vice-Chancellor is offering an “Impact Award 2011” to encourage researchers in the University to celebrate the most innovative impacts emerging from research. A sign of the times.
Those troubling parentheses
Of course ‘impact’ is with us until the next REF (2014), and I would not advocate any attempt to ignore or avoid it. Departments and Universities will rightly construct the best cases they can for the impact of their research, and they must in order to compete for funding. The problem will then be that HEFCE can declare, as a result, what a great success the introduction of impact has been, since now we can really see the benefits of funding research. Therefore they will naturally wish to extend the ‘experiment’. Whatever we are asked to do to secure funding, we surely will do, and HEFCE can then as surely declare it a success. Here is the official announcement on the relative weightings that will be given to the assessment of research submission:
The relative weightings of research outputs, impact and the research environment … affect how much each element will contribute to the overall quality profile that will be awarded to each submission made by higher education institutions (HEIs) to the REF. They will be as follows:
- research outputs – 65 per cent
- impact – 20 per cent (this will increase in subsequent REFs)
- environment – 15 per cent.
What is worrying here are those parentheses stating “this will increase in subsequent REFs”. A clear indication that the success has already been predicted and therefore impact will become more of a central theme? Or a clear indication that HEFCE knows whatever they ask for will inevitably be a success as we compete for funding?
LRB essay on scholarship, research impact, the Browne report
The blog of English and American Studies at the University of Manchester has a new post criticizing government reforms in Higher Education, and attacking funding councils for accepting ‘impact’ so easily. It is in fact the text of an article by Iain Pears published in the London Review of Books on 17th March (p. 12):
The response of the research councils to all this has been anaemic. This is true not least of their reaction to the issue of ‘impact’. Henceforth a significant part of the assessment of a researcher’s worth – and funding – will be decided according to the impact on society that his or her work is seen to have. The problem is that impact remains poorly defined; it isn’t clear how it will be measured, and the weighting given to it in the overall assessment has been plucked out of the air. It is a bad policy: it will damage research in the sciences and corrupt it in the humanities, as academics will have a strong financial incentive to become liars.
For the full text, see: http://easmanchester.blogspot.com/2011/03/lrb-essay-on-scholarship-research.html
Against Impact 
Ongoing concern over the REF subpanels
A recent article in the THE over the REF subpanels. A number of learned societies have also raised objections to the composition of the Theology & Religion subpanel, noting the lack of specialists in some area, or members who represent impact constituencies rather than research assessors: