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Bahram Bekhradnia: Is this the best way to kill off the RAE?

Wednesday 29 March 2006 18:00 EST
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So, in his Budget statement Gordon Brown put 1p on beer and abolished the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), at the same time announcing the good news that the dual support system will continue.

In other words, universities will continue to receive a slug of money from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) to spend as they see fit, as well as getting money from research council grants. But how the Hefce money is distributed has been decided by the Chancellor: the RAE is out and "metrics" - based on income from research councils and possibly contracts from other sources - will replace it.

This raises questions about the continued role of Hefce - a body established by Parliament and legally independent of government. What else will the Government take from Hefce while it is without a chief executive? Will it decide how funds for teaching should be distributed? How student numbers should be allocated? Is the new Hefce chief executive composing his resignation letter even before taking office? But it raises equally serious questions about how policy is made and about the substance of that new policy.

First, let us be quite clear: it would be absurd to suggest that the RAE is the only legitimate way of allocating Hefce's research money. Indeed, the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) is preparing a report saying the time has come to look at other ways of doing this.

The Chancellor claimed that the RAE imposes an excessive burden, and discourages interdisciplinary and user-focused research. That may well be the case. Other claimed failings are that it encourages short-termism, discriminates against young researchers and has generated a "transfer market" in star researchers.

But does the Chancellor know that these things are true? Some people believe they are, but where is the evidence? The only evidence that I have seen in respect of interdisciplinary research, the employment of young researchers and the "transfer market" shows that these are not consequences of the RAE. Other countries experience them more than we do. It is wrong to take decisions that will have a profound impact on the health of our research, on the basis of nothing more than common-room chat.

Even more serious, a decision has apparently been taken to replace the RAE with a metrics-based distribution, based primarily on the success of universities in securing research council grants, without any apparent analysis of its implications and consequences. We know that any method of allocating money will have an effect on behaviour. The RAE undoubtedly has - in both beneficial and negative ways - and so will any replacement. If we are to replace the RAE we need to be quite clear about the likely impact of the alternatives.

The Government has established a committee of Whitehall and funding council officials to come up with proposals within six weeks on how metrics can govern the allocation of the Hefce grant. That is a tall order, but the credibility of the proposals will depend on the rigour with which the committee assesses their consequences - behavioural and financial. To help them in their task, here are some that we have identified.

If the only way to secure government funding - whether from research councils or Hefce - is to get research council grants, then guess what people will do? They will apply for research council grants. In droves. Effectively to make research council grants the only game in town would be unwise. Apart from basing all government funding for research on one set of judgements, it will ensure that the only research that gets done complies with whatever happen to be the preoccupations of the research councils of the day.

Seventy-five per cent of grant applications to research councils are unsuccessful, and the cost of administering these grants may be as much as 10 per cent of the money allocated (and 10 times the cost of research funded by the RAE). A replacement for the RAE that depends on success in winning research council grants will need to show how it can avoid grant applications soaring, success rates plummeting and the cost of compliance accelerating even further.

It will also need to show how it will avoid deterring universities from hiring young researchers who are unlikely to secure research council grants. If the metrics are to include success in securing grants from industry, there is a risk that cut-price research will be encouraged and that this will undermine the sustainability of university research activity.

None of this is a reason for continuing with the RAE, nor is it an argument against a metrics-based approach. But these and other questions need to be addressed if the alternatives are to carry credibility; and, even more seriously, if they are not to damage our research base.

The writer is director of the Higher Education Policy Institute

education@independent.co.uk

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