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Institute disappointed with the pre-budget announcement on the research assessment exercise consultation

News

6 December 2006

The Institute is surprised and disappointed at the announcement today that the research assessment exercise (RAE) will be replaced with a metrics-based system and there will be no more peer review for science, engineering and technology to assess research at universities.

Philip Diamond, assistant director of science and education at the Institute said: “The quality of research at university physics departments will now be judged on data such as how much money they receive in grants rather than the quality of their results and papers after research is complete. The Institute does not agree with this method, as stated in our evidence to the consultation on the RAE. The only system that will have the respect and support of the science community is peer-review of research.”

“A metrics-based system that uses data such as research income to assess a university department gives no indication of the quality of research undertaken. Using this system will only encourage expensive research and high volume rather than high quality research. The only output measure of quality to which the announcement refers is bibliometrics, which measures the impact a research paper has in the science community. It is not clear to us that this is a robust measure.”

“We are also very surprised to learn that whilst science, engineering and technology will lose peer-review assessment, other subjects will keep it. It is not clear why this separation has been made.”

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