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Can national research assessment exercises be used locally to inform research strategy development? The description of a methodological approach to the UK RAE 2008 results with a focus on one institution

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Abstract

National mechanisms for comparing the research profiles of higher education institutions (HEIs) have become increasingly common. Probably the best known of these is the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) conducted in the United Kingdom, and used as the basis for the allocation of research funding. Such exercises are expensive. They would have additional value if the data could be used by HEIs to inform the development of their research strategies. In this paper we use publicly available RAE outcome data to demonstrate this potential. We contrast the two units’ research profiles with other units of assessment within the HEI, with other like-units nationally, and finally we examine the relative performance of all the HEI’s units of assessment against their national counter-parts. Finally we discuss the kinds of insights these data may offer in the development of research strategy at the level of the institution, and at the level of the School or Department.

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Notes

  1. For the purposes of allocating financial resources based on the RAE results, the government used a different weighting scheme: 7, 3, 2, 0, 0. That is, a 4* rating was weighted as 7 and both a 1* and an “Unclassified” rating were weighted 0. Any choice of weighting scheme is essentially arbitrary. That two distinct categories of quality are valued the same, however, and that the highest category is valued at more than twice the value of the second highest category would be particularly perverse in the context of an analysis of research quality divorced from resource allocation.

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Acknowledgments

Earlier drafts of this paper were prepared while DDR and PA held Professorial appointments at Brunel University; and these drafts were read and commented on by senior staff and researchers at the University. We would like to thank them for their feedback and encouragement to develop the paper for publication.

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  1. School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 46150, Bandar Sunway, Selangor D.E., Malaysia

    Daniel D. Reidpath & Pascale Allotey

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  1. Daniel D. Reidpath
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  2. Pascale Allotey
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Correspondence to Daniel D. Reidpath.

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Reidpath, D.D., Allotey, P. Can national research assessment exercises be used locally to inform research strategy development? The description of a methodological approach to the UK RAE 2008 results with a focus on one institution. High Educ 59, 785–797 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-009-9280-3

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