Downgrading the importance of outputs in the next Research Excellence Framework in favour of rewarding team science risks undermining the exercise’s core purpose as a guarantor of academic standards, a former vice-chancellor has warned.
In a Higher Education Policy Institute paper published on 2 November, Sir Nigel Thrift, who led the University of Warwick for nearly a decade until July 2016, says he was “more than a bit nervous” about the proposed REF 2028 which will reduce the weighting of research outputs from 60 per cent to below 50 per cent, and “in extremis…might be as little as 40 per cent” while also removing the direct link between outputs and individuals.
That decision to “downgrade academic judgement to the point where less than half of the outcome of the REF will rest on assessments of academic products” marked a symbolic “tipping point” that may alarm Whitehall and Parliament, explains Sir Nigel.
“In effect, the importance of academic research standards is being sidelined,” he continues, remarking that the reforms will undermine the “primary function” of the REF as an “accountability mechanism…to justify efficient use of the public funds invested in universities”.
