Harnessing the Metric Tide: indicators, infrastructure, and priorities for responsible research assessment, or The Metric Tide Revisited as it will surely be colloquially known, is a superb piece of work.
The rapid review has taken place through a handful of expert panels, coupled with a literature review, and supported by advice from international experts.
Ostensibly, this is an exercise to lead a brief review of the role of metrics in research management and assessment. It deals with these issues, as discussed in detail on Wonkhe, but it also lures us into considering whether research incentives, funding, and accountability mechanisms are fit for purpose.
Buried within section two is a cheat sheet on the eight cycles of UK research assessment since 1986. As the authors rightly point out while the history of research assessment is new in terms of the history of higher education it has a lineage that precedes the inventions of the world wide web.
