The other week I got the chance to speak to Alex Usher, Canadian higher education wonk par excellence and latterly podcaster.
I was more than a little taken aback by his assertion that the REF is “heavy handed”, and that it produced a result that could have been reached much more simply (and much more cheaply) in other ways.
Good question
But he’s not wrong.
Amid all the REF hysteria earlier this year here at Wonkhe we worked to present the results as simply and as fairly as possible. No “grade points”, no spurious league tables. And we also aimed to put the importance of REF into perspective – even in the very largest and most research intensive providers, no more than 10 per cent of income comes from (QR) funds linked to REF results – in most cases that proportion is far, far, lower. And there is a link between QR funds and other (project) research income – but not as strong a link as you might expect.
