Dear Mike,
The RAE and successors used a number of
indicators together to come to the final decision on the classification
of the Department, or, these days, the individual before
being aggregated into a departmental profile. In the early
versions (this would be about 1985) it was a purely paper exercise
where research income and type and number of publications were used and
this was grossly unfair. In later versions each academic was asked to
choose three publications during the assessment
period and to say why they were significant. Departments were able to
choose whether or not a particular academic was put into the process. If
they weren't put in then there would be no research money attributed to
them. Such academics had then to accept that
their role in the Department would be in teaching and administration,
releasing the time of research active staff. Unbelievably prior to the
introduction of RAE this had never happened. Many such staff took early retirement. My own Department carefully
allocated teaching on an equal basis irrespective of whether they did research
or not. This meant some of us worked all hours and weekends. My second
daughter Kathy told me recently told me that summer was when her father
didn't work every weekend (and
while watching TV). So the whole process should be seen as a way of
Departments coming to terms with organising themselves in a way which
allowed them to enter an upper grouping of Departments that receive a
significant amount of money for research and, as
a result, could employ more staff and have lighter teaching loads and a
well equipped laboratory.
But the central subject committees eventually
looked at a profile of data on each academic. Someone would agree to
look at the three paper submitted and the commentary for each academic.
They also looked at indicators of esteem - plenary
lecture at world congresses etc. They now also look at overall
management - the consistent development of research themes over many
years.
The
statistics you quote sound pretty dire and, of course, the purpose of
the exercise is to expose such features for debate. It rather sound as
if you have a lot of academics who might not be considered in the UK
assessment. I suspect we are more of a debating academic society and a
less hierarchical society that Italy. As a result the process may have
different consequences.
Certainly they was a great deal of discussion
of the way in which academics in different subjects contribute. In the
English Department an academic I highly respected produced nothing in
print until his early 30's when he published
the definitive book on his subject - leading to one of the mani Chairs
in English in the country. There is the problem of the academic who is
going to produce the great book and persuades the University to fund his
trips to Venice or somewhere equally
pleasant each spring but it never appears. In Social Sciences, the PhD
is usually the first book and can take years. The criteria published by
the Higher Education Funding Council on the web discusses the criteria
for groups of subjects and then these are
interpretations within the panels in each subject. When I met up with
people in Humanities over such issues, I had to keep reminding them that
it was a peer revue system - ultimately by various roots the accessment
was going to be made by people they knew
only too well. They should get out more and demonstate their abilities -
write short papers, go to conferences etc. They would often say that
they would if I gave the Department more money but I reminded them that
the logic of assessment means it works the
other way around.
I point out that at least some of the figures you
present for Italian Universities are not dissimilar to those of UK
universities. I imagine, by the nature of things, you would find much
the same if you looked
at all US universities. All it tells you is that top flight research is
concentrated in a proportion only of a nation's universities, while the
rest prepare students for professional work etc, and their academics
are equally hardworking and of value to society.
In other words, you are producing figures that are worthless unless
interpreted in terms of the structure of your higher education system
and how it may differ from, say, the UK system.
Kindest regards
XXX
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