The Research Excellence Framework and the ‘impact agenda’: are we creating a Frankenstein monster?

Ben Martin

Research Evaluation, 2011, vol. 20, issue 3, 247-254

Abstract: In pursuit of public accountability, the mechanisms for assessing research performance have become more complicated and burdensome. In the United Kingdom, the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) evolved from an initially simple framework to something much more complex and onerous. As the RAE now gives way to the Research Excellence Framework (REF), ‘impact assessment’ is being added to the process. Impact comes in numerous forms, however, so its assessment is far from straightforward. While the Higher Education Funding Council for England is initially proposing a relatively simple methodology, the history of the RAE suggests that this approach will over time become ever more sophisticated. Yet if the ‘costs’ of an elaborate system for assessing ‘research excellence’ and its impact then exceed the benefits, the time may have come to re-examine whether a dual-support system still represents the optimum way of funding university research. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (49)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.3152/095820211X13118583635693 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:rseval:v:20:y:2011:i:3:p:247-254

Access Statistics for this article

Research Evaluation is currently edited by Julia Melkers, Emanuela Reale and Thed van Leeuwen

More articles in Research Evaluation from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().