Research governance and the future(s) of research assessment

Alis Oancea ()
Additional contact information
Alis Oancea: University of Oxford

Palgrave Communications, 2019, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract This paper explores recent public debates around research assessment and its future as part of a dynamic landscape of governance discourses and practices, and organisational, professional and disciplinary cultures. Drawing reflectively on data from RAE 2001, RAE 2008 and REF 2014 (reported elsewhere), the paper highlights how recent debates around research assessment echo longer-term changes in research governance. The following changes, and several critiques of their implications, are discussed: shifts in the principles for governing research and the rise of multi-purpose assessment; the spread of performance-based funding and external accountability for research; the use of metrics and indicators in research assessment; the boundary work taking place in defining and classifying units or fields for assessment; the emphasis on research impact as a component of research value; organisational recalibration across the sector; and the specialisation of blended professional practice. These changes are underpinned by persistent tensions around accountability; evaluation; measurement; demarcation; legitimation; agency; and identity in research. Overall, such trends and the discursive shifts that made them possible have challenged established principles of funding and governance and have pushed assessment technologies into a pivot position in the political dynamics of renegotiating the relationships between universities and the state. Jointly, the directions of travel identified in this paper describe a widespread and persistent regime of research governance and policy that has become embedded in institutional and individual practices.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-018-0213-6 Abstract (text/html)
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:pal:palcom:v:5:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-018-0213-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-018-0213-6

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().