The metric tide: report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. The review was chaired by Professor James Wilsdon, supported by an independent and multidisciplinary group of experts in scientometrics, research funding, research policy, publishing, university management and administration. This review has gone beyond earlier studies to take a deeper look at potential uses and limitations of research metrics and indicators. It has explored the use of metrics across different disciplines, and assessed their potential contribution to the development of research excellence and impact. It has analysed their role in processes of research assessment, including the next cycle of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). It has considered the changing ways in which universities are using quantitative indicators in their management systems, and the growing power of league tables and rankings. And it has considered the negative or unintended effects of metrics on various aspects of research culture. The report starts by tracing the history of metrics in research management and assessment, in the UK and internationally. It looks at the applicability of metrics within different research cultures, compares the peer review system with metric-based alternatives, and considers what balance might be struck between the two. It charts the development of research management systems within institutions, and examines the effects of the growing use of quantitative indicators on different aspects of research culture, including performance management, equality, diversity, interdisciplinarity, and the ‘gaming’ of assessment systems. The review looks at how different funders are using quantitative indicators, and considers their potential role in research and innovation policy. Finally, it examines the role that metrics played in REF2014, and outlines scenarios for their contribution to future exercises

'Low value courses': understanding how arts and humanities students perceive their choice of degree subject

In the wake of recent policy decisions and governmental rhetoric that directly targets Arts and Humanities degrees in the UK, this thesis investigates how Arts and Humanities students perceive their choice of degree subject. Using a conceptual framework that combines the Foucauldian concept of discourse, and the work of Foucault, Bernstein and other authors who explore how power is structured in society, a thematic and critical discourse analysis of the data reveals to what extent certain discourses were present in student’s perceptions. The effect of neoliberalism in Higher Education constructs students as consumers and Arts and Humanities degrees as ‘low value’, intrinsic value directly related to monetary worth. These form the neoliberal discourses addressed in the study. Reflecting upon the marketisation of Higher Education, the study argues that students are unwilling participants in neoliberal imaginings, their perceptions a site of resistance and struggle between interpretations inside and outside the dominant discourse. Overall, the ‘student as consumer’ and ‘low value’ discourses had not, by any means fully embedded themselves within student perceptions. Rather, corresponding with an important and raging academic debate surrounding the purpose of university and the value of degrees, given the realms of their reality, students were able to confidently and imaginatively envision alternative discourses that challenged neoliberal ideals. Such a challenge poses significant questions around how universities are conceptualised and managed going forward, and to what organising principles governments should prioritise for a healthy and happy society