Research funding is short-changing humanities subjects | John Marenbon

The humanities subjects do not benefit from the research excellence framework. They need a better systemThe government ’s research excellence framework (Ref) is perhaps the ultimate in bureaucratic exercises. It aims every seven years to assess, department by department, every “research active” academic in the UK. The aim is laudable: to ensure that a stream of research funding (known as QR) is distributed to universities fairly and transparently. But for the humanities, the Ref does nothing but harm.Few would quarrel with the principle of a system of assessment for the humanities based on reading and judging work submitted, rather than one using citation indexes and other bibliometric data. But the scale of the task makes meaningful or honest assessment impossible. There are too few assessors to provide competent, specialised judgement on the range of work submitted. The workload imposed on them requires superhuman capacities: along with their normal teaching and research, panel members must read the equivalent of a full-length book every day for nine months.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Universities Education Higher education Research Research funding Science Academics Lecturers Source Type: news