Martin Henson

UK/US Collaboration …

A report for Prime Minister Gordon Brown was recently published by a UK/US study group under the joint chairmanship of Rick Trainor, Principal of King's College London and John Sexton, President of New York University.

I must say I found it a confusing read – on the one hand seeking genuine global engagement: "building a global civil society", while on the other apparently lapsing into a simple bilateral protectionism of the status quo: "It should be a high priority to sustain the prominence of our own HE systems in the global context". Maybe it was just carelessness but, while it is hardly a sin to wish to sustain the excellence to be found in the UK and US Higher Education systems, it really might have been better expressed in the present context, where excellence is to be found almost everywhere. And it would be remiss of me not to note that this second quote is followed shortly after by "… might UK/US collaboration in HE find one of its most useful marks precisely in helping to promote and generate quality HE around the world?" However, I wonder whether it was really the intention of the UK/US study group to so often draft their remarks in the form of us (the US and UK) and them (everyone else)?

The result of all this is that the report has attracted some withering analysis – for example on the Full Agenda blog: http://fullagenda.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html -- a detailed commentary with which I find myself essentially in agreement. This is a shame, because it will distract from what should be important questions, such as: how do two nations with a long history of excellence, and indeed pre-eminence, acknowledge and support the growth of such excellence wherever it is now to be found?

The authors have also coined the rather ugly neologism coopetition, when we might have found a much simpler solution: reciprocity – a term that does not rule out (let's hope: enlightened) self-interest while recognising the interests (and equal rights) of others.

A top-ten research university …

Did you know that, in the UK, we're:

• 1^st in Social Science as a whole;
• 1^st in Sociology;
• 1^st in Political Science;
• 2^nd in History;
• 2^nd in Accounting and Finance;
• 3^rd in Economics;
• 4^th in Linguistics.

And … 9^th out of more than 120 universities in the UK.

Here's an overview (6132.8K) in a bit more detail.

Research Eh? Framework ...

In the Times Higher, Lord Drayson, the Science Minister, is reported as saying “We believe that scientists have a duty – particularly when they are funded by taxpayers – to engage in the public arena, to engage in communication of the challenges and the potential ethical concerns about their science …”. These are sentiments with which it would be pretty hard to disagree; but the quote goes on: “… and that will be included in the REF”.

The RAE has always been contentious territory, but for all its faults I’m happier for us to be scrutinized and evaluated on the basis of an in-depth review than on the basis of dodgy citation counts, off-the-cuff peer profiling, and historical records of clutches of Nobel prizes. In short, RAE judgements were intended to be about research excellence, and the measures employed were largely justifiable in this regard. As such, the pain and effort of preparing and submitting to the exercise is at least rewarded by useful conclusions – at least for Universities, like Essex, that are highly regarded.

Lord Drayson might reflect that research excellence is an international currency – except for derision, how exactly does he think top US institutions, for example, will view a notion of excellence that, in the words of the Times Higher, “… gives points for public outreach”? All Universities and academics should be, and largely are, aware of their broad civic responsibilities and duties – but meeting these has nothing at all to do with research excellence. Lord Drayson would be right to say that it is important that public engagement should be recognised and rewarded, but is quite wrong to say that it is important that it should be recognised “… in the assessment”. It has no place in a Research Excellence Framework, and neither have “interacting with the media” and “taking part in debates”. These are important enough, and should be undertaken by those of us having the necessary credentials of research excellence – but they are not part of what makes us excellent.

What Lord Drayson demonstrates of course, is that the REF is not about research excellence – it’s essentially about distributing funding to universities on the basis of compliance to the governments “social engineering” agenda for the academy.