Rating and rewarding higher education for sustainable development research within the marketised higher education context: experiences from English universities

This paper explores one key aspect of marketisation in English universities, the quality-related research funding (QR) system, which central government in the United Kingdom uses to allocate funds to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), based on a system of reviewing and rating the ‘quality’ of research at different HEIs. Specifically, it focuses on the experiences of 30 members of academic staff from eight universities across England who were engaged in research and/or scholarly activity in the broad field of Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD), during the time leading up to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) submission period. Interviewees were asked to talk about their experiences of being a HESD researcher/scholar within the context of the QR system and their perceptions of the relationship between the QR system and interdisciplinary, sustainability, pedagogic and HESD research. Findings from the semi-structured interviews and resulting qualitative analysis, reveal a number of obstacles facing HESD researchers which are outlined and explored in the paper. Strategies and rationale for improving the quality, reputation and ultimately, the ‘REF-ability’ of HESD research are discussed, and highlight the complex interface between marketisation and sustainability in higher education.     

Funding in English Universities and its relationship to the Research Excellence Framework

The purpose of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) is to judge the quality of research in the UK and on that basis to apportion to universities, in a transparent manner, differential shares in the UK's £1.6 billion pot of research funding. However, the funding process is anything but transparent! While the REF process was known years in advance and remained constant throughout the assessment exercise, the mechanisms for the subsequent award of quality‐related research (QR) funding in England were opaque and ‘adjustable’. The financial outcomes were put in the public domain following publication of the REF outcomes, but the calculations still remain a ‘black box’ even for experienced university administrators. The funding factors were not revealed in advance and dramatic changes were made to the formula once the REF results were known. This paper explores the intricacies involved in university QR funding and looks at the correlations between it and various REF outcomes. It discusses the tactical implications for academics and university administrators, and whether simpler alternatives that are just as effective can be developed in time for the next iteration.     

A conducive environment? The role of need support in the higher education workplace and its effect on academics' experiences of research assessment in the UK

Little is known about how researchers in higher education institutions (HEIs) experience and respond to support received from their departments. The present study investigated how support for researchers' autonomy (choice and self‐expression), relatedness (through connections with colleagues) and competence (feeling effective in one's work) influenced their attitudes towards an external assessment of research. To do so, we surveyed 598 academics from four HEIs in the UK about their attitudes towards one such external assessment: the Research Excellence Framework (REF), a nationwide assessment of research quality and the subject of debate about research evaluation. Our findings, drawing on self‐determination theory, show that departments can shape responses to the REF: individuals whose psychological needs were supported by their academic departments held more positive, and less negative, attitudes towards the REF. This occurred both directly and indirectly through researchers' recognition that the REF had a more positive influence on their research activities and outputs.     

Towards a Holistic Framework for Driving Performance in Externally-Funded Academic Research

A gradual shift in United Kingdom research funding from blanket financing by government agencies towards more diversified income streams through activities funded by various customers is prompting academic research institutions to orient their research portfolios accordingly. Academic organisations such as university institutes are increasingly relying on the funding obtained through research projects paid for by other customers than national funding bodies, thus diversifying their operations. Wrong choices in this diversification process can, however, have serious financial or operational implications for the organisation. A framework is proposed that should help enable academic institutes to rationalise their decision-making processes when seeking external funding for their operations through project grants or research contracts and learn from projects.     

让院校研究走进院校管理

管理落后是制约我国高等学校当前改革与发展的一个重要因素,而造成我国高等学校管理水平落后的一个重要原因是管理中的院校研究缺失。因此,让院校研究走进院校管理是提高我国高等学校管理水平的理性选择。这需要管理者进一步提高对院校研究重要性的认识,加强高校管理队伍的专业化建设,继续深化高等教育管理体制改革,进一步扩大高等学校的办学自主权。     

University Strategy in an Age of Uncertainty: The Effect of Higher Education Funding on Old and New Universities

This paper explores the effects of changes in funding arrangements, and particularly in tuition fees, on universities and their strategic responses to these changes. Using data from interviews with senior managers in four universities, it finds the most prestigious, pre‐1992, university largely unaffected by tuition fees and the others responding to changes in application patterns and intake. However, the effects of tuition fees on university strategy are not easily separated from other changes in the funding of Higher Education, and universities’ strategies were strongly influenced by the need to reduce costs and to generate income. A second major concern of all four universities was quality, both of inputs such as students and staff and of outputs, in degree results and ratings in employability, research, teaching and other activities. Marketing was assuming a position of increasing importance, with universities striving to develop a ‘brand’ to attract students, staff and funding.     

The Ethics of Research Excellence

We here analyse the ethical dimensions of the UK's ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF), the latest (2014) version of an exercise which assesses the quality of university research in the UK every seven or so years. We find many of the common objections to this exercise unfounded, such as that it is excessively expensive by comparison with alternatives such as various metrics, or that it turns on the subjective judgement of the assessors. However there are grounds for concern about the crude language in which for example all relevant scholarship becomes called ‘research’ and publications become ‘outputs’. The focus on the impact of research, which was a new feature of the most recent exercise, is particularly problematic, creating as it does a tendency to what Aristotle called alazony, self‐aggrandisement, on the part of academics. We conclude that the REF is a mixed good from an ethical point of view, and that more could be done to mitigate its more unfortunate features.     

The invisible impact of educational research

Although there are policy calls for educational research to discover ‘what works’ and thereby inform decision making directly, the research literature argues instead for research to have a ‘conceptual’ impact on practice. Empirical studies also suggest that, when teachers use research, their use is conceptual; research influences the content and the process of their thinking, changing attitudes and perceptions and making educational decision making more intelligent. This study investigates the ways in which educational research has achieved impact on practice from the perspective of the researchers. A sample of highly-rated impact case studies in the UK’s research assessment exercise (REF2014) were subject to content analysis, using qualitative coding techniques. Analysis shows that most research is ‘invisible’ to education practitioners because it is embedded in educational policies, technologies, and services. This ‘invisible use’ is unlikely to realise the conceptual benefits claimed for research utilisation. If educational research is to make educational decision making more intelligent at its point of use, it will be necessary to re-think current notions of quality in research impact.     

英国国家创新战略中的高校科研评估制度改革

上世纪90年代以来,英国顺应国际潮流颁布了一系列文件以推动国家创新战略,重要内容之一是加大科研投资。在英国,非常重要的一条科研投资渠道是高等教育拨款委员会的拨款,而该项拨款的基础是科研评估制度。然而推行了20多年科研评估制度缺陷明显,主要表现为耗资巨大、指标落后、妨碍创新。为解决此问题,在2008年评估结束后,英国高等教育基金委员会决定对科研评估制度进行改革。改革体现在四个方面:缩减评价单元、更新评估指标、改变评估对象和转换评估方式等。其中最为重要的变革是科研成果影响力这一评价指标的引入,反映了英国推动科研成果转移速度、建设创新型国家的战略和决心。     

高校土地置换中的产权与外部性问题分析

高校的土地置换不是一个简单的位移问题。高校产权的认可和归属关系到对高校土地置换中产权主体和交易主体的确定;高校的位移导致代表高校历史和文化的无形资产的流失;高校土地置换中的外部效应即城市文化空心化和高校发展边缘化,是影响土地置换方案合理性评价的重要因素。     

扩招十年来中国普通高校经费收入的变化及解释

1998年以来,中国普通高校的筹资模式发生了巨大变革.中央高校生均总收入稳步上升,地方高校增长停滞,生均财政拨款趋于下降,两者之间的差异逐步扩大.地方高校已由"政府投入为主"的模式在现实中演变成"政府和个人投入两为主"的模式.将这种特征置于地区财政能力、公共资源竞争、居民收入以及国际比较的背景下,既可以看到客观、合理的一面,又可以看到不合理的一面.在稳定学费水平的政策规定下,地方高校未来收入的增长空间将主要、也只能依赖财政投入的增加.     

Widening participation to doctoral education and research degrees: a research agenda for an emerging policy issue

Widening participation is on the political agenda but, to date, policy, practice and research has focused on undergraduate education. This article identifies an emerging widening participation focus on doctoral education. Using England as a case study, the article examines this development within the context of the long-standing concern with equity in education, before reviewing the relatively small literature addressing who participates (and why) in doctoral and more general postgraduate education. An analysis of Widening Participation Strategic Assessments produced in 2009 by 129 English Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) reveals an emergent institutional awareness of this new development. Finally, a research agenda for widening participation to research degrees, focusing on research students, HEIs and policy-makers, is outlined. The conclusion calls for this agenda to be pursued at institutional, national and cross-national levels so that future policy can be made and implemented on the basis of a robust evidence base.     

Selling ‘impact’: peer reviewer projections of what is needed and what counts in REF impact case studies. A retrospective analysis

Abstract

The intensification of an audit culture in higher education is made no more apparent than with the growing prevalence of performance-based research funding systems like the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) and the introduction of new measures of assessment like ‘impact’ or more specifically, the economic and societal impacts of research. Detractors of this regulatory intervention, however, question the legitimacy and credibility of such a system for, and focus within, the evaluation of research performance. Within this study, we specifically sought to understand the process of evaluating the impact of research by gaining unique access as observers of a simulated impact evaluation exercise populated by aproximately n = 90 senior academic peer reviewers and user assessors, undertaken within one UK research-intensive university prior to and in preparation of its submission to REF2014. Over an intensive two-day period, we observed how peer reviewers and user assessors grouped into four overarching disciplinary panels went about deliberating and scoring impact, presented in the form of narrative-based case studies. Among other findings, our observations revealed that in their efforts to evaluate impact, peer reviewers were indirectly promoting a kind of impact mercantilism, where case studies that best sold impact were those rewarded with the highest evaluative scores.     

Managing the complexity of centres of excellence: accommodating diversity in institutional logics

This article discusses how Centres of Excellence (CoE) and the existence of several logics in these centres can contribute to the differentiation of the strategic profiles of universities. The study sees research centres as a way to organize research activities in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in order to target both excellence but also societal challenges through focused thematic research. It reveals how societal challenges and their interpretation by these centres contribute to the differentiation of the strategic profiles of universities. Studies of centres of excellence programs in Sweden and Japan reveal differences in how their mission is formulated for relevance and excellence. The results indicate that contrasting missions of HEIs are accommodated through the dual logics of these centres relating both to autonomy and industry collaboration. The study shows that long-term funding gives these centres flexibility to set the agenda and focus on their strategic core activities. In other words, a logic of autonomy guides their strategic choices of research activities over the long-run as well as collaborators. Nevertheless, these centres are also developing strategies to cope with dilemmas stemming from the excellence-relevance and evaluation templates that emerge in the nexus of their collaborative ties with industry, government and universities.

     

从国际比较视角看我国高校基础研究经费的发展趋势

随着我国社会、经济和科技的迅速发展,高等学校在国家创新系统中的作用日益凸显。为了探讨我国高等学校基础研究经费的发展趋势,本文通过国际比较和计量回归等方法,对我国2008-2020年间的全社会基础研究经费和高等学校基础研究经费的投入水平进行了预测分析。结果表明,从2008-2020年间,我国全社会基础研究经费总额应该从207.46亿元增长到828.40亿元,高校实施的基础研究经费总额应该从97.05亿元增长到437.71亿元。最后,本文在预测分析结果和国际比较研究的基础上对我国高校基础研究经费的投入体系和成果评价等方面给出了相关的政策建议。     

科学管理与院校研究

院校研究代表了管理决策的科学部分,是提高高校科学管理水平的一个有效途径。作为一种特定的研究范式和工作模式,系统收集数据,科学分析数据,为学校管理提供决策支持,是院校研究的三个基本特征。在我国发展院校研究,必须树立科学发展观,在高校中大力倡导科学管理;依靠国家和社会的力量,建立具有统一统计口径的数据库,实现数据资源共享;加快院校研究人员的培养,促使大多数高教研究所(室)转变功能,将院校研究作为主要的工作任务。     

Why was the QAA Approach to Teaching Quality Assessment Rejected by Academics in UK HE?

This article will review and evaluate the response of academics working in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK to the experience of teaching quality review. It will do so by gathering the viewpoints and opinions of academics from a particular source over a specific time period: the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) between January and August of 2001. Before presenting and then evaluating these viewpoints, the paper will discuss the development of teaching quality assessment methodologies in UK HE within the context of the increasing importance and embededness of quality assurance and enhancement values and processes within the practices of HEIs. It is argued that this is both a recent and contested phenomenon. The article finds that the concerns of academics with the teaching quality review exercise fall under a number of headings: (1) administrative/cost burden; (2) grade inflation/gamesmanship/ organisational learning; (3) elitist bias within the system; (4) system impact of quality review; (5) reliability of the system; and (6) philosophical objections to the system. The implications of these concerns are discussed. The article's conclusion is that if academics are not convinced of, or do not actively support, the values and methodologies associated with teaching quality review, then there is little chance that these will either produce accurate or meaningful assessments of teaching quality, or act as a spur to the quality enhancement of this aspect of individual and institutional activity. This is an important point within the context of the recent review of the Quality Assurance Agency's Subject Review methodology, and the new institutional audit methodology.     

普通高校德育教师队伍专业化程度的调查分析——以河南省为案例

通过对河南省16所样本高校的问卷调查分析,发现我国普通高校德育教师队伍专业化程度很低。表现为在岗德育教师受过本专业训练的人数少,队伍不稳定,社会声誉不高,准入制度不健全,研究能力不强。因此普通高校德育教师的专用性差,德育效果不理想。原因是高校重视德育工作,但不够重视德育教师队伍建设;教师过于偏重课堂教学而不重视与学生的沟通交流。     

My tongue on your theory: the bittersweet reminder of every-thing unnameable

ABSTRACT

Across research in UK Higher Education, the most immanent demands for quality have taken the shape of the Research Assessment Exercise and the Research Excellence Framework (REF). The theorist, Martin, is cautious of the relationship academics have engendered with the process of the REF, asking are we actually creating a Frankenstein monster, becoming complicit in generating quality thresholds and standards that will become our own tormentors? I am taken by the idea of the monster when pursuing alternative discourses of childhood in educational research – fear of its potential to torment seduces me with the promise of dis-order, de-formity, chaos and mutation. The aim of this paper is to resist a fixed, knowable form of ‘quality’ (in) research, moving between the idea of ‘monster’ and the formlessness of ‘monstrosity’ to oppose the epistemological, ontological and ethical paradigms of reason.