You are in :

Role of quality assurance and evaluation

The role of quality assurance and evaluation in research funding.

To consider the role quality assurance and evaluation mechanisms might play in underpinning the allocation of HEFCE research funding.

In considering this issue the group will wish to address the following questions:

How has the research assessment function developed in the UK?

  • What is research assessment for and to what purposes has it been put?

  • What can be learnt from the history of research assessment and successive RAE cycles?

  • What has proved workable and what has not?

What have the implications of research assessment been for the careers of researchers?

What have been the effects of research assessment on the research base?

  • Has research assessment provided quality assurance?

  • Has research assessment encouraged an improvement in research quality?

  • Has research assessment encouraged an improvement in research management?

What approaches are other countries adopting to research assessment?

  • What are the benefits and problems associated with the different approaches to research assessment in comparator countries?

  • How do comparator countries view the current UK approach to research assessment?

Is research assessment necessary to deliver the research funding policies of HEFCE?

How should the research assessment process change to ensure the health of the research base in the future?

  • Has research assessment run its course and fulfilled its original purposes?

  • Should research assessment continue to be based on peer review?

  • Should research assessment be more integrated with other assessment process - for example teaching quality assessment?

  • What form of evaluation is most appropriate as the nature of research changes?

  • How can research assessment better engage with research users?

  • How might research assessment respond to a change in the nature and purpose of HEFCE funding?

  • Should the assessment process differentiate between funders, the type of funding, and the type of activity?

  • How can assessment best balance the need for consistency and comparability across disciplines, given that some disciplines have significantly different structures to others?

What criteria would best address the future funding needs of the research base?

  • What alternative indicators could be usefully employed?

    - survey-based reputational assessment?
    - student based assessment?
    - self assessment?
    - assessment based on commercial applicability of outputs?
    - assessment of research productivity?

  • How should the assessment criteria be weighted?

  • Should research assessment explicitly acknowledge strategically important research such as that related to Foresight priorities or regional needs?

  • What is the optimal balance between quantitative and qualitative indicators?

  • What is the right balance between retrospective and prospective assessment?

Are the costs of research assessment justified by the benefits?

  • What is the true cost of the RAE?

  • Is the cost disproportionate to the changes in institutional and departmental funding it produces?

  • Is the cost disproportionate to the benefits it brings?

  • What opportunities exist to reduce the costs?

  • What opportunities exist to enhance the utility?

Content: Andrew Fisher
Last updated 07 April 2000