Hi, 
it's interesting for those based not only in the UK, but also elsewhere. In
the UK you had a number of assessment exercises since the mid-1980s based
on peer-review and the evaluation of the quality of publications, now I
hear that you're going towards a bibliometric-based system of assessment.
Which is in many ways inadequate not only in social sciences such as human
geography but also in physicial sciences (see the interesting article: "The
nature of publishing and assessment in Geography and Environmental Studies:
evidence from the Research Assessment Exercise 2008" in the latest issue of
Area).

Italy is historically a disaster in terms of evaluation systems and this
has very negative consequences for the autonomy of researchers (see in
"Nature": I. Marino, "Acceptance of peer review will free Italy's research
slaves", 2008). . A lot of discussions but few attempts to do something
'serious' and 'strong'. One experiment was undertaken in 2005 and was
highly valuable, largely based on the RAE example. But since then nothing..
by the way the danger of shifting towards quantitative-bibliometric
approaches is also present in Italy where people don't trust peer-review so
much (based on previous experiences), and hard-scientists and mainstream
economists are strongly pushing towards this direction.

We will see what happens.. In any case the issue of how measuring the
impact of community-based research and action is highly relevant within
critical social sciences, well beyond the UK and the other Anglophonic
countries.

bests,
Ugo

PS The link sent by Rachel does not open..


  

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Rachel Pain [log in to unmask]
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 09:46:06 +0100
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Demonstrating the "impact" of your research


Great idea Pete - I cant make the meeting but will volunteer to try and
coordinate something if you send me the flipcharts etc afterwards - unless
you can do it on the day or someone else wants to. The deadline is December
16th.
r

________________________________

From: Discussion list on participatory geographies on behalf of North, Peter
Sent: Tue 06/10/2009 09:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Demonstrating the "impact" of your research



I think we should comment

what about having this as a theme for discfussion at the geography and
policy seminar next month and putting together a puiggy submission from
that (as well as congoing web discussions?)

Peter North
Department of Geography
School for Environmental Sciences
University of Liverpool
0151 794 2849
________________________________________
From: Discussion list on participatory geographies [[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Rachel Pain [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 06 October 2009 08:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Demonstrating the "impact" of your research

This one is for UK academics, and only those interested in the REF - the
next incarnation of our research audit machine (thats about 3 of you
then...)

I wondered if as PYGYWG we want to respond to the current consultation on
the shape of the REF (See http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2009/09_38/)

Especially relevant for us as piggies here are the suggestions about
"impact" (which they suggest will make up 25% of the assessment - which,
taken at face value, i guess many of would welcome).

To cut a long story short they want to be quite open about what impact is,
and attempt to conceptualise it as non-linear in time (post research
projects/outputs), though other parts of the document are contradictory. So
maybe there is mileage in having some input given University research will
be judged by this. No doubt it'll mould activities just like its
predecessor.

But in particular note the emphasis on industry/policymaking, and relative
absence of working with the voluntary sector / counter-policy / activist
and co-produced research with grassroots groups - it would be good to see
these visible and different kinds of impacts valued.

There are also intriguing questions about how to evaluate and demonstrate
the impact of research - the main solution the document suggests at present
seems to be surveys - how many lives saved, environments made sustainable,
wellbeing indicators ticked...

My questions are


i)                    Does anyone care? Is it worth responding?

ii)                   Can anyone comment on how to demonstrate or argue for
the "impact" of community based / activist research?

rachel

Rachel Pain
Department of Geography
University of Durham
Durham DH1 3LE
England
tel. +44 (0)191 3341876
website:
www.dur.ac.uk/geography/research/researchclusters/?mode=staff&id=352
Co-Director, Centre for Social Justice and Community Action
www.dur.ac.uk/beacon/socialjustice/<http://www.dur.ac.uk/beacon/socialjustic
e/>
Editor and Book Series Editor: Antipode
www.antipode-online.net<http://www.antipode-online.net
<http://www.antipode-online.net/> >




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