Dear All,
I am preparing a submission to HEFCE on the proposals for the Research
Excellence Framework (REF) on behalf of the British Geophysical
Association (BGA), which operates this "Geophysics" emailing list.
The BGA is concerned about the effect on geophysical research funding when
"impact criteria" account for 25% of the total "score" of research carried out
within a Unit of Assessment (usually a university department)
(actual research output counts for 60% and "research environment" for
15%).
Please do let me have any suggestions you have for points to be included in
the BGA's response, not just confined to the question of "impact criteria".
Details of the REF are at http://www.hefce.ac.uk
I intend to finish the response on 4th December in good time for
the deadline on 16th.
The petition mentioned below is run by the Universities and Colleges
Union (UCU), and specifically targets the "impact criteria" aspect
of the REF.
Yours sincerely,
Sheila Peacock
(Secretary, British Geophysical Association)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Stand up for Research - Update
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:02:22 +0000
From: Jonathan White <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Jonathan White <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Dear colleague,
I wanted to update you on the progress of the “Stand up for Research”
campaign.
More than 12,500 academics have now signed, making this the biggest ever
such petition UCU has run. The signatories represent all disciplines,
applied as well as pure research and come from every kind of university,
defying the way in which the proposals trade research communities off
against one another.
You can also read more about the campaign in the forthcoming edition of
UC magazine, in which Professor Philip Moriarty from Nottingham
University argues that “The imposition of impact criteria in peer review
and in the REF is nothing less than an assault on core academic
principles and the ethos of university research. It will also, perhaps
counter-intuitively, be immensely damaging to the long-term
socio-economic impact of academia.”
We now have only THREE WEEKS left to make this statement impossible to
ignore.
Please help us do this by forwarding the link to the page to someone you
know and asking them to sign it: http://www.ucu.org.uk/standupforresearch
Yours sincerely
Jonathan White
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