Dear colleagues,
Having been reassured that the message below was not an attempt by AGS
to restrict further discussion of the crucial REF 'impact' issue to the
blog, I would like to draw your attention to the UCU petition against
the 'economic and social impact' factor in the REF model.
https://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=4207
I would have liked a better petition for the sake of arts and humanities
- restoring 'intellectual' or 'cultural' would have improved the formula
considerably -, but this is our best chance of having an 'impact', I
think. The petition has some 7000 signatures. There should be a lot
more; please circulate widely!
Best,
Dan Wilson
From: Peter Davies <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Peter Davies <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:38:26 +0000
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: REF consultation
Colleagues
May I point you in the direction of the AGS (formerly CUTG) blog,
which provides a much more congenial space for this kind of
discussion, as all posts are kept together and we can follow the
arguments more clearly. That's why it was set up, it should make it
easier to have this kind of discussion. Follow this link:
http://germanstudiesblog.wordpress.com/
Best wishes
Peter
On 28 Oct 2009, at 15:55, Susanne Kord <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
[Hide Quoted Text]
Dear all,
my full agreement with Bobby?s points and my thanks to him for sending
them around for
everyone?s consideration.
At a British Academy meeting held yesterday in London to clarify
HEFCE?s notion of
impact, it was clearly stated that impact is conceived of as ?national?,
not
?international?. Since HEFCE is still consulting on impact and other
matters, that may
of course change. But if there is indeed no interest in an
international dimension,
that eliminates yet another area in which particularly ML Departments
might have made a
convincing case for impact.
Since ?Impact? also excludes impact on students and other academics,
previous esteem
factors such as board or panel memberships would only be applicable if
it can be
documented clearly that the British non-academic public benefits in
some tangible way.
Susanne
--
Susanne Kord
Professor and Head of Department
Hon. Secretary, English Goethe Society
Editor, Publications of the English Goethe Society (PEGS)
German Department
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
Tel. (0)20/7679 3103
FAX (0)20/7679 0157
Main (0)20/7679 7120
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/german/aboutus/staff/kord.htm
From: Robert Weninger <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Robert Weninger <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:06:01 +0000
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: REF Consultation once more
Dear all,
I posted the following on the REF blog for German Studies, but a
colleague suggested
that I circulate this more widely since not all will be accessing that
web blog? I wrote:
It strikes me that this reformulation of the former RAE into a 25%
impact-driven REF
will, for the majority of us in modern languages, sound the death knell
of
our
department's identities as they are today.
The impact factor is clearly meant not to include our publications, or
how far they are
disseminated around the globe, or even how much discussion they elicit
(that all falls
under research), nor any teaching or outreach-related activities. It
is primarily an
economics driven indicator of the documentable/measurable surplus
value to society that
we produce (again: not intellectually but socially and/or economically:
that is quantifiable beyond our publications and their circulation
numbers). As was
noted above [[in other comments on the blog, that is; R.W.]] this was
not a focus in the
past, and indeed might have been penalised as popularising our
research (and thus
deflating its research quality). Thus, my response would be twofold:
first, as was also said above, we cannot agree to this, certainly not
for 2012/13 since
we do not have any lead-in time to change our habits and create the
kind of impact they
envisage here: we are already fifty percent into the REF period.
Second, to point out
that if HEFCE insists on this at this level (25%), they will
effectively be reducing
modern language funding by the same percentage AND we will fall FAR
below other fields'
scores and hence also look bad in statistical comparisons
(institutionally this will
spell catastrophe, both on the funding front as well as in terms of
perception of our
research standings/qualities: too many departments have already been
forced to shut
down: this will speed up the process and eliminate many more of our
departments). Even
the alternative to reduce this factor to 10% or more (15 or 20)
strikes me as risky if
not suicidal for us. But since I believe this is what HEFCE will
introduce sooner or
later - they will hardly be swayed to listen to us - the least we
should do is to ask
that they introduce this factor progressively, starting at 5 to 10% in
the first round.
This might allow (some of) us to figure out how to actually refocus
our research
activities to achieve this kind of impact outcome. The one question I
have is whether
any of our past esteem factors might be allowed to count towards the
impact score:
membership on boards, panels, reviewing in newspapers or such? Or
would these still be
considered 'only' research-related in the old sense?
On another note: I am in full support of us being required to submit
'only' three pieces
of research in light of the fact that we have only five years rather
than seven. And I
always already considered seven years in our field(s) to be too short
(ten years would
be far preferable). You get out of one RAE/REF to already be half way
through the next
by the time you get the results.?
Best regards,
Robert K. Weninger
Professor of German
Editor, Comparative Critical Studies
[log in to unmask]
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ip/robertweninger/index.html
Department of German
King's College London
Strand
London WC2 R 2LS
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
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