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[David Watkins]

RAE and Efficiency


It does not need a switch to metrics-based analysis to generate a Matthew
Effect in the UK RAE. It already exists, because prior research funding is
considered an 'output' rather than an 'input'; hence one clear reason for
the strong correlation between prior funding and RAE rank.

The logic of this is baffling (except as a political power play). Any
switch to a more metrics-based approach to 'quality', 'impact' etc. opens
up the possibility of using the research funding element to arrive at an
efficiency measure by the simple expedient of dividing the chosen rating
through by the resource input (in particular, by the previous RAE funding,
but since all outputs are normally taken into consideration, so should all
input funding).

That would really level up the playing field - which is why it is never
done - and a reason why metrics-based approaches are really contested by
the winners in the current system.

As a taxpayer, I am at least as interested in the relative efficiency with
which two similar departments have used my largesse as in the relative peer
esteem. One suspects that outside the few areas where there are genuine
economies of scale or scope in research ('Big Science'), there is a strong
Pareto effect in operation here, with small amounts of funding at the
individual, departmental or institutional level producing most of the
benefits, and the marginal advantage of increasing concentration being
vanishingly small.




DW

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Professor David Watkins
Postgraduate Research Centre
Southampton Business School
East Park Terrace
Southampton SO14 0RH

David.Watkins at solent.ac.uk
 023 80 319610 (Tel)
+44 23 80 31 96 10 (Tel)

02380 33 26 27 (fax)
+44 23 80 33 26 27 (fax)