Future UK RAEs to be Metrics-Based

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Stephen,

Although I am politically at the other end of the spectrum, I fully agree
with your critique of the RAE. But the critique would equally hold for a
"metric" that would rate departments against each other as proposed by some
of our colleagues. The problem is to take departments as units of analysis.

With best wishes,


Loet

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
> [mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen J Bensman
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:32 PM
> To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
> Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Future UK RAEs to be Metrics-Based
>
> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
> Gee, I consider myself anything but a cultural elitist.
> After all, I work at LSU.  The basic problem of the RAE is
> that it is biased against an institution like LSU.  At least
> under the American system, good researchers at a place like
> LSU have an even chance to obtain research funding, and many
> take advantage of this system.  That way a good researcher
> maintains his independence and advance his career.  This way
> LSU plays a major role as a launch pad for up and coming
> scientists.  The British RAE always reminded me of the
> Tsarist system of krugovaia poruka, where all the peasants of
> a commune were held liable for communal taxes.  This was the
> taxation system of serfdom, causing peasants to be chained to
> the commune, stifling individual initiative, thereby causing
> agricultural stagnation, and ultimately a violent revolution.
>  If this makes me a cultural elitist, then so be it.
>
> SB
>
>
>
>
> Phil Davis <pmd8 at CORNELL.EDU>@LISTSERV.UTK.EDU> on 03/30/2006
> 02:09:28 PM
>
> Please respond to ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
>        <SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>
>
> Sent by:    ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
>        <SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>
>
>
> To:    SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
> cc:     (bcc: Stephen J Bensman/notsjb/LSU)
>
> Subject:    Re: [SIGMETRICS] Future UK RAEs to be Metrics-Based
>
> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
> Stephen, I wouldn't call you a "capitalist pig" but a
> willfully blind, cultural elitist.  In countries where
> education is wholly (or mostly) funded by the government --
> not just the UK and Europe, but Canada and others -- the
> government is concerned about making sure that everyone gets
> some modicum of funding.  That does not mean a completely
> equitable rationing system, but it ensures a base-level of
> funding.  In the United States, this base-level funding often
> comes from one's own department or college.  Granted, the
> capitalist-approach you speak of does reward the best and
> greatest, and this Winner-takes-all approach does result in
> pioneering research, yet it only rewards the few.
>
> --Phil Davis
>
>
>
> Stephen Bensman wrote:
>
> >Speaking as a capitalist pig, the entire RAE system is just another
> example
> >of socialists hoisting themselves on their own petards.
> Point 1 below
> >contains the essence of the problem.  The US has done
> pioneering work
> >on the evaluation of research-doctorate programs but was never silly
> >enough
> to
> >allocate research resources on the basis of it.  Luckily
> because these
> >evaluations were usually screwed up in some way.  Allocation of
> >research resources was always done on a project-by-project
> basis by the
> >NSF, NIH, and others, with experts in the fields evaluating
> individual
> >research proposals.  The Europeans have a tendency to overplan
> >everything with disastrous consequences--the disaster in
> Eastern Europe
> >just being the latest example of it.
> >
> >SB
>