Pathways to 50 Shades of Grey

The basement of Death Star House
(Photo by Víctor Jesús Carrasco)

The news that the Pathways to Impact attachment was being dropped from Research Council applications was met with disbelief this week. But the true reason for the change is far stranger than anyone imagined...

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The basement of Death Star House. A sweaty man is desperately shovelling paper into a furnace. Another man comes in with a wheelbarrow filled with more paper. 

Sweaty Man: Is that it?
Wheelbarrow Man: Are you joking? There's still most of a roomful left. And another roomful after that.
SM: Sweet Jesus! How can there be so much?
WM: Well, it's 12 years' worth. There's bound to be a bit of a build up.
SM [shaking his head]: I mean, why did they never send these out?
WM: That was never the point. They were never meant to be read or assessed.
SM: What??
WM: You've got to remember the context. At the time there was a concern that the strong and historic advantage that the UK had in creative writing was beginning to slip. The land that gave the world Shakespeare and Milton was losing out. JK Rowling had peaked. There was increasing outsourcing of sonnets to China. Whole novels were being produced in sweatshops in Bangladesh. The Reseach Councils felt they needed to act. A single call for a bit of practice-based research from the AHRC just wouldn't cut it. They needed to do something drastic. They needed to embed rich creativity and outrageous flights of fancy into everyday grant writing.
SM [whispers]: And thus Pathways to Impact were born?
WM: Precisely. It was bold. It was brave. It was genius. And it worked. Shortly after, EL James published the first of her magnificent 50 Shades trilogy, and British creative writing was back on track. We were Britannia triumphans once again.
SM: Um...
WM: Anyway, keep shovelling! We should be done by the morning.
SM: But what if the academics find out that all...all this [indicating piles of Pathways to Impact] was pointless?
WM: Not pointless! It was just the point was different to the one they thought it was. Anyway, it means they've honed their skills for the major task.
SM: Which is?
WM: The REF impact case studies. If the Pathways were slim volumes of poetry and novellas, the case studies were the real deal. They were Dickens and Tolstoy. They were Trollope. Whole white whales were being chased down. Windmills were being tilted at. [looks dreamily into the mouth of the furnace]. It was magnificient.
SM: You mean...that was all pointless too?
WM: Of course! You don't think anyone read them, do you?
SM: Well I...kind of assumed...
WM [putting a paternal arm around SM]: Oh my boy. Who knew such naivity still existed in modern HE? Next you'll be telling me that reviewers never disagree. You have much, much to learn. But in the meantime, get shovelling. Cummings may call by at any moment and we don't want him to see these piles of paperwork.

Sweaty man turns again to the furnace, and a shovelful of Pathways to Impact goes up in flames.