Broken Ranks

The only rank that counts (Image: Brett Jordan, CC BY 2.0)

A couple of years ago I wrote in the Funding Insight magazine about the modern obsession with league tables and how, while relatively harmless when used to bulk out a Sunday newspaper, they could be dangerously corrosive when attempting to compare universities globally.

I was heartened, then, to read a report published before Christmas by the Higher Education Policy Institute. This arrived with little fanfare, possibly because the world in general was torn between seeing the election of Donald Trump as the End of Days, and obsessively comparing and buying scented candles for their loved ones.

Russell Group: Give us the Cash

In a news item that must match 'The Sun Rose this Morning' for it's shock value, the Chair of the Russell Group, and VC of a Russell Group university, said that the REF should ensure that QR funding is concentrated on Russell Group universities. Professor Michael Arthur used a HEPI conference last week to state his view. Criticising the outcome of RAE2008, which funded excellent research wherever it was found, he said that "if we carry on with that trend ... and take money away from those universities that have been highly successful in the past, we end up with a progression to mediocrity."

He went on: "How many well-funded research universities do we need? I don't believe it is 169. I'd like to suggest it is somewhere between 25 and 30." How many universities are there in the Russell Group? 20. We wait to see who the lucky 5-10 outsiders will be who are invited to share King Arthur's feast.

Ref Impact - 'Too Much Weighting'

The Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) has issued a critique of the Ref. Although largely welcoming the proposals in the Consultation document, it calls for a rethink of the Impact requirement. In their press release, Hepi say that 'it seems unwise to attribute so great a weight to a feature that is in effect experimental'. Comparing it to the cultural changes following the 1992 assessment, Hepi's Director Bahram Bekhradnia said that 'this proposal needs to be handled extremely carefully...the proposed impact requirement will influence behaviour in ways that can only be speculated about at present.'