Abstract
Impact of academic research onto the non-academic world is of increasing importance as authorities seek return on public investment. Impact opens new opportunities for what are known as "professional services": as scientometrical tools bestow some with confidence they can quantify quality, the impact agenda brings lay measurements to evaluation of research. This paper is partly inspired by the famous "two cultures" discussion instigated by C.P. Snow over 60 years ago. He saw a chasm between different academic disciplines and I see a chasm between academics and professional services, bound into contact through competing targets. This paper draws on my personal experience and experiences recounted to me by colleagues in different universities in the UK. It is aimed at igniting discussions amongst people interested in improving the academic world and it is intended in a spirit of collaboration and constructiveness. As a professional services colleague said, what I have to say "needs to be said". It is my pleasure to submit this paper to the Festschrift devoted to the 60th birthday of a renowned physicist, my good friend and colleague Ihor Mryglod. Ihor's role as leader of the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics in Lviv has been essential to generating some of the impact described in this paper and forms a key element of the story I wish to tell.
Highlights
At the auspicious 1959 Rede Lectures in Cambridge University, C.P
As trust between academics on either side of Europe has led to world leading academic impact, so too does non-academic impact require bridging the cultural gap between academia and professional services
The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) was undertaken every few years on behalf Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and other UK funding councils up to 2008, after which it was replaced by the Research Excellence Framework (REF)
Summary
At the auspicious 1959 Rede Lectures in Cambridge University, C.P. Snow famously lamented what he perceived as a “gulf of mutual incomprehension” between “literary intellectuals” and scientists [1]. Instead they come from “on high”, as if to say “this is the way the world is and that’s that” Their power is persuasive if not illuminative, so much so that in 1910, Henry Adams proposed adapting the second law of thermodynamics to develop a “theory of history” [6]. As trust between academics on either side of Europe has led to world leading academic impact, so too does non-academic impact require bridging the cultural gap between academia and professional services Since this notion is relatively new, this type of trust is far less developed. The increased corporatisation of academia means that “top-down, command-and-control” structures force professional services to chase academics for metrics, deadlines, exam uploads and paperwork for teaching, research and impact. Read figure 1 and trust us — “we are experienced scientists”!
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