Universities and the Discipline of Education: Understanding the Impact of the United Kingdom's Research Assessment Exercise

Abstract

Research is typically experienced as a highly personal affair and the assessment of research quality has a significant impact on individual and institutional identities. As the ranking of institutional research quality has direct and indirect funding consequences, such research assessment exercises, shaped by the forces of globalisation and new public management, lead to considerable institutional pressure being exerted upon individual researchers. In the United Kingdom, the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) has become entrenched in the marketisation of higher education. Yet if it has become wrapped up with increased levels of accountability and differentiation, it has also drawn more institutions into ‘the research game’ and enabled them to recognise that research is something that can help the achievement of their institutional missions. Assessment exercises therefore impact upon what it means to be an academic. However, although institutions encourage their researchers to consider journal rankings when seeking publication, and whilst they continue to shade perceptions of research quality, the RAE for education explicitly did not rank journals and so offered a formal alternative to the perceived power of these rankings. Whilst focusing on the United Kingdom, the arguments put forward here have significance for all academics working in the field of education.