UK Research Assessment Research Articles

Benchmarking research development in nursing: Curran's competitive advantage as a framework for excellence

This paper offers a developmental benchmark against which to assess nursing research achievements and excellence. Internationally, the academy of nursing, like other disciplines, has able people fully capable of delivering high-quality research. This raises the question of why, during systematic, peer-review research assessment exercises nursing appears at the bottom of the academic units assessed both in the UK RAE (Research Assessment Exercise, 1992, 1996, 2001) and the New Zealand PBRF (Performance Based Research Fund, 2003). To examine this issue, after tracing the background of the international drive for research excellence and the UK's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), Curran's analysis of competitive advantage in higher education is introduced as a means of analysing nursing's entry into higher education and the RAE. Together with data comparing the development of nursing with other disciplines, analysis suggests that UK nursing's performance in RAEs was as a new, hard-working, emerging, applied discipline which demonstrated a predictable research trajectory with strong trends of growth in quality and quantity. Recognising that research assessment is both a politically driven, socially constructed competition for scarce resources, and an analysis of the discipline, the conclusion argues that excellence and integrity should form the foundation of a disciplinary identity which incorporates the diversity of the subject. It also notes that without secure research income streams the growth in critical mass of the `knowledge community' and nursing's capacity to contribute to health improvement will remain vulnerable despite strong positive trends.

The UK Research Assessment Exercise: the evolution of a national research evaluation system

The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) represents one of the most institutionalised forms of research evaluation in the OECD economies. It has become a primary means of concentrating resources for research in a relatively small number of universities. Its main purpose is to inform funding decisions, and the indirect effects come from the public signalling of quality. The RAE seems to have reinforced the traditional ‘high science’ ideals of British universities, encouraging greater coordination of research around traditional disciplinary concerns and inhibiting applied research. Debates among universities and policy-makers have led to a reshaping of the exercise. Its evolution into a highly elaborate procedure combined with its failure as a strategic policy tool to steer university research towards socio-economic impacts have led to its abandonment in its present form. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

The Infrastructure of Educational Research in Scotland

This article offers a descriptive and analytical account of the current state of educational research in Scotland, viewed against the background of constitutional change within the United Kingdom and debates about the nature, function and quality of research activity and output. It starts by considering how to undertake the task in hand and argues that it is necessary to draw on a combination of institutional, developmental and interactive approaches. Thereafter the relatively disappointing Scottish results in the 2001 UK Research Assessment Exercise are reported to set the scene for subsequent efforts to improve research capacity. The role of the Scottish Executive in determining research priorities, commissioning projects and using the findings of research in helping to inform policy is outlined, taking account of important structural changes following devolution. A key development has been the Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS), a collaborative university-led initiative, funded jointly by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Funding Council (previously the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council). This consists both of substantive research networks and a capacity-building programme of research training for beginning and developing researchers. Established research centres, with different histories and emphases, are described in order to raise issues about the balance between applied research, linked to policy priorities, and fundamental research which seeks to develop new theories and models. The role of the Scottish Educational Research Association, which has links with the British and European Educational Research Associations, is considered. Various attempts by different bodies to promote teacher engagement in research are also described. In the final section an attempt is made to assess what progress has been made. It is concluded that while the overall climate for the conduct of educational research has improved, providing real opportunities to demonstrate the value of research, there remain a number of challenging problems. These include: issues of research quality; inadequate opportunity to undertake fundamental (as distinct from applied) research; tensions between the demands of teacher education programmes and universities' research aspirations; the risk of ‘collaboration’ becoming ‘consensus’; and the absence of a developed international perspective.

Editorial: What makes a JCN paper international?

Editorial: What makes a <i>JCN</i> paper international?

Planning Educational Research and the UK Research Assessment Exercise

The contemporary relationship between research and teaching in higher education is a complex and contested one. In the UK context, for example, academics and university managers are currently confr...

IT IS ABOUT PEOPLE

Griffith Edwards’ essay (Edwards 2006) on the story of the Journal so far gives us a glimpse into the reasons for its rise from obscurity to one of the top specialist journals in the field. One of those reasons is not stated in the piece, but it is surely apparent to anyone to who has taken an interest in the journal over the past 26 years—it is the vision of the man himself. I will not dwell on this, but I raise it because I believe it is important to recognize that any enterprise, whether it be a journal or a government, is dependent ultimately on the vision and enterprise of key individuals and the hard work, intelligence and commitment of many more. Bad systems can be made to work by competent, conscientious and good people and good systems can be made to fail by incompetent, careless or ill-motivated people. We live in a time when it seems that this rather obvious point is being overlooked and when there seems to be an unmerited faith in the ability of ever more cumbersome and intrusive procedures to make up for human failings. I have little doubt that in good time there will be a backlash against this and perhaps we will move on to a more enlightened era, where the emphasis will be on trying to make our human capital as good as it can be. In the meantime, we must do the best we can in a world where red tape is seen as the panacea for human failings. Why do I make such a big issue of this in a commentary about journal publishing? It is because I think it is relevant to the future of high quality specialist journals such as Addiction. On the face of it, things could not be rosier. The Journal receives ever more high-quality submissions, and sales and readership figures are better than one might have dared to hope for in years gone by. But there are pressures in the system. The increasing number of submissions means that there is pressure on the precious resource of people: people to contribute to the editing and refereeing process, people to take the vision forward. At the same time, many countries such as the United Kingdom are engaging in ‘research assessment exercises’ which, alas, devalue journal editing and refereeing as an activity in favour of getting a small number of papers in non-specialist journals that have a high impact factor. In the case of the UK's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), being editor of a journal can at most count 5% towards the ‘score’ one obtains, whereas publishing papers in non-specialist journals counts 75%. So why do people like myself and Addiction's dedicated team of regional, deputy and assistant editors give up so much time to the journal? Why do we sacrifice RAE ‘brownie points’ in service of the Journal? Not for the money, because none of us is paid personally for the work. Certainly not to make friends, because turning down a valued colleague's papers is no way to cement a friendship. We do it because we care about the field—I personally care about the legacy handed to me by Griffith Edwards and his forebears. We have been handed the torch and we do not want to drop it or let it go out. We are fallible and we make mistakes and we try to develop systems that minimize these. As Griffith Edwards’ history of the journal shows, making a successful journal is all about people—people who see themselves as part of an invisible college working with a shared vision. As long as we have people who care enough about making a contribution through service with a journal, we will find a way to make whatever publishing model we end up with work.

Editorial: UK research assessment exercise

Editorial: UK research assessment exercise

The UK research assessment exercise

This article examines and critiques the UK research assessment exercise (RAE) and its implications for research and writing in HRD. It describes the process and identifies weaknesses in some of the concepts and related criteria applied in assessing and grading research outputs and in particular the notions of ‘international’ and ‘world class’ as standards against which to judge those outputs. The article argues that the process has detrimental effects for emerging subjects such as HRD, for those engaged in research in such subjects and for journals such as HRDI which are relatively new to business and management. It concludes that UK academics working in the field of HRD are mistaken if they allow the RAE to drive their research and choice of publications and outlets, and that it is important to support the journals which are playing a critical role in establishing the subject.

The Evolution of the UK’s Research Assessment Exercise: Publications, Performance and Perceptions

This article examines how the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), along with the development of performance indicators, fits into the production of research within a changing policy context. The historical evolution of the RAE from 1985–2001 is considered, before looking specifically at how research output (in the form of journal publications) was, and is, assessed. Changes in process and output measurements necessitated a move from quantitative to quality evaluation, which affected both academic publishing and the role of journals within the RAE. The issue of quality – in terms of perceptions and performance – as applied to both is explored.

Collaboration in cardiovascular stem-cell research

Although the excitement of discovery motivates medical researchers, competition among them is a driving force and is considered normal and healthy. Articles that are first in the field can have precedence for publication in journals with high impact factors. Academic promotion is aided by such articles and the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) demands them. Funding bodies distribute resources to the authors of such articles. For gene therapy, the motive of personal recognition by academics striving to be the authors of articles describing small advances in basic science or small clinical studies led to the publication of fragmented information that did not advance the research field.

Stem-cell therapy: hope and hype

In the fifth year since human cloning to generate stem cells was legalised in the UK, what progress has been made towards taking stem-cell therapy from laboratory to clinical practice? In 2000, articulating robust UK Government support, then Health Minister Yvette Cooper proclaimed that stem cells from cloned human embryos “could prove the Holy Grail in finding treatments for cancer, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's disease, leukaemia and multiple sclerosis … transform[ing] the lives of hundreds of thousands of people”. 1 Kite M Disabled MPs plead for stem cell research. Times (Lond). Dec 16, 2000; Google Scholar But 4 years later, the technical difficulties and biological hazards inherent in cloning human embryos and developing treatments from their stem cells led Richard Gardner, Chairman of the Royal Society Working Group on Stem Cells and Therapeutic Cloning, to doubt whether this would ever be “a procedure that becomes widely available … There are concerns about the efficiency and elaborateness of the procedure, and it's going to be very time-consuming and very expensive”. 2 Sample I Is there hope behind the stem cell hype?. Guardian. Aug 19, 2004; Google Scholar So, to paraphrase May 25th's Saving Faces event in London, UK, are stem-cell therapies hype, or hope, or substance? Collaboration in cardiovascular stem-cell researchAlthough the excitement of discovery motivates medical researchers, competition among them is a driving force and is considered normal and healthy. Articles that are first in the field can have precedence for publication in journals with high impact factors. Academic promotion is aided by such articles and the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) demands them. Funding bodies distribute resources to the authors of such articles. For gene therapy, the motive of personal recognition by academics striving to be the authors of articles describing small advances in basic science or small clinical studies led to the publication of fragmented information that did not advance the research field. Full-Text PDF Semantics and ethics of human embryonic stem-cell researchThe ethical debate about human embryonic stem-cell research has revisited the old embryo-research debate, which UK law put within a framework as long ago as 1990,1 licensing it under strict conditions, permitting only research linked to reproduction, and creation of embryos for research when “necessary”. In the aftermath of animal research on stem cells, new categories were added to the statute,2 allowing also “research for serious disease” on the human embryo. Although on both occasions the legal process had been democratic3 and expressed its respect for the symbolic nature of the embryo,4 a judge5 was asked to determine whether an embryo created by somatic-cell nuclear transfer was an embryo under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, a matter settled on appeal in February, 2002. Full-Text PDF

A New Method for Ranking Academic Journals in Accounting and Finance

Given the many and varied uses to which journal rankings are put, interest in ranking journal 'quality' is likely to persist. Unfortunately, existing methods of constructing such rankings all have inherent limitations. This paper proposes a new (complementary) approach, based on submissions to the most recent UK research assessment exercise (RAE 2001), which is not restricted to a pre-defined journal set and, importantly, is based on quality choice decisions driven by economic incentives. For three metrics, submissions to RAE 2001 are compared with the available set of publications to provide evidence on the perception of journal quality, a fourth metric is based on the overall RAE grades, and an overall ranking is produced.

Ratings in the Research Assessment Exercise 2001 - the Patterns of University Status and Panel Membership

Ratings awarded to university departments in the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2001 were analysed to determine whether they were influenced either by the status of the university (pre-1992 or post-1992) or by whether the university was represented on the panel that determined the ratings. There was little evidence that panel membership has any effect on ratings, but an analysis of covariance also showed that, among universities not on the panel, pre-1992 universities were more favourably assessed, relative to post-1992 universities, than would be expected on the basis of their ratings in the 1996 RAE. This finding, along with the preponderance of pre-1992 universities on all panels (even those where the majority of the research is conducted by post-1992 universities), is used to urge strongly that in future RAEs, panel membership should be made much more representative of higher education in general and of the institutions submitting the research considered by each panel in particular.

Drug development: more science, more education

Drug development: more science, more education

UK's Research Assessment Exercise

UK's Research Assessment Exercise

UK's Research Assessment Exercise

UK's Research Assessment Exercise

A recurring question answered with a degree of optimism

What is architectural research? That was the title of a University of Cambridge Department of Architecture symposium held at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London in September 2005. The idea of the symposium emerged during a battle to save Cambridge's Department of Architecture from closure in 2004. The University authorities had recommended closure because the Department's research rating in the UK's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of 2001 had dropped from 5 to 4 with a corresponding fall in research funding from the government. For a research-based university like Cambridge (where only three departments out of over 50 in the whole University scored below 5) research funding subsidises teaching so, for the University authorities, closure would have saved money and reduced its financial deficit. An outcry from within and outside the University saved the Cambridge Department, but important questions remain.

The nursing research assessment exercise 2001: An analysis

Summary The 2001 UK research assessment exercise (RAE) was explored for units of assessment (UoA) 10 (Nursing) and 11 (Other Studies and Professions Allied to Medicine). In nursing funding was the best predictor of high RAE ratings. Other factors that appear relevant are numbers of doctorates awarded and publications in prestigious journals and in those with high impact factors (IF). UoA 11 showed similar but not identical trends. Specific funding sources were more important than overall funds in UoA 11, and the journals with high ratings in UoA 10 did not necessarily score highly in UoA 11. Further the diversity of journals was higher in UoA 11.

The UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2001 and Retail Research Output

Knowledge creation processes in British Universities have been affected significantly by formal evaluations of research performance. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2001 in the UK shows that retail research is based primarily in the business and management subject area and in selected institutions. There is a tension amongst institutional strategies to maximise assessment results and thus income, individual career paths, journal 'ratings' and the direction of research. The emerging focus on a North American model of research knowledge creation raises fundamental concerns covering the philosophy, methodology, techniques and topics of retail research in the UK.

Does Bradford-Zipf apply to business and management journals in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise?

As part of research on journal submissions to the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), data was compiled for a longitudinal analysis for Unit of Assessment (UoA) 43, Business and Management Studies (BMS). Data on the 1996 RAE submissions for this UoA was considered. For the 2001 RAE, academic Departments in the UK wishing to submit to the RAE were asked to nominate up to four items of published output per member of staff being submitted that represented the best work those individuals had published in the period. There was no obligation to just use journal articles, as all types of publication were acceptable, but in practice the majority of items returned (69.7% in 2001) were journal articles. The remainder comprised reports, conference proceedings and similar outputs. Journal submission data obtained from the publicly available database (http://www.hero.ac.uk) following the 2001 exercise was checked, tabulated and analysed. This showed that for 2001, 7941 journal articles were submitted to 1489 journal titles . This sample of journal titles could be said to represent the best UK BMS research for the period 1996-2001 (the period under consideration in the 2001 RAE). . The question arises whether journals in which articles for the RAE are submitted represent the “core” journals for that subject. One way of approaching this question is to subject the data to a Bradford-Zipf analysis. If the material shows a classic Bradford-Zipf distribution, it could be argued perhaps that the core journals in the field can indeed be identified using this method. In order to address this issue and as part of the on-going research, the group of 1489 titles was used to test for a Bradford-Zipf distribution.