UK's University and College Union (UCU) Urges all Academics to Voice Their Views Regarding Research Funding Assessment. (July 21, 2006)

    Before the amalgamation of the AUT and NATFHE to become the University and College Union the two organisations campaigned against the UK's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in the belief that it led to "concentration of research, promoted unhealthy and short-termist competition between academics, discriminated against women and promoted game-playing in appointments."

Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, has confirmed that the expensive and complex RAE will cease to be the basis for funding university research after 2008, in accordance with the announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in this year's budget speech.

Now while Australia's federal Minster for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop is spruiking the necessity of a probably  reclothed RAE in the form of the Research Quality Framework, the UK's Labour Government's consultation regarding replacing the RAE has been underway since 13 June and is due to conclude on  13 October.

Gordon Brown has indicated that he favours the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) should use a statistical system based on income earned from contracts and grants to distribute its own research funding. However the UCU views this with some trepidation saying that it believes that this is a hasty and ill-thought-out move. They recommend instead a fundamental review of research funding in the UK and have called upon all academic and academic-related staff saying it "is opening its own consultation, aimed at giving voice to those who work in the sector and conduct the research. We want to know what you think about the government's proposals and about research funding in general. The results of this consultation will then feed into a major conference, hosted by UCU.

The Guardian reports:

The UCU's joint general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "UCU and its predecessors have been long-term opponents of the RAE and were delighted when, earlier this year, the decision was announced to scrap it. To ensure we do not just have a replacement for replacement's sake we need a full independent, public review of alternative ways to fund and assess university research.

"We are stepping up our efforts to ensure any replacement expands the opportunities for research throughout higher education in a demonstrably fair and transparent manner. We will not allow this debate to become rushed or narrowed. We must take the necessary time to find a decent workable replacement.

"If the new format is to have any legitimacy it must command the consent of the entire sector. UCU is playing its part by launching this groundbreaking consultation exercise to ensure as many voices as possible are heard. We will feed those thoughts into the government and demand that it allows a full public debate on the future of university research."

Currently, here it remains an open question whether or not the Coalition's obsession to micromanage the universities will drive it to commit a bungle comparable to Labor's Dawkinsisation of our universities almost twenty years ago.