Ms Bishop's Monster: the RQF -- Weapon for Mass Academic Destruction. (September 19, 2007)

An occasional reader of TFW and an observer of the passing academic scene overseas as well as in Oz brought to our attention an article in the August 7, 2007 issue of Current Biology by Peter Lawrence, "The Mismeasurement of Science". Dr Lawrence holds appointments in the Department of Zoology University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.

Peter Lawrence

The three page article ought to be required reading for every individual who has been caught up in the fiasco of the Research Quality Framework (RQF).

In explanation -- in 1948 the Hungarian born theoretical physicist Leo Szilard wrote "The Mark Gable Foundation", a short story which outlines the setting up of an endowed non-profit foundation.

Dr Lawrence begins his article:

Answer from the hero in Leo Szilard’s 1948 story "The Mark Gable Foundation” when asked by a wealthy entrepreneur who believes that science has progressed too quickly, what he should do to retard this progress: You could set up a foundation with an annual endowment of thirty million dollars. Research workers in need of funds could apply for grants, if they could make a convincing case. Have ten committees, each composed of twelve scientists, appointed to pass on these applications. Take the most active scientists out of the laboratory and make them members of these committees.

...First of all, the best scientists would be removed from their laboratories and kept busy on committees passing on applications for funds. Secondly the scientific workers in need of funds would concentrate on problems which were considered promising and were pretty certain to lead to publishable results.

...By going after the obvious, pretty soon science would dry out. Science would become something like a parlor game.

...There would be fashions. Those who followed the fashions would get grants. Those who wouldn’t would not.

There is another kind of justice than the justice of number……. There is a justice of newborn worlds which cannot be counted.

There follows a careful critique which damns Britain's Research Assessment Exercise: "Over recent years, within governments and outside them, people have lost sight of the primary purposes of institutions, and a growing obsession with internal processes has driven more and more bureaucracy — such as increasingly complex grant applications and baroque research assessment exercises — at the expense of research effort. This bureaucracy is placing heavy demands on scientists that lay waste their sense of purpose and attack their self-esteem. But scientists of all ranks, senior as well as junior, are also to blame as we have meekly allowed this to happen."

Yesterday, Ms Bishop delivered the coup de grâce:

The membership of the 13 assessment panels for the Research Quality Framework (RQF) was announced today by the Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Julie Bishop MP.

“The 156 members of the assessment panels will assess the Evidence Portfolios of Research Groups submitted by higher education providers as part of the RQF assessment process in 2008, and will award a rating for quality and impact,” Minister Bishop said.\

“The assessment panels have been structured to provide a balance between research discipline coverage and likely workload for assessors.

“Each Panel comprises 12 members representing higher education providers, industry, business, government and community organisations and the international research sector.”

Looks like "The Mark Gable Foundation" has been on Ms Bishops bed-side table along with Peter Doherty's advice to would-be Nobelists.

Ah, but there's more, Ms Bishop's 80 odd apparatchiks who have been beavering away in what must be the equivalent of Alberich's subterranean workshop have produced the "final draft" of the Research Quality Framework specifications.

The RQF Submission Specifications and the RQF Technical Specifications package (a zip file containing some dozen folders) are available at www.dest.gov.au/research/rqf. It should keep the academic research community occupied for weeks/months.

Leo Szilard must be spinning in his grave.

Ah, but there's still more; Labor's Senator Kim Carr, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has put his bit in, in an opinion piece in today's Australian.

The Government's RQF remains a shambles. Labor will scrap the RQF and replace it with an internationally recognised, metrics-based research quality assurance system. Our system will be rigorous, transparent, equitable and incorporate international peer review. It will employ verifiable metrics and encourage research collaboration - both within the public research sector and between the public and private sectors.

The new system will distribute funds in a way that, for each discipline, reflects research quality and achievement, builds research and development capacity, and maximises the application of research results.

It's now close enough to the federal election that if Labor hasn't got at least a beta version of its MO set down and they gain power, academe can look forward to what may well turn out to be yet another shemozzle.

Gertrud Weiss, Leo Szilard's wife of many years referred to her husband's sense of humour as rather twisted if not bitter. If true he would have loved Ms Julie.