I'm sitting at my desk in the University of Bath. When I actually was employed here, I spent far too much time since about 2001 worrying away about external research assessment / excellence frameworks and exercises; it passed for work. It seems that old habits die hard as I've been reading the overview report from the latest (2014) Research Excellence Framework's main panel C. This oversaw the work of sub-panels for:
- Architecture, Built Environment and Planning
- Geography, Environmental Studies and Archaeology
- Economics and Econometrics
- Business and Management Studies
- Law
- Politics and International Studies
- Social Work and Social Policy
- Sociology
- Anthropology and Development Studies
- Education
- Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism
This was quite a task as, however you look at it, these are not all cognate disciplines: it's a long way from law to leisure, although not all that far, as it turns out, from sport to sociology.
This is the first passage in the report that caught my eye (page 15 #71)
"Case studies submitted to the sub-panels demonstrated that research is making a difference outside academia to wide range of organisations, groups and individuals. It is, for example influencing professional practice in areas as diverse as building design, the pedagogy of primary school teachers, and the training of elite athletes. It is influencing a wide range of public polices nationally and internationally in sustainable development, regulatory reform, poverty alleviation, child protection and many more areas. It is doing so by changing the climate of public opinion as well as directly influencing policy makers. In some excellent examples the status quo has been successfully challenged and thereby the position of hitherto excluded or disadvantaged groups has been improved."
Good, I thought. I was then struck (and pleased) by this:
Page 26 #4
"There has been a notable increase in the volume of interdisciplinary research addressed at global challenges such as sustainability, carbon reduction and resilience to climate change. Much of this research involved collaboration across disciplinary boundaries and the development of mixed methodologies, often as a consequence of significant investment in large interdisciplinary collaborative research projects by research sponsors."
Reading on, I came to this:
Page 27 #18
"First, there has been a year on year reduction in research funding from all sources for research in this field. This is surprising in view of the fact that the science budget has been ring-fenced, the urgent and pressing nature of the challenges facing the built environment, the centrality of the built environment to societal and planetary challenges of sustainability, climate change and human wellbeing, as well as in view of the UK’s world-leading position with respect to research and export of business services in this domain to a rapidly urbanising world context."
... which gives the game away, of course. None of this applies to education / ESD etc etc; rather, it's an extract from the report on Architecture, Built Environment and Planning.
When you get to the report on Education (pages 103 to 113), there is no sign of any such comment. The only references to sustainability in that bit of the document are phrases such as: "sustainable, creative and participatory research cultures"; "sustained studies of curriculum"; "sustained funding"; "vitality and sustainability"; "sustaining high levels of funding"; "sustainability of the activities"; and "the sustainability of their strategic commitment". The usual quotidian stuff. Actually, the report is replete with such phrases.
ESD (etc, etc) seems not to have broken through (yet again) its particular version of the glass ceiling. That this is a failure to communicate is obvious. That it's unsurprising, similarly so. The REF is a game, after all, though not all seem to realise it. Looking at the chatter on SHED SHARE about this, it seems that there was difficulty in getting institutions to accept ESD-focused papers for inclusion in submissions. Partly, this was a question of fit – that is, papers selected have to cohere around, and contribute to, the 'coherent narrative' ("story") that an institution wishes to tell about itself. Because of this, good papers in every other sense can be omitted. Partly, it must also be an issue of quality – inevitably, some papers would not be deemed good enough by institutions. So, if papers addressing education and sustainability issues really have been excluded from the REF, the responsibility lies, one way or another, with institutions and academics, and not with HEFCE and its panels.
Time to raise the game.
Respond