Thread by @juliecupples79

Having just wasted more precious time this week talking about the intellectually destructive REF (which also wastes precious HE funds that should be used elsewhere), I was glad to read this article by @jshrbnsn
Some highlights below
cdbu.org.uk/the-new-ref-bi…
1/9

"What the response to the mandatory inclusion of all researchers produces is a set of mechanisms whereby colleagues’ work is continually evaluated, outwith the regular processes of peer review."
2/9

"...colleagues are set against one another to a greater degree than was previously the case"
3/9

"This competition between colleagues is implemented not for the sake of the advancement of knowledge, but in pursuit of higher REF rankings"
4/9

"..the REF does not and cannot assess the quality of research, and the judgements of its panellists fall well short of any internationally accepted standard of peer-review"
5/9

"But worse than this, the continuous internal evaluation of colleagues’ ‘outputs’ is carried out not by experts in the field (...)or even by the officially and publicly anointed members of the ‘expert panel’, but by a set of people appointed by institutional managers,
6/9

... whose brief is to second-guess the (themselves overly hasty and frequently non-expert) judgements of the panellists".
7/9

I just don't understand why university leaders don't have the courage to tell the government that this system sucks, instead of undermining our academic freedom and research strategies and making our working lives a misery
8/9

Actually I do know why, but it doesn't make it less depressing. But the point is we don't have enough staff, our workloads are unsustainable, there is hardly any internal funding for essential academic research and conference attendance, yet somehow we can afford the REF
9/9