Category: Research Impact

Initial Reactions to HEFCE’s ‘Initial decisions on REF 2021’

This lunchtime HEFCE have announced some more “Initial Decisions” on REF 2021, which I’ve summarised below.

Slightly frustratingly, the details are scattered across a few documents, and it’s easy to miss some of them. There’s an exec summary,  a circular letter (which is more of a rectangle, really), the main text of the report that can be downloaded from the bottom of the exec summary page (along with an annex listing UoAs and further particulars for panel chair roles)… and annex A on a further consultation staff return and output portability, downloadable from the bottom of the circular letter page.

I’ve had a go at a quick summary, by bullet point theme rather than in the order they appear, or in a grand narrative sweep. This is one of my knee-jerk pieces, and I’ve added a few thoughts of my own. But it’s early days, and possibly I’ve missed something or misunderstood, so please let me know.

Outputs

  • Reserve output allowed where publication may not appear in time
  • Worth only 60% of total mark this time (see scoring system)

I think the reduction in the contribution of outputs to the overall mark (at the expense of impact) is probably what surprised me most, and I suspect this will be controversial. I think the original plan was for environment to be downgraded to make way, but there’s a lot more demanded from the environment statement this time (see below) so it’s been protected. Great to have the option of submitting an insurance publication in case one of the in-press ones doesn’t appear by close of play.

Panels/Units of Assessment

  • Each sub-panel to have at least one appointed member for interdisciplinary research “with a specific role to ensure its equitable assessment”. New identifier/flag for interdisciplinary outputs to capture
  • Single UoA for engineering, multiple submissions allowed
  • Archaeology split from Geography and Environmental studies – now separate
  • Film and Screen Studies to be explicitly included in UoA 33 with Dance, Drama, Performing Arts
  • Decisions on forensic science and criminology (concerns about visibility) due in Autumn
  • Mapping staff to UoAs will be done by institutions, not HESA cost centres, but may ask for more info in the event of any “major variances” from HESA data.

What do people think about a single UoA for engineering? That’s not an area I support much. Is this just tidying up, or does this has greater implications? Is it ironic that forensic science and criminology have been left a cop show cliff-hanger ending?

Environment

  • Expansion of Unit of Assessment environment section to include sections on:
    • Structures to support interdisciplinary research
    • Supporting collaboration with “organisations beyond higher education”
    • Impact template will now be in the environment element
    • Approach to open research/open access
    • Supporting equality and diversity
  • More quant data in UoA environment template (we don’t know what yet)
  • Standard Institution level information
  • Non-assessed invite only pilot for institution level environment statement
  • Expansion of environment section is given as a justification for maintaining it at 15% of score rather than reducing as expected.

The inclusion of a statement about support for interdisciplinary work is interesting, as this moves beyond merely addressing justifiable criticism about the fate of interdisciplinary research (see the welcome addition to each UoA of an appointed ‘Member for Interdisciplinarity’ above). This makes it compulsory, and an end in itself. This will go down better in some UoAs than others.

Impact

  • Institutional level impact case studies will be piloted, but not assessed
  • Moves towards unifying definitions of “impact” and “academic impact” between REF and Research Councils – both part of dual funding system for research
  • Impact on teaching/curriculum will count as impact – more guidance to be published
  • Underpinning work “at least equivalent to 2*” and published between 1st Jan 2000 and 31st Dec 2020. Impact must take place between 1st Aug 2013 and 31st July 2020
  • New impact case study template, more questions asked, more directed, more standardised, more “prefatory” material to make assessment easier.
  • Require “routine provision of audit evidence” for case study templates, but not given to panel
  • Uncertain yet on formula for calculating number of case study requirements, but overall “should not significantly exceed… 2014”. Will be done on some measure of “volume of activity”, possibly outputs
  • Continuation of case studies from 2014 is allowed, but must meet date rules for both impact and publication, need to declare it is a continuation.
  • Increased to 25% of total score

And like a modern day impact superhero, he comes Mark Reed aka Fast Track Impact with a blog post of his own on the impact implications of the latest announcement. I have to say that I’m pleased that we’re only having a pilot for institutional case studies, because I’m not sure that’s a go-er.

Assessment and Scoring system

  • Sub-panels may decide to use metrics/citation data, but will set out criteria statements stating whether/how they’ll use it. HEFCE will provide the citation data
  • As 2014, overall excellence profile, 3 sub-profiles (outputs, impact, environment)
  • Five point scale from unclassified to 4*
  • Outputs 60, Impact 25, Environment 15. Increase of impact to 25, but as extra environment info sought, has come at the expense of outputs.

There was some talk of a possible necessity for a 5* category to be able to differentiate at the very top. but I don’t think this gained much traction.

But on the really big questions… further consultation (deadline 29th Sept):

There’s been some kicking into the short grass, but things are looking a bit clearer…

(1) Staff submission:

All staff “with a significant responsibility to undertake research” will be submitted, but “no single indicator identifies those within the scope of the exercise”.  Institutions have the option of submitting 100% of staff who meet the core eligibility requirement OR come up with a code of practice that they’ll use to decide who is eligible. Audit-able evidence will be required and Institutions can choose different options for different UoAs.

Proposed core eligibility requirements – staff must meet all of the following:

  • “have an academic employment function of ‘research only’ or ‘teaching and research’
  • are independent researchers [i.e. not research assistants unless ‘demonstrably’ independent]
  • hold minimum employment of 0.2 full time equivalent
  • have a substantive connection to the submitting institution.”

I like this as an approach – it throws the question back to universities, and leaves it up to them whether they think it’s worth the time and trouble running an exercise in one or more UoAs. And I think the proposed core requirements look sensible, and faithful to the core aim which is to maximise the number of researchers returned and prevent the hyper selectivity game being played.

(2) Transition arrangements for non-portability of publications.

HEFCE are consulting on either:

(a) “The simplified model, whereby outputs would be eligible for return by the originating institution (i.e. the institution where the research output was demonstrably generated and at which the member of staff was employed) as well as by the newly employing institution”.
or
(b) “The hybrid approach, with a deadline (to be determined), after which a limited number of outputs would transfer with staff, with eligibility otherwise linked to the originating institution. (This would mean operating two rules for portability in this exercise: the outputs of staff employed before the specified date falling under the 2014 rules of full portability; outputs from staff employed after this date would fall under the new rules.)”

I wrote a previous post on portability and non-portability when the Stern Review was first published, which I still think is broadly correct.

I wonder how simple the simplified model will be… if we end having to return n=2 publications, and choosing those publications from a list of everything published by everyone while they worked here. But it’s probably less work than having a cut off date.

More to follow….

HEFCE publishes ‘Consultation on the second Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021)’

“Let’s all meet up in the Year… 2021”

In my previous post I wrote about the Stern Review, and in particular the portability issue – whereby publications remained with the institution where they were written, rather than moving institutions with the researcher – which seemed by some distance the most vexatious and controversial issue, at least judging by my Twitter feed.

Since then there has been a further announcement about a forthcoming consultation exercise which would seek to look at the detail of the implementation of the Stern Review, giving a pretty clear signal that the overall principles and rationale had been accepted, and that Lord Stern’s comments that his recommendations were meant to be taken as a whole and were not amenable to cherry picking, had been heard and taken to heart.

Today – only ten days or so behind schedule – the consultation has been launched.  It invites “responses from higher education institutions and other groups and organisations with an interest in the conduct, quality, funding or use of research”. In paragraph 15, this invitation is opened out to include “individuals”. So as well as contributing to your university response, you’ve also got the opportunity to respond personally. Rather than just complain about it on Twitter.

Responses are only accepted via an online form, although the questions on that online form are available for download in a word document. There are 44 questions for which responses are invited, and although these are free text fields, the format of the consultation is to solicit responses to very specific questions, as perhaps would be expected given that the consultation is about detail and implementation. Paragraph 10 states that

“we have taken the [research excellence] framework as implemented in 2014 as our starting position for this consultation, with proposals made only in those areas where our evidence suggests a need or desire for change, or where Lord Stern’s Independent Review recommends change. In developing our proposals, we have been mindful of the level of burden indicated, and have identified where certain options may offer a more deregulated approach than in the previous framework. We do not intend to introduce new aspects to the assessment framework that will increase burden.”

In other words, I think we can assume that 2014 plus Stern = the default and starting position, and I would be surprised if any radical departures from this resulted from the consultation. Anyone wanting to propose something radically different is wasting their time, even if the first question invites “comments on the proposal to maintain an overall continuity of approach with REF 2014.”

So what can we learn from the questions? I think the first thing that strikes me it’s that it’s a very detailed and very long list of questions on a lot of issues, some of which aren’t particularly contentious. But it’s indicative of an admirable thoroughness and rigour. The second this is that they’re all about implementation. The third is that reduction of burden on institutions is a key criterion, which has to be welcome.

Units of Assessment 

It looks as if there’s a strong preference to keep UoAs pretty much as they are, though the consultation flags up inconsistencies of approach from institutions around the choice of which of the four Engineering Panels to submit to. Interestingly, one of the issues is comparability of outcome (i.e. league tables) which isn’t technically supposed to be something that the REF is concerned with – others draw up league tables using their own methodologies, there’s no ‘official’ table.

It also flags up concerns expressed by the panel about Geography and Archaeology, and worries about forensic science, criminology and film and media studies, I think around subject visibility under current structures. But while some tweaks may be allowed, there will be no change to the current structure of Main Panel/Sub Panel, so no sub-sub-panels, though one of the consultation possibilities is is about sub-panels setting different sub-profiles for different areas that they cover.

Returning all research active staff

This section takes as a starting point that all research active staff will be returned, and seeks views on how to mitigate game-playing and unintended consequences. The consultation makes a technical suggestion around using HESA cost centres to link research active staff to units of assessment, rather than leaving institutions to the flexibility to decide to – to choose a completely hypothetical example drawn in no way from experience with a previous employer – to submit Economists and Educationalists into a beefed up Business and Management UoA. This would reduce that element of game playing, but would also negatively effect those whose research identity doesn’t match their teaching/School/Department identity – say – bioethicists based in medical or veterinary schools, and those involved in area studies and another discipline (business, history, law) who legitimately straddle more than one school. A ‘get returned where you sit’ approach might penalise them and might affect an institution’s ability to tell the strongest possible story about each UoA.

As you’d expect, there’s also an awareness of very real worries about this requirement to return all research active staff leading to the contractual status of some staff being changed to teaching-only. Just as last time some UoAs played the ‘GPA game’ and submitted only their best and brightest, this time they might continue that strategy by formally taking many people out of ‘research’ entirely. They’d like respondents to say how this might be prevented, and make the point that HESA data could be used to track such wholesale changes, but presumably there would need to be consequences in some form, or at least a disincentive for doing so. But any such move would intrude onto institutional autonomy, which would be difficult. I suppose the REF could backdate the audit point for this REF, but it wouldn’t prevent such sweeping changes for next time. Another alternative would be to use the Environment section of the REF to penalise those with a research culture based around a small proportion of staff.

Personally, I’m just unclear how much of a problem this will be. Will there be institutions/UoAs where this happens and where whole swathes of active researchers producing respectable research (say, 2-3 star) are moved to teaching contracts? Or is the effect likely to be smaller, with perhaps smaller groups of individuals who aren’t research active or who perhaps haven’t been producing being moved to teaching and admin only? And again, I don’t want to presume that will always be a negative move for everyone, especially now we have the TEF on the horizon and we are now holding teaching in appropriate esteem. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that things might end up looking a bit bleak for people who are meant to be research active, want to continue to be research active, but who are deemed by bosses not to be producing.

Decoupling staff from outputs

In the past, researchers were returned with four publications minus any reductions for personal circumstances. Stern proposed that the number of publications to be returned should be double the number of research active staff, with each person being about to return between 0 and 6 publications. A key advantage of this is that it will dispense with the need to consider personal circumstances and reductions in the number of publications – straightforward in cases of early career researchers and maternity leaves, but less so for researchers needing to make the case on the basis of health problems or other potentially traumatic life events. Less admin, less intrusion, less distress.

One worry expressed in the document is about whether this will allow panel members to differentiate between very high quality submissions with only double the number of publications to be returned. But they argue that sampling would be required if a greater multiple were to be returned.

There’s also concern that allowing a maximum of six publications could allow a small number of superstars to dominate a submission, and a suggestion is that the minimum number moves from 0 to 1, so at least one publication from every member of research active staff is returned. Now this really would cause a rush to move those perceived – rightly or wrongly – as weak links off research contracts! I’m reminded of my MPhil work on John Rawls here, and his work on the difference principle, under which nearly just society seeks to maximise the minimum position in terms of material wealth – to have the richest poorest possible. Would this lead to a renewed focus on support for career young researchers, for those struggling for whatever reason, to attempt to increase the quality of the weakest paper in the submission and have the highest rated lowest rated paper possible?

Or is there any point in doing any of that, when income is only associated with 3 (just) and 4? Do we know how the quality of the ‘tail’ will feed into research income, or into league tables if it’s prestige that counts? I’ll need to think a bit more about this one. My instinct is that I like this idea, but I worry about unintended consequences (“Quick, Professor Fourstar, go and write something – anything – with Dr Career Young!”).

Portability

On portability – whether a researcher’s publications move with them (as previously) or stay with the institution where they were produced (like impact) – the consultation first notes possible issues about what it doesn’t call a “transfer window” round about the REF census date. If you’re going to recruit someone new, the best time to get them is either at the start of a REF cycle or during the meaningless end-of-season games towards the end of the previous one. That way, you get them and their outputs for the whole season. True enough – but hard to see that this is worse than the current situation where someone can be poached in the 89th minute and bring all their outputs with them.

The consultation’s second concern is verification. If someone moves institution, how do we know which institution can claim what? As we found with open access, the point of acceptance isn’t always straightforward to determine, and that’s before we get into forms of output other than journal articles. I suppose my first thought is that point-of-submission might be the right point, as institutional affiliation would have to be provided, but then that’s self declared information.

The consultation document recognises the concern expressed about the disadvantage that portability may have for certain groups – early career researchers and (a group I hadn’t considered) people moving into/out of industry. Two interesting options are proposed – firstly, that publications are portable for anyone on a fixed term contract (though this may inadvertently include some Emeritus Profs) or for anyone who wasn’t returned to REF 2014.

One other non-Stern alternative is proposed – that proportionate publication sharing between old and new employer take place for researchers who move close to the end date. But this seems messy, especially as different institutions may want to claim different papers. For example if Dr Nomad wrote a great publication with co-authors from Old and from New, neither would want it as much as a great publication that she wrote by herself or with co-authors from abroad. This is because both Old and New could still return that publication without Dr Nomad because they had co-authors who could claim that publication, and publications can only be returned once per UoA, but perhaps multiple times by different UoAs.

Overall though – that probable non-starter aside – I’d say portability is happening, and it’s just a case of how to protect career young researchers. And either non-return last time, or fixed term contract = portability seem like good ideas to me.

Interestingly, there’s also a question about whether impact should become portable. It would seem a bit odd to me of impact and publications were to swap over in terms of portability rules, so I don’t see impact becoming portable.

Impact

I’m not going to say too much about impact here and now- this post is already too long, and I suspect someone else will say it better.

Miscellaneous 

Other than that…. should ORCID be mandatory? Should Category C (staff not employed by the university, but who research in the UOA) be removed as an eligible category? Should there be a minimum fraction of FTE to be returnable (to prevent overseas superstars being returnable on slivers of contracts)? What exactly is a research assistant anyway? Should a reserve publication be allowed when publication of a returned article is expected horrifyingly close to the census date? Should quant data be used to support assessment in disciplines where it’s deemed appropriate? Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near, and what metrics should be used for measuring such birds?

There’s a lot more to say about this, and I’ll be following discussions and debates on twitter with interest. If time allows I’ll return to this post or write some more, less knee-jerky comments over the next days and weeks.

The Stern Review – Publications, Portability, and Panic

Research Managers everywhere, earlier today.

The Stern Review on the future of the REF is out today, and there are any number of good summaries of the key recommendations that you can read. You could also follow the #sternreview hashtag on Twitter, or read it for yourself. It’s not particularly long, and it’s an easy read considering. The first point worth noting is that these are recommendations, not final policy, and they’re certainly nothing like a worked up final set of guidance notes for the next REF. I won’t repeat the summary, and I won’t add much on the impact issue, which Prof Mark Reed aka @fasttrackimpact has covered already.

The issue that has set twitter ablaze is that of portability – that is, which institution gets to return an academic’s publications when she moves from one institution to another. Under the old rules, there was full portability. So if Professor Portia Bililty moved from one institution to another in the final months of a REF cycle, all of her publications would come with her, and would all be returnable by her new employer. Her old employer lost all claim. Impact was different – that remained with the institution where it was created.

This caused problems. As the report puts it

72. There is a problem in the current REF system associated with the demonstrable increase in the number of individuals being recruited from other institutions shortly before the census date. This has costs for the UK HEI system in terms of recruitment and retention. An institution might invest very significantly in the recruitment, start up and future career of a faculty member, only to see the transfer market prior to REF drastically reduce the returns to that investment. This is a distortion to investment incentives in the direction of short-termism and can encourage rent-seeking by individuals and put pressure on budgets.

There was also some fairly grubby game-playing whereby big names from outside the UK were brought in on fractional contracts for their publications alone. To be fair, I’ve heard about places where this was done for other reasons, where these big names regularly attended their new fractional employer, helped develop research culture, mentored career young researchers and published articles with existing faculty. But let’s not pretend that happened everywhere.

So there’s a problem to be solved.

Stern’s response is to say that outputs – like impact – will no longer be portable.

73. We therefore recommend that outputs should be submitted only by the institution where the output was demonstrably generated. If individuals transfer between institutions (including from overseas) during the REF period, their works should be allocated to the HEI where they were based when the work was accepted for publication. A smaller maximum number of outputs might be permitted for the outputs of staff who have left an institution through retirement or to another HEI. Bearing in mind Recommendation 2, which recommends that any individual should be able to submit up to six outputs, a maximum of three outputs from those who have left the institution in the REF period would seem appropriate.
74. HEIs hiring staff during the REF cycle would be able to include them in their staff return. But they would be able to include only outputs by the individual that have been accepted for publication after joining the institution. Disincentivising short-term and narrowly-motivated movement across the sector, whilst still incentivising long-term investment in people will benefit UK research and should also encourage greater collaboration across the system.

I have to say that my first reaction to this will be extremely positive. The poaching and gameplaying were very dispiriting, and this just seems…. fairer.

However, looking at the Twitter reaction, the response was rather different. Concern was expressed that this would make it very difficult for researchers to move institutions, and it would make it especially difficult for early career researchers. I’ve been back and forth on this, and I’m no longer convinced that this is such a problem.

Let’s play Fantasy REF Manager 2020. It’s the start of the 2016/2017 season academic year. All of the existing publications from my squad of academics are mine to return, whatever happens to them and whatever career choices they make. Let’s say that one of my promising youth players  early career researchers gets an offer for elsewhere. I can try to match or beat whatever offer she has, but whatever happens, my team gets credit for the publications she’s produced. Let’s say that she moves on, and I want to recruit a replacement, and I identify the person I want. He’s got some great publications which he can’t bring with him… but I don’t need them, because I’ve got those belonging to his predecessor. Of course, I’d be very interested in track record, but I’m appointing entirely on potential. His job is to pick up where she left off.

Might recruiting on potential actually work in favour of early career researchers? Under the old system, if I were a short termist manager, I’d probably favour the solid early-mid career plodder who can bring me a number of guaranteed, safe publications, rather than someone who is much longer on promise but shorter on actual published publications. Might it also bring an end to the system where very early career researchers were advantaged just by having *any* bankable publications that had actually appeared?

I wonder if some early career researchers are so used to a system where they’re (unfairly) judged by the sole criterion of potential REF contribution that they’re imagining a scenario where they – and perhaps they alone – are being prevented from using the only thing that makes them employable. Institutions with foresight and with long term planning have always recruited on the basis of potential and other indicators and factors beyond the REF, and this change may force more of them to do that.

However, I can see a few problems that I might have as Fantasy REF Manager. The example above presumed one-in, one-out. But what if I want to increase the size of my squad through building new areas of specialism, or put together an entirely new School or Research Group? This might present more of a problem, because it’ll take much longer for me to see any REF benefits in exchange for my investment. However, rival managers would argue that the old rules meant I could do an academic-Chelsea or academic-Manchester City, and just buy all those REF benefits straight away. And that doesn’t feel right.

Another problem might be if I was worried about returning publications from people who have left. What image to it give to the REF panel if more than a certain small percentage of your returned publications are from researchers who’ve left? Would it make us look like we were trading on past glories, while in fact we’d deteriorated rapidly? Perhaps some guidance to the panels that they’re to take no account of this in assessing submissions would help here, and a clear signal that a good publication by a researcher-past has the same value as researcher-current.

Does the new system give me as the Fantasy REF Manager too much power over my players, early career or not? I’m not sure. It’s true that I have their publications in the bag, so they can’t threaten me with taking them away. But I’m still going to want to keep them on my team if I think they’re going to continue to produce work of that standard that I want in the future. If I don’t think that – for whatever reason – then I’ve no reason to want to keep them. They can still hold me to ransom, but what they’re holding over me is their future potential, not recent past glories. And to me, that seems more like an appropriate correction in the balance of power. Though… might any discrimination be more likely to be against career elderly researchers who I think are winding down? Not sure.

Of course, there are compromise positions between full portability and no portability. Perhaps a one or two year window of portability, and perhaps longer for early career researchers… though that might give some too great an advantage. That would be an improvement on the status quo, and might assuage some worries that a lot of ECRs (judging by my timeline on Twitter, anyway) have at the moment.

Even with a window, there are potential problems around game-playing. Do researchers looking for a move hold off from submitting their papers? Might they filibuster corrections and final changes? Might editors be pressurised to delay formal acceptances? Are we clear what constitutes a formal date of acceptance (open access experience suggests not)? And probably most seriously, might papers “under review” rather than papers published be the new currency?

Probably the last point is what worries me most, but I think these are relatively small issues, and I’d be worried if hiring decisions were based on such small margins. But perhaps they are.

This article is entirely knee-jerk. I’m making it up as I go along, changing my mind, being influenced. But I think that ECRs have less to worry about than many fear, and I think my tentative view is that limiting portability – either entirely, or with a narrow window – is significantly better than the current situation of unlimited portability. But I may have missed something, and I’m open to convincing.

Please feel free to tell me what I’ve missed in the comments, or tweet me.

UPDATE: 29th July AM

I’ve been following the discussion on Twitter with some interest, and I’ve been reflecting on whether or not there’s a particular issue for early career researchers. As I said earlier, I’ve been going backwards and forwards on this. Martin Eve has written an excellent post in which he argues that some of the concern may be because

“the current hiring paradigm is so geared towards REF and research it can be hard to imagine what a new hiring environment looks like”

He also makes an important point about ownership of IP, which a lot of academics don’t seem to understand.

Athene Donald has written a really interesting post in which she describes “egregious examples” of game-playing which she’s seen first hand, and anyone who doesn’t think this is a serious issue needs to read this. She also draws much-needed attention to a major benefit of the proposals – that returning everyone and having returning nx2 publications does away with all of the personal circumstances exceptions work required last time to earn the right to submit fewer than four outputs – this is difficult and time consuming for institutions, and potentially distressing for individuals. She also echoes Martin Eve’s point about some career young researchers not being able to think into a new paradigm yet by recalling her long experience of REFs and RAEs.

However, while I do – on the whole – think that some early career researchers are overreacting, perhaps not understanding that the game changes for everyone, and that appointments are now on potential, not on recent publishing history. And that this might benefit them as I argued above.

Having said that, I am now persuaded that there are good arguments for an exception to the portability rules for ECRs. My sense is that there’s a fair amount of mining and developing the PhD for publications that could be done, but after that, there has to come a stage of moving on to the next thing, adding new strings to the bow, and that that might in principle be a less productive time in terms of publishing. And although I think at least some ECR worries are misplaced, if what I’m reading on Twitter is representative, I think there’s a case for taking them seriously and doing something to assuage those fears with an exemption or limited exemption. There’s a lot that’s positive about the Stern Review, but I think the confidence of the ECR community is important in itself.

Some really interesting issues have been raised that relate to detail and to exceptions and which would have to be ironed out later, but are worth consideration. Can an institution claim the publications of a teaching fellow? (I’d argue no). What happens to publications accepted when the author has two fractional (and presumably temporary) contracts? (I’d argue they can’t be claimed, certainly not if the contract is sessional). What if the author is unemployed?

One argument I’ve read a few times is that there’s a strong incentive for institutions to hire from within, rather than from without. But I’m not clear why that is – in my example above, I already have any publications from internal candidates, whether or not I make an internal appointment. I can’t have the publications of anyone from outside – so it’s a case of the internal candidates future publications (plus broader contribution, but let’s take that as read) versus the external candidate’s. I think that sounds like a reasonably level playing field, but perhaps I’m missing something. I suppose I wouldn’t have to return publications of someone who’s left if I make an internal appointment, but if there’s no penalty (formal or informal) for this, why should I – as Fantasy REF Manager -care? If there were portability, I’d be choosing between the internal’s past and potential, and the external’s past and potential. That might change my calculations, depending on those publications – though actually if the internal’s publications were co-authored with existing faculty I might not mind if they go. So…. yes, there is a whole swamp of unintended consequences here, but I’m not sure whether allowing ECR portability helps any.

Getting research funding: the significance of significance

"So tell me, Highlander, what is peer review?"
“I’m Professor Connor Macleod of the Clan Macleod, and this is my research proposal!”

In a excellent recent blog post, Lachlan Smith wrote about the “who cares?” question that potential grant applicants ought to consider, and that research development staff ought to pose to applicants on a regular basis.

Why is this research important, and why should it be funded? And crucially, why should we fund this, rather than that? In a comment on a previous post on this blog Jo VanEvery quoted some wise words from a Canadian research funding panel member: “it’s not a test, it’s a contest”. In other words, research funding is not an unlimited good like a driving test or a PhD viva where there’s no limit to how many people can (in principle) succeed. Rather, it’s more like a job interview, qualification for the Olympic Games, or the film Highlander – not everyone can succeed. And sometimes, there can be only one.

I’ve recently been fortunate enough to serve on a funding panel myself, as a patient/public involvement representative for a health services research scheme. Assessing significance in the form of potential benefit for patients and carers is a vitally important part of the scheme, and while I’m limited in what I’m allowed to say about my experience, I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn when I say that significance – and demonstrating that significance – is key.

I think there’s a real danger when writing – and indeed supporting the writing – of research grant applications that the focus gets very narrow, and the process becomes almost inward looking. It becomes about improving it internally, writing deeply for subject experts, rather than writing broadly for a panel of people with a range of expertise and experiences. It almost goes without saying that the proposed project must convince the kinds of subject expert who will typically be asked to review a project, but even then there’s no guarantee that reviewers will know as much as the applicant. In fact, it would be odd indeed if there were to be an application where the reviewers and panel members knew more about the topic than the applicant. I’d probably go as far as to say that if you think the referees and the reviewers know more than you, you probably shouldn’t be applying – though I’m open to persuasion about some early career schemes and some very specific calls on very narrow topics.

So I think it’s important to write broadly, to give background and context, to seek to convince others of the importance and significance of the research question. To educate and inform and persuade – almost like a briefing. I’m always badgering colleagues for what I call “killer stats” – how big is the problem, how many people does it affect, by how much is it getting worse, how much is it costing the economy, how much is it costing individuals, what difference might a solution to this problem make? If there’s a gap in the literature or in human knowledge, make a case for the importance or potential importance in filling that gap.

For blue skies research it’s obviously harder, but even here there is scope for discussing the potential academic significance of the possible findings – academic impact – and what new avenues of research may be opened out, or closed off by a decisive negative finding which would allow effort to be refocused elsewhere. If all research is standing on the shoulders of giants, what could be seen by future researchers standing on the shoulders of your research?

It’s hugely frustrating for reviewers when applicants don’t do this – when they don’t give decision makers the background and information they need to be able to draw informed conclusions about the proposed project. Maybe a motivated reviewer with a lighter workload and a role in introducing your proposal may have time to do her own research, but you shouldn’t expect this, and she shouldn’t have to. That’s your job.

It’s worth noting, by the way, that the existence of a gap in the literature is not itself an argument for it being filled, or at least not through large amounts of scarce research funding. There must be a near infinite number of gaps, such as the one that used to exist about the effect of peanut butter on the rotation of the earth – but we need more than the bare fact of the existence of a gap – or the fact that other researchers can be quoted as saying there’s a gap – to persuade.

Oh, and if you do want to claim there’s a gap, please check google scholar or similar first – reviewers, panel members (especially introducers) may very well do that. And from my limited experience of sitting on a funding panel, there’s nothing like one introducer or panel member reeling of a list of studies on a topic where there’s supposedly a gap (and which aren’t referenced in the proposal) to finish off the chance of an application. I’ve not seen enthusiasm or support for a project sucked out of the room so completely and so quickly by any other means.

And sometimes, if there aren’t killer stats or facts and figures, or if a case for significance can’t be made, it may be best to either move on to another idea, or a different and cheaper way of addressing the challenge. While it may be a good research idea, a key question before deciding to apply is whether or not the application is competitive for significance given the likely competition, the scale of the award, the ambition sought by the funder, and the number of successful projects to be awarded. Given the limits to research funding available, and their increasing concentration into larger grants, there really isn’t much funding for dull-but-worthy work which taken together leads to the aggregation of marginal gains to the sum of human knowledge.I think this is a real problem for research, but we are where we are.

Significance may well be the final decider in research funding schemes that are open to a range of research questions. There are many hurdles which must be cleared before this final decider, and while they’re not insignificant, they mainly come down to technical competence and feasibility. Is the methodology not only appropriate, but clearly explained and robustly justified? Does the team have the right mix of expertise? Is the project timescale and deliverables realistic? Are the research questions clearly outlined and consistent throughout? All of these things – and more – are important, but what they do is get you safely though into the final reckoning for funding.

Once all of the flawed or technically unfeasible or muddled or unpersuasive or unclear or non-novel proposals have been knocked out, perhaps at earlier stages, perhaps at the final funding panel stage, what’s left is a battle of significance. To stand the best chance of success, your application needs to convince and even inspire non-expert reviewers to support your project ahead of the competition.

But while this may be the last question, or the final decider between quality projects, it’s one that I’d argue potential grant applicants should consider first of all.

The significance of significance is that if you can’t persuasively demonstrate the significance of your proposed project, your grant application may turn out to be a significant waste of your time.

Using Social Media to Support Research Management – ARMA training and development event

Last week I gave a brief presentation at a training and development event organised by ARMA (Association of Research Managers and Administrators) entitled ‘Using Social Media to Support Research Management’. Also presenting were Professor Andy Miah of the University of Salford, Sierra Williams of the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog, Terry Bucknell of Altmetric. and Phil Ward of Fundermentals and the University of Kent.   A .pdf of my wibblings as inflicted can be found here.

I guess there are three things from the presentation and from the day as a whole that I’d pick out for particular comment.

Firstly, if you’re involved in research management/support/development/impact, then you should be familiar with social media, and by familiar I don’t mean just knowing the difference between Twitter and Friends Reunited – I mean actually using it. That’s not to say that everyone must or should dash off and start a blog – for one thing, I’m not sure I could handle the competition. But I do think you should have a professional presence on Twitter. And I think the same applies to any academics whose research interests involve social media in any way – I’ve spoken to researchers wanting to use Twitter data who are not themselves on Twitter. Call it a form of ethnography if you like (or, probably better, action research), I think you only really understand social media by getting involved – you should “inhabit the ecosystem”, as Andy Miah put it in a quite brilliant presentation that you should definitely make time to watch.

I’ve listed some of the reasons for getting involved, and some of the advantages and challenges, in my presentation. But briefly, it’s only by using it and experiencing for yourself the challenge of finding people to follow, getting followers, getting attention for the messages you want to transmit, risking putting yourself and your views out there that you come to understand it. I used to just throw words like “blog” and “twitter” and “social media engagement” around like zeitgeisty confetti when talking to academic colleagues about their various project impact plans, without understanding any of it properly. Now I can talk about plans to get twitter followers, strategies to gain readers for the project blog, the way the project’s social media presence will be involved in networks and ecosystems relevant to the topic.

One misunderstanding that a lot of people have is that you have to tweet a lot of original content – in fact, it’s better not to. Andy mentioned a “70/30” rule – 70% other people’s stuff, 30% yours, as a rough rule of thumb. Even if your social media presence is just as a kind of curator – finding and retweeting interesting links and making occasional comments, you’re still contributing and you’re still part of the ecosystem, and if your interests overlap with mine, I’ll want to follow you because you’ll find things I miss. David Gauntlett wrote a really interesting article for the LSE impact blog on the value of “publish, then filter” systems for finding good content, which is well worth a read. Filtering is important work.

The second issue I’d like to draw out is an issue around personal and professional identity on Twitter. When Phil Ward, Julie Northam, David Young and I gave a presentation on social media at the ARMA conference in 2012, many delegates were already using Twitter in a personal capacity, but were nervous about mixing the personal and professional. I used to think this was much more of a problem/challenge than I do now. In last week’s presentation, I argued that there were essentially three kinds of Twitter account – the institutional, the personal, and what I called “Adam at work”. Institutional wears a shirt and tie and is impersonal and professional. Personal is sat in its pants on the sofa tweeting about football or television programmes or politics. Adam-at-work is more ‘smart casual’ and tweets about professional stuff, but without being so straight-laced as the institutional account.

Actually Adam-at-Work (and, for that matter You-at-Work) are not difficult identities to work out and to stick to. We all manage it every day.  We’re professional and focused and on-topic, but we also build relations with our office mates and co-workers, and some of that relationship building is through sharing weekend plans, holidays, interests etc. I want to try to find a way of explaining this without resorting to the words “water cooler” or (worse) “banter”, but I’m sure you know what I mean. Just as we need to show our human sides to bond with colleagues in everyday life, we need to do the same on Twitter. Essentially, if you wouldn’t lean over and tell it to the person at the desk next to you, don’t tweet about it. I think we’re all well capable of doing this, and we should trust ourselves to do it. By all means keep a separate personal twitter account (because you don’t want your REF tweets to send your friends to sleep) and use that to shout at the television if you’d like to.

I think it’s easy to exaggerate the dangers of social media, not least because of regular stories about people doing or saying something ill-advised. But it’s worth remembering that a lot of those people are famous or noteworthy in some way, and so attract attention and provocation in a way that we just don’t. While a footballer might get tweeted all kinds of nonsense after a poor performance, I’m unlikely to get twitter-trolled by someone who disagrees with something I’ve written, or booed while catching a train. Though I do think a football crowd style crescendo of booing might be justified in the workplace for people who send mass emails without the intended attachment/with the incorrect date/both.

Having said all that… this is just my experience, and as a white male it may well be that I don’t attract that kind of negative attention on social media. I trust/hope that female colleagues have had similar positive experiences and I’ve no reason to think they haven’t, but I don’t want to pass off my experience as universal. (*polishes feminist badge*).

The third thing is to repeat an invitation which I’ve made before – if anyone would like to write a guest post for my blog on any topic relevant to its general themes, please do get in touch. And if anyone has an questions about twitter, blogging, social media that they think I might have a sporting chance of answering, please ask away.