{"id":275,"date":"2011-10-25T20:16:07","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T19:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/?p=275"},"modified":"2011-10-25T20:16:07","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T19:16:07","slug":"esrc-demand-management-part-5-and-the-winner-is-researcher-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/?p=275","title":{"rendered":"ESRC Demand Management Part 5: And the winner is…. researcher sanctions!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\""And
And the winner is.....<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ESRC today revealed the outcome <\/a>of the ‘Demand Management’ consultation, with the consultation exercise showing a strong preference for researcher sanctions rather than the other main options, which were institutional sanctions, institutional quotas, or charging for applications.\u00a0 And therefore….<\/p>\n

Given this clear message, it is likely that any further steps will reflect these views.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which I think means that that’s what they’re going to do.\u00a0 But being (a) academics, and (b) British, it has to be expressed in the passive voice and as tentatively as possible.<\/p>\n

Individual researcher sanctions got the vote of\u00a0 82% of institutional responses, 80% of learned society responses, and 44% of individual responses.\u00a0\u00a0 To put that in context, though, 32% of the individual responses were interpreted as backing none of the possible measures, which I don’t think was ever going to be a particular convincing response. \u00a0\u00a0 Institutional sanctions came second among institutions (11%), and institutional quotas (20%) among individual respondents.\u00a0 Charging for applications was, as I expected<\/a>, a non-starter, apparently attracting the support of two institutions and one learned society or ‘other agency’.\u00a0 I’m surprised it got that many.<\/p>\n

The issue of the presentation of the results as a ‘vote’ is an interesting one, as I don’t think that’s what this exercise was presented as at the time.\u00a0 The institutional response that I was involved in was – I like to think – a bit more nuanced and thoughtful than just a ‘vote’ for one particular option. \u00a0In any case, if it was a vote, I’m sure that the ‘First Past the Post’ system which appears to have been used wouldn’t be appropriate – some kind of ‘alternative vote’ system to find the least unpopular option would surely have been more appropriate.\u00a0 I’m also puzzled by the combining of the results from institutions, individuals, and learned societies into totals for ‘all respondents’ which seems to give the same weighting to individual and institutional responses.<\/p>\n

Fortunately – or doubly-fortunately – those elements of the research community which responded delivered a clear signal about the preferred method of demand management, and, in my view at least, it’s the right one.\u00a0 I’ll admit to being a bit surprised by how clear cut the verdict appears to be, but it’s very much one I welcome.<\/p>\n

It’s not all good news, though.\u00a0 The announcement is silent on exactly what form the programme of researcher sanctions will take, and there is still the possibility that sanctions may apply to co-investigators as well as the principal investigator.\u00a0 As I’ve argued before<\/a>, I think this would be a mistake, and would be grossly unfair in far too many cases.\u00a0 I know that there are some non-Nottingham folks reading this blog, so if your institution isn’t one of the ones that responded<\/a> (and remember only 44 of 115 universities did), it might be worth finding out why not, and making your views known on this issue.<\/p>\n

One interesting point that is stressed in the announcement is that individual researcher sanctions – or any form of further ‘demand management’ measures – may never happen.\u00a0 The ESRC have been clear about this all along – the social science research community was put on notice about the unsustainablity of the current volume of applications being submitted, and that a review would take place in autumn 2012.\u00a0 The consultation was about the general form of any further steps should they prove necessary.\u00a0 And interestingly the ESRC are apparently ‘confident’ they they will not.<\/p>\n

We remain confident that by working in partnership with HEIs there will be no need to take further steps. There has been a very positive response from institutions to our call for greater self-regulation, and we expect that this will lead to a reduction in uncompetitive proposals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Contrast that with this, from March, when the consultation was launched:<\/p>\n

We very much hope that we will not need\u00a0additional measures.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Might none of this happen?\u00a0 I’d like to think not, but I don’t share their confidence, and I fear that “very much hope” was nearer the mark.\u00a0 I can well believe that each institution is keen to up its game, and I’m sure discussions are going on about new forms of internal peer review, mentoring, research leadership etc in institutions all across the country.\u00a0 Whether this will lead to a sufficient fall in the number of uncompetitive applications, well, I’m not so sure.<\/p>\n

I think there needs to be an acceptance that there are plenty of perfectly good research ideas that would lead to high quality research outputs in quality journals, perhaps with strong non-academic impact, which nevertheless aren’t ‘ESRC-able’ – because they’re merely ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ rather than ‘outstanding’.\u00a0 And it’s only the really outstanding ideas that are going to be competitive.\u00a0 If all institutions realise this, researcher sanctions may never happen.\u00a0 But if hubris wins out, and everyone concludes that it’s everyone else’s applications that are the problem, then researcher sanctions are inevitable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ESRC today revealed the outcome of the ‘Demand Management’ consultation, with the consultation exercise showing a strong preference for researcher sanctions rather than the other main options, which were institutional sanctions, institutional quotas, or charging for applications.\u00a0 And therefore…. Given this clear message, it is likely that any further steps will reflect these views. … Continue reading “ESRC Demand Management Part 5: And the winner is…. researcher sanctions!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,7,6,13,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-application-advice","category-esrc","category-funding","category-funding-policy","category-university-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t