Philosophical impact and the REF document
Peter Smith
Excellence Framework (in my usual restrained and judicious style) see ...
http://logicmatters.blogspot.com/2009/09/research-excellence-bullshit.html
The issues the consultation document raises for the future of philosophy do
seem pretty serious to me. Happy beginning-of-term!
--
Dr Peter Smith: Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge
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Alan Weir
document, particularly the likely catastrophic impact of the 'impact'
agenda. I've sent off a response to the REF, adding in that I was on the
last subpanel in the remote off chance that will have some effect.
I ignored most of the questions (apart from querying the apparent
assumption that philosophy has special ties at research level with
theology) to concentrate on a long diatribe (appended below) in response
to the impact question.
If, as I hope, there is a consensus against this then we must mount a
concerted campaign. The BPA has much work to do, and a unified, much
snappier and less florid, response than mine is needed.
I've no idea whether this juggernaut can be stopped or at least deflected
from philosophy but we have a duty to our discipline to fight it. I'm a
bit alarmed by the fact that here in Glasgow many humanities subjects
welcome it (understandably because they stand to gain in the short term).
I think our best hope as a subject may be to seek alliances with other
traditional disciplines to try to secure flexibility on the contribution
of impact, down to 0%, for sub panels (though we won't have a subpanel of
our own so that might not be enough).
Best
Alan Weir
Response to REF consultation question 3:
In my view, the proposed use of �impact� (para 27.a of the document,
paras. 51-76) in assessing research, at any rate in theoretical
disciplines such as my own� philosophy� is fundamentally misconceived
and is likely to have a seriously harmful effect on the subject.
It is not that there is anything wrong if pure research has a beneficial
impact, which in time frames longer, often far, than ten to fifteen years
(para 62) it manifestly has. It is certainly a good thing if philosophers
can disseminate the fruits of their work widely and I accept completely
that we have to explain to the taxpayer why their (and our) money should
be used to support what may seem like arcane hobbies, perhaps to some no
more deserving support than a desire to spend one�s time dumper-truck
racing or playing chess. In the case of support for philosophy teaching,
there are, I believe, very clear benefits to be had from having as many
leaders, in industry, the civil service, politics and beyond, versed in
the analytical, critical and reasoning skills which immersion to some
degree in philosophy brings. With respect to research in theoretical areas
like non-applied philosophy, pure mathematics, theoretical physics and so
on, there are, it seems to me two broad approaches one could adopt.
The first is advocated by certain extreme �libertarian�, minimal state,
ideologues who hold that no public money should be used to fund research.
All funding should be by private individuals or companies based on their
perceived immediate needs (or private interests and whims). A slightly
less extreme version of this view acknowledges that some research may
provide �public goods� which rain on individuals and companies rather
indiscriminately, with use by one not limiting nor excluding, without
imposing exorbitant costs, that by others; hence funding through taxation
may be appropriate. Still, the underlying idea is the same if one argues
that research should not be publicly supported unless it is likely to
increase the value of some good or service which private individuals or
businesses will pay for out of their own money. Virtually everyone, I
think, agrees that on any such model a huge chunk of today�s research
work, in all areas, science, medicine, the humanities, would cease,
leaving only research directed to immediate and very specific objectives.
Notwithstanding all the emphasis on interpreting �impact� in a wide
fashion, (e.g. footnote 3 p. 7, para 53 b) and not in a narrowly economic
way, I believe the current proposals represent a half-baked and incoherent
adoption of the above radical free market methodology. To be sure because
impact is to account not for 100% but 25% (para 84) of assessment there
will be mitigation of the catastrophic effects of full-scale
libertarianism: but why damage our research base at all? Moreover in some
respects matters will be even worse because of the incoherence of the
proposals. What is incoherent and half-baked is the distinction (para 53
b) between public funding from within and that from without the university
sector. If another university department pays for me to come and give them
research talks or seminars, or for me to visit and discuss my research
with them, that is accounted as something of zero impact. But if, for a
largely publicly funded or subsidised institution, a museum say, decides
to pay for an academic to talk to them, that is �impact� and will, on
current proposals, increase, ceteris paribus, her ranking as a researcher
(or rather that of her department).
What conceivable rationale, in terms of reassuring the hard-pressed
taxpayer that her money is being well spent, is there for this? Public
money which takes a complex circuit from one public sector institution to
another, is, again other things being equal, being better spent on behalf
of the taxpayer, we are being told, than that which takes a more direct
route! What nonsense. The inclusion of impact on other publicly funded
activities serves only to obscure the fact that the impact methodology
makes little sense except from an extreme free market perspective;
moreover there is no reason to suppose that this inclusion will alleviate
the disastrous effects of such a model.
There is a different model for assessing research which has been present
for most of the past millennium in Europe, albeit personal biases have
often led to departures from the ideal. Universities have been given money
from the Church, from rich individuals and in recent times predominantly
from the state in order to pursue research and they have undertaken to
distribute it to those who are best at conducting such research. This is
the model which informed my work on the previous philosophy panel. Under
the dual support system, the state on behalf of the taxpayer not only sets
aside money for research councils to distribute for particular immediate
purposes but also sets aside money for pure theoretical research which is
carried out by its practitioners for no extrinsic purpose but rather in
order to answer the intellectual curiosity which has driven many humans
for as far back as we know of. Support and direction of research, on this
model, is driven by assessment of the merits of the research units of
submission and not on any other consideration (though one may look at more
than research outputs, of course, in determining how well an institution
furthers the intrinsic research goals of a discipline). That is how I
approached matters in my work on the 2008 panel.
The taxpayer can see how funding researchers to investigate solutions to
some immediate problem, a virus say, can be justified. But how can the
funding of pure research be justified? Well, since the research is carried
out for its own sake, those involved will think that centuries-long
traditions of transmitting a body of work of enormous intellectual,
cultural and artistic merit from one generation to the next is of great
value in its own right. But to the sceptical taxpayer we have a very
potent additional point to make. What if Albert Einstein, Max Planck,
Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schr�dinger, in trying to determine how the
mysterious sub-nuclear world of quantum physics worked, had been
constrained and directed by whether their research satisfied short-term
impact criteria? What, to move closer to my own area, if Gottlob Frege,
Bertrand Russell, and Kurt G�del and others who devoted their lives to
investigating the nature of mathematical truth, logical consequence and
the light formal artificial languages can shed on them (and with no
thought to the possibility of automated reasoning machines of the type the
philosopher Leibniz had sketched) had been required to demonstrate the
impact their researches would have outside academe? Then no quantum
physics and modern micro-electronics, no artificial languages, recursion
theory and computer science; we would have likely remained at the level of
Victorian science and technology and all the practical, medical and
intellectual advances which microelectronics and computing have given us
would not have emerged. Even taxpayers with no desire at all to be
Socrates dissatisfied can see the enormous impact (though not on the
ludicrously short scale of ten to 15 years (para 62)) these
investigations, driven by pure intellectual curiosity, have made by
comparing today�s technology with late Victorian.
It is essential to grasp that the unintended consequences which emerge
from pure disinterested research have arisen because they were precisely
that: the research was not being directed at all to go towards immediate
practical goals. There are strong analogies in other areas. There is good
reason to think that those who can form loving altruistic relations with
companions tend to have happier lives than self-obsessed narcissists. An
unhappy narcissist who realised this and tried to form relationships but
always guided by thoughts of whether this person or relationship would
likely increase his or her happiness, just has not got it and is likely to
remain unhappy. This individual would be rather like an arachnophobe who
needs to cross a bridge covered with spiders and tries to think of other
things to distract her attention from spiders. If her mind cannot get away
from �think of something other than spiders�, she will not succeed. A
moderately intelligent child can grasp all this, can grasp that some
activities with beneficial side effects won�t produce those side effects
if they cease to be that and become part of the aims of the activity.
The analogy, I believe, is close. If the taxpayer wishes great economic
benefits to emerge from pure blue skies research, and most of us do, it is
imperative that the blue skies are not obscured or obliterated by non-
specialists determining, directly or via the criteria they lay down, what
will be researched and who will get funds. I imagine these sorts of
consideration are well appreciated by the civil servants involved in this
exercise, many of whom will have studied philosophy. And I do not believe
the politicians are so dim as not to see this too. I suspect that the
short-term electoral gain to be had from pushing a superficial �value for
the taxpayer� line has weighed too heavily with them. But it is the duty
of the civil servants to advise them in such a way as to highlight what is
in the public interest, without consideration of narrow electoral gain.
Since we have a dual support system, our political masters can decide how
much to give to the pure research side. They should then let the experts
in each area decide which groups best deserve funding on the basis of
academic criteria alone. No politician, civil servant, focus group, body
of market research in consumer trends, statistical data base of museum
attendance or whatever, should have any role at all to play in deciding
which research individuals, groups or institutions are performing best;
none of these groups or methods is at all suited for assessing research
merit.
The impact criteria represent a gross departure from the above traditional
methodology; with every percentage point beyond zero assigned it, the
grosser the departure. The intention at the moment is for great
uniformity in assessment across all areas (para 84) even though you will
allow a considerable deal of flexibility in the matter of the use of
citation statistics (para 44 b, 45 a). I firmly believe that in the long
term the impact methodology will have a very harmful effect in all areas.
However in some areas the researchers will be able to play up to your
impact agenda, perhaps at some cost to their integrity. But in philosophy
and I am sure a number of other disciplines, this will not be possible.
Hence at the very least I think you should give panels (as in the last
exercise) the power the decide how much weight, if any, to give to impact
(there will be little point in assigning a low, but non-zero, weight,
given the great expenditure of effort which will be needed to measure
impact). I believe a representative panel of philosophers would choose to
eschew impact, if given the power to act for philosophy alone (though of
course you propose to merge philosophy into a subpanel with theology even
though at the research level there are many other disciplines with which
philosophy interacts to a far greater extent than theology).
Philosophy in its two and a half thousand year history has had enormous
impact, in combination with other areas, in moral, cultural, intellectual,
social and economic spheres. But it is absurd to suppose philosophical
research can be assessed in terms of its impact in the timescales- ten to
fifteen years� proposed in paragraph 62. I know of no evidence to suggest
that the research quality of philosophical departments is positively
correlated with the type of short-term impact you have in mind, such as it
exists in philosophy. It may well be strongly negatively correlated. Such
impact is certainly not a constituent part of research quality.
It is not widely enough realised what a strong reputation philosophy in
the UK has abroad. The introduction of the impact methodology by any of
the funding councils in the UK will, I believe, have a devastating effect
in the long run on research performance in philosophy and the reputation
of the institutions in the nation or territory they represent. I strongly
urge you to give disciplines such as philosophy the power to decide
whether or not impact makes sense as a measure of research quality in
their subject.
Alexander Bird
REF, and indeed in AHRC grants, is badly misconceived. I think that
the merged panel with Theology and Religious Studies is also very
worrying. Indeed it might be more worrying. In thinking about this
and preparing a response it might be worth bearing the following in
mind.
The impact component of the REF is entirely politically motivated. A
first draft of the Hefce REF consultation (already with a hefty impact
element) was sent to BIS, who sent it back demanding a greater
emphasis on impact. We should certainly argue very strongly about the
impact component. However, I would be surprised if it changed by
much. Perhaps they can be beaten down to 20%. Of course, the louder
we shout the greater the chance of change.
Hefce seems keen to have the same ratios for
outputs:impact:environment across all panels (p.25, para 84). But
they seem open to some movement on that. Of course a combined panel
with T&RS means it won't be up to philosophers alone, even if panels
can decide.
On the slightly less negative side, philosophy departments won't be
compared with engineering departments or departments of social
medicine. Even if the proportion for impact is set from above, it
will be up to the panels to set their own benchmarks and then to
assess the impact parts of the submission. The panel will have a lot
of power in this respect, and it could choose to decide that in our
field the benchmarks should be set fairly low, and furthermore that
there is little scope for great differences between departments. If
the standard deviation between departments' scores on impact was very
low compared to the standard deviations for outputs and environment,
then the impact of impact would be low (so long as our overall
profiles were not generally lower than in other subjects).
What would stop a panel from washing out the impact component as
suggested in the previous paragraph? Two things: (i) the proposal
that there should be 'users' on the panels, i.e. non-academics whose
principal role would be to assess impact (p.21, para 71); (ii) the
merging of the philosophy sub-panel with T&RS. As far as impact is
concerned (i) is perhaps more worrying than (ii)---but maybe there are
impact enthusiasts in T&RS who would want greater differentiation
according to impact (of course, God might then be asked to be a 'user'
who could assess impact). So we need to campaign against a
significant 'user' presence on panels.
I think that the merged panel with T&RS is worrying for other
reasons. (It seems to be a merger designed by someone who got their
idea of the proximity of intellectual activity from the proximity of
sections in bookshops---perhaps we were lucky not to be merged with
new-age studies and holistic therapy). Hefce seems to expects (will
require?) combined submissions. The disadvantages of that are
obvious---most worrying being that this would encourage certain kinds
of merging of academic activity. Hefce thinks it means less work, but
clearly it will mean much, much more. The disadvantages of a combined
profile are equally obvious. The second aim of the REF (p.5, para 14)
is "benchmarking and information: establishing reputational
yardsticks". But that cannot be done if crucial information is lost
by providing combined profiles.
The reason, by the way, for the merged subpanels is that the whole
point of the REF being different from the RAE is that is should be a
leaner, less costly exercise. But once the use of bibliometrics was
rubbished and peer-review reinstated as the main mechanism of
assessment, the easiest route for making the REF cheaper was closed
off. Merging panels will give the impression of a more efficient
structure---something that Hefce can point to in talking to their
bosses in BIS. But of course it will not make the process any more
efficient, precisely the opposite.
Hefce say that they don't want to hear any arguments for more, smaller
panels than those suggested (i.e. a return to the panels we had). But
again, enough stink and shouting might work. They might go for a
compromise. Allow the merged panels to operate informal subpanels
(e.g. one for phil, one for T&RS) and allow separate submissions
(there is a precedent: Cambridge submitted Philosophy and HPS
separately in RAE2008).
In preparing response it is optimal to think about how the proposals
do not meet their own objectives (e.g. my remark about loss of
information). Likewise the emphasis on impact in this REF won't even
encourage more or better impactful activity, because in most subjects
(those with real, direct impact) the lead times are so long. (Think
how long it takes to bring a new drug to market.) But of course, we
need to make the broader intellectual arguments also.
In the end, we as academics hold a powerful hand. If we refuse to sit
on the panels, the exercise cannot run. But that means coordination.
And not just across philosophy (it wouldn't do us good to be the only
nay-sayers), but across at least the other humanities subjects, and
beyond. I hope the BPA will be talking to its sister subject
associations.
Alexander Bird
P.S. I don't think that the REF is essentially a pernicious exercise
(see earlier posts and disputes concerning the RAE). But these,
externally driven factors threaten to make it contingently so.
********************
Professor Alexander Bird
Faculty of Arts Research Director
Department of Philosophy
(Head of Department: Prof. Samir Okasha)
University of Bristol
9 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TB, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)117 928 7826
Fax: +44 (0)117 928 7825
Web: http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~plajb/
Skype: alexanderjamesbird
Giuseppina D'Oro
Monash University Conference Centre, Prato, Italy, 19th -22nd July, 2010
The Empire of Idealism
Philosophical Idealism dominated British and British Empire universities
from the 1880s to the 1920s. At this time the influence of Idealism could
also be found in America through figures such as Josiah Royce, and in Italy
in the writings of Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile. As a body of
thought Idealism was socially and politically engaged and inspired reform
across fields such as education, social welfare, politics and international
relations. The conference aims to explore not only the major figures of
Idealism but also the social, educational and political influence of
Idealism from the 1880s to the mid twentieth century in Britain, Australia,
Canada, the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, India, and Italy.
Papers would be particularly welcome on R. G. Collingwood's relationship to
Idealism, or to any of the above issues or people.
Abstracts of no more than 500 words to be sent by 15 December 2009 to the
conference organisers:
Associate Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington. Macquarie University, Sydney.
Email: mhug...@humn.mq.edu.au
Dr Ian Tregenza. Macquarie University, Sydney. Email: ian.tr...@mq.edu.au
The conference is supported by the Australian Research Council.
----------------------
Dr Giuseppina D'Oro
Reader in Philosophy
SPIRE: School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy
Keele University
Staffordshire ST5 5BG
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1782 733350
Fax: +44 (0)1782 733088
email: g.d'o...@keele.ac.uk
webpage: www.keele.ac.uk/depts/spire/staff/d'oro/index.htm