Using our convergence for the Ref report

[Sam Halvorsen]

Hi all

As many of you will be aware, back in 2012 we organised a convergence at UCL, which is well documented on our website. UCL geography, the department that hosted it, has asked if they can include in their ref report as a student led initiative. The ref, or research excellence framework, is a way of quantifying university's outputs in order to bid for grants, place them in league tables, etc. it is widely considers a key practice in the neoliberalisation of the university. For this reason, a natural response would be to say no thank you, we don't want our labour subsumed by certain money making institutions. That being said, however, I can also see an argument precisely for wanting to include this in the ref in order to valorise what we did under the university's framework, making it more likely to get funding for this kind of project in the future. Lets not forget we held it inside the university for a reason.

Anyway, thoughts would be really welcome so that I am able to response back ASAP.

Thanks

Sam

[Simon Thorpe]

Ooh that's a toughy.

Our non-engagement certainly isn't going to make the ref system go away.

I guess if we're being optimistic about ORC's future we should go for the latter option, to keep open for door for further work in and against the university?

Simon

Sam


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[David Dewhurst]

I appreciate the dilemma. For 10 years i sat on the Council (Governing Body) of a less successful player, Brunel Uni. Uni rankings are a  useful way of effectively cutting funding to the losers while claiming you are raising quality & targeting resources better. The rankings are establishment (Russell Group) warped and even then unreliable in co-assessment trials, the system is gamed and judgements are imperfectly correlated with reality. But there is some correlation and I see the ranking exercises as a game that universities can not afford not to play. (Sorry, they must do this to survive in the current system - UCL's success is how they were able to fund you in the first place.) Absenting yourself would probably legitimate the funding only of less radical research. Your stuff might insert a useful virus to transform the system.

I'd say you have no moral alternative but to steel yourself and go for it.

Dave

On 1 October 2013 11:18, Sam Halvorsen <samhal...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Sam

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